The historical beginnings of the science of subjectivity

pp. 54-79

in: Edmund Husserl, First philosophy, Berlin, Springer, 2019

Abstract

To [the foregoing] we make the following reply. Coming from logic, which was emerging as a doctrine of method for genuine cognition and genuine science, and, in parallel with this, from ethics, which had likewise begun to develop as a doctrine of method for practically rational, "ethical," behavior, one was driven from the start to direct a theoretical interest towards cognizing and acting subjectivity in its rational and non-rational activity. In just this respect the kind of Sophistic attacks against the possibility of cognition had to have a motivating force. The path to be pursued was predelineated through the natural, naive view of the world.