The crisis of the European sciences and transcendental phenomenology by Edmond Husserl

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Edmond Husserl was giving a conference in Vienna in 1935 about what he called the crisis of the sciences. His first question was if there is a real crisis of the sciences, and how he may speak of a crisis of the sciences while they are quite successful. In this context we must remember that the sciences were in a phase of development from the beginning of the 19th century until the 30's. Psychology for example was developing, and its results were thriving and unmistakable. Hence Edmond Husserl does not discuss the scientist methods. He concedes that the methods are very successful and there is nothing amiss with them. The methods of accumulating knowledge were unimpeachable regarding the perfect methods of the positives sciences and their increasing results. Why then does he talk about a crisis of sciences? Let's study in his explanation in detail.

Extraits

[...] In fact sciences are studying human being as object and not as it should be: human being. That's why sciences are not able to say anything about "reason and unreason" and about man as self-determining being or as mind being. For instance biology will not be treated as meaningful for human being, human bodies will still be examined and analyzed as an object parting from its one sense or subject. But what about the humanistic sciences? These one are defined as science studying human, they should be the typical answer back to husserl's critics. [...]

[...] It would be now the purpose of each science, try to get back to its own proper sense and ideal: lead the mankind to the absolute enlightenment. Furthermore I would like to notice that the time in he is discoursing was a time of total skepticism and pessimism. Noting worth that it was the time of the building up Nazism and its victory. People still shocked by the WWI had to be prepared for the coming one; it was a dreadful time which is described by Husserl as the time of the collapse in the belief in "reason". [...]

[...] The crisis of the European sciences and transcendental phenomenology by Edmond Husserl Edmond Husserl is giving a conference in Vienna in 1935 about what he called the crisis of the sciences. The first question of the author is if there is a real crisis of the sciences? Actually, how can he talk about a crisis of the sciences while these latter are quite successful. In this time, since the beginning of the 19th century until the 30's, we have to remind that sciences are growing up, like psychology for instance, and the results of sciences are thriving and unmistakable. [...]

[...] He bewails that there is no links anymore between the sciences and their goals which are philosophic in the beginning. Let's see what he thinks . In following the thought of the author we can find out that the science was not always so meaningless, it used to be a time where science was part of an all philosophical movement impregnated by the Platonist reason. The mankind and all fields or domains referring to mankind must reach the reason as an absolute and eternal truth. [...]

[...] All sciences were just a branch in one scheme so called by the philosopher the One Philosophy. We have to understand that this peculiar "One Philosophy" is just a way of expressing general plan which advocates for the winning of reason. In a way, Husserl accuses the current sciences of being victims of the ideological positivism: "Positivism, in a manner of speaking, decapitates philosophy". Sciences have been moved from where they came from, a Platonist philosophy in which only the reason, and so the absolute truth is salvation. [...]