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At the beginning of the twentieth century, why did Husserl think a new philosophical method was needed? Why phenomenology? For Husserl, what primarily motivated the development of a new philosophical perspective were the failures, as he saw it, of the then dominant schools of philosophy. One such school singled out by Husserl was naturalistic philosophy, or roughly trying to answer philosophical problems by using the scientific method. So while phenomenology was to be a rigorous science, it was explicitly cast as an alternative to and a progressive step beyond scientific naturalism.¹ Why phenomenology? In part, to overcome the inadequacies of naturalism, according to Husserl (1965).

DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-51605-3_3

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