ABSTRACT
In spite of considerable work in the field of phenomenology since his time (1859-1938), Husserl’s original contribution remains crucial. His painstaking construction of the method of a phenomenological reduction reflects the activity of an excavation. In uncovering unasked questions at the foundation of experience and identity, his activity also outlines a means for us to go on asking. To clarify this process within Husserl’s work it is necessary to use his own method. We must excavate those assumptions he too readily took for granted, in order to keep clear the path toward which we are led by his deeper motive. I shall limit myself largely to a consideration of his major works to suggest important themes central to his most basic meaning and motive which I think Husserl failed to resolve and from which subsequent phenomenological writings have often turned away. This is strange and interesting because of the force with which these themes arise out of Husserl’s writings and out of the very basis of what we might have expected phenomenology to become, especially in its application to sociology.
