Germany and America, 1900–1968 6. e return of traditional philosophy: Edmund Husserl

In the mid-1930s, a young woman from the privileged northern suburbs of Chicago came to Freiburg, Germany. Her purpose was to study with Germany’s most famous living philosopher, Edmund Husserl. Husserl was then in his late seventies, and was known to her and the world as the founder of one of the twentieth century’s most in uential philosophical schools, “phenomenology”. Since he had retired from his professorship at Freiburg, and as a world-famous philosopher had many demands on his time, she must have believed her main hurdle was getting his approval for her programme.