Ideen I Confronting Its Critics

The publication of Ideen I had a cold reception and was marked by a general misunderstanding and an increasing distancing from it by twentieth century phenomenologists. Some of its most conspicuous critiques are those purported by Heidegger, Ricoeur, and Boehm, which are here examined against the background of the 1913 text and of Husserl’s unpublished manuscripts. The author attempts to show that in spite of its undeniably misleading terminology, Ideen I’s basic intuitions are currently valid, so that more attention should be paid to them in contemporary philosophical debates, both theoretical and practical.