Guiding Texts

Merleau-Ponty

• The Structure of Behavior Introduces a non-reductionist account of behavior as structured and meaningful, preparing the ground for embodied phenomenology and later enactive approaches.
• Phenomenology of Perception The major statement of embodied phenomenology: perception as bodily, pre-reflective, and world-involving; foundational for agency, intentionality, and experience.
• Sense and Non-Sense Essays that clarify implications for psychology, language, and politics; useful for seeing how phenomenological description interacts with scientific and cultural questions.
• Signs Central for expression, language, and meaning; especially useful for teaching and for connecting phenomenology to linguistics and cognitive science.
• The Visible and the Invisible Late, fragmentary but decisive: develops “flesh,” reversibility, and chiasm—an ontology of relationality across body, world, and nature.
• Nature (Collège de France course notes) Key for Merleau-Ponty’s late philosophy of nature and for bridging phenomenology with biology and the sciences.

Husserl Husserliana + translations

Husserliana is the critical edition of Husserl’s works and the primary scholarly reference point. In practice, I use it alongside German reading editions (including my Meiner access/collection context) and standard English translations. For research, the critical edition anchors terminology and textual variants; for teaching and cross-domain work, reliable translations keep the material accessible.

Core Husserliana / German editions

• Logische Untersuchungen (Logical Investigations) Foundational for intentionality, meaning, and the critique of psychologism. Essential for linking phenomenology with philosophy of language and cognition. English: Logical Investigations (standard translations).
• Ideen I (Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book) Introduces the transcendental turn, phenomenological reduction, and the framework of intentional analysis. A central reference for method and “constitution.” English: Ideas I.
• Cartesianische Meditationen (Cartesian Meditations) Compact entry into transcendental phenomenology with a direct line to intersubjectivity, empathy, and the constitution of objectivity. English: Cartesian Meditations.
• Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften (The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology) The definitive statement of the lifeworld (Lebenswelt) problematic and Husserl’s diagnosis of modern scientific rationality. English: The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology.
• Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins (Lectures on the Phenomenology of Inner Time-Consciousness) Key analyses of temporal structure, retention/protention, and the living present—indispensable for selfhood, memory, and continuity of experience. English: On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (common translation title).
• Analysen zur passiven Synthesis / Passive und aktive Synthesis Shows how sense-formation and object-constitution depend on passive processes (association, affectivity, habit) as well as active syntheses—highly relevant for learning and cognitive science links. English: commonly available in volumes such as Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis (depending on edition).

Experience and Judgment

• Erfahrung und Urteil (Experience and Judgment) A bridge text between phenomenology and epistemology: how predicative judgment, categories, and objectivity arise from pre-predicative experience. Especially useful for connecting lifeworld, learning, and scientific concept formation. English: Experience and Judgment.

Practical note for teaching (US context)

For classroom use, I typically assign English translations (accessibility) while keeping the Husserliana/German texts as the control layer for terminology, key passages, and interpretive disputes.

Heidegger

• Being and Time Foundational for existential phenomenology: Being-in-the-world, temporality, and everydayness; essential background for 20th-century continental philosophy.
• The Basic Problems of Phenomenology Clarifies Heidegger’s relation to Husserl and to phenomenological method; useful for positioning Heidegger within the tradition.
• The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics Important for worldhood, finitude, and animality—relevant to questions connecting phenomenology with biology and cognition.
• Pathmarks (Wegmarken) Key essays tracking Heidegger’s development and engagement with metaphysics and modernity.
• Off the Beaten Track (Holzwege) Later essays on art, truth, and thinking; shows the shift from systematic philosophy toward “paths” of inquiry.

Gadamer

• Truth and Method The foundational work of philosophical hermeneutics: understanding as historically effected, dialogical, and linguistically mediated.
• Husserl and Heidegger Helpful for clarifying the transition from transcendental phenomenology to hermeneutic phenomenology and their points of continuity and tension.

Konrad Lorenz

• Das sogenannte Böse (On Aggression) Biological and social analysis of aggression; useful for thinking about normativity, conflict, and behavior beyond simplistic moralization.
• Der Abbau des Menschlichen Critique of modern civilization and technological life from a biological–anthropological standpoint.
• Die Naturwissenschaft vom Menschen Frames a science of the human grounded in biology and ethology; connects behavior, learning, and culture.
• Die Rückseite des Spiegels Epistemological reflections linking perception, cognition, and evolution; strong bridge text for philosophy–science integration.

Series & Journals in Phenomenology

• Husserliana Critical edition of Husserl’s works; primary scholarly anchor and citation standard.
• Phänomenologische Forschungen Long-running venue for phenomenological scholarship.
• Phänomenologie – Texte und Kontexte Thematic series linking phenomenological theory and application.

Boundary / Orienting Literature

Texts that guide problem-framing even when not explicitly “implemented” in a systematic way (e.g., Bateson; focused volumes on plural lifeworlds and interculturality).