Review of Richard Kennington's On Modern Origins 1

For reasons that might not be immediately obvious, it is fitting that Richard Kennington’s On Modern Origins be reviewed in a journal that concentrates on the achievements of Edmund Husserl and his school. For Husserl’s recognition that the meaning of inherited concepts undergoes sedimentation in the flow of temporality in general, and in the flow of historical temporality in particular, gave fresh impetus to studies in the history of philosophy, an area that lay somewhat outside Husserl’s primary interests. ² Such studies, which attempt to uncover the hidden sources of conceptions that we tend to accept as a matter of course, are indispensable for our attainment of genuine self-consciousness as historical beings, as beings who are always heirs to tradition.