Husserl, Heidegger and the Crisis of Philosophical Responsibility

This volume sheds light upon the omnipresent discussion of crisis' in our times by returning to the thought of the two philosophers upon which much of this talk is consciously (or unconsciously) based, namely, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. By tracing the narrative of the crisis' from Husserl's early treatment of arithmetic and logic through to Heidegger's meditations on the essence of technology, the author not only proposes a unified reading of both Husserl's and Heidegger's work, but points to important elements of the often underplayed continuity between these phenomenologists. At the same time, the concept of crisis' also illustrates the difference between Husserl and Heidegger. Though both define the crisis as one of forgetting', and both view this forgetting' as a matter of philosophical responsibility, essential divergence emerges in their interpretation of this phenomenon. Three questions uncover these points of convergence and divergence. First, does not the forgetfulness' reveal itself as a type of felix culpa, a necessary decay that now reveals itself in a positive light, indeed, as the precondition of history itself