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At the end of hisFormale und transzendentale Logik, Edmund Husserl delineated the boundaries of what he called the "Logos of the aesthetic world" (the passive synthesis of the unity of nature). He then went on to say that founded on that "world" is a multi-leveled structure which eventually acquires the form of "exact natural science (Galilean physics), a science aware of a new style, a non-'descriptive' science, i.e., not a science which typifies and apprehends in concepts "aesthetic' formations, givenness in pure intuition, but instead an idealizing and logicizing science. As is known, its first historical form and, later on, its guide, was Platonic geometry which did not speak of right-angles, circles, etc. in the "aesthetic' sense, nor of their apriori which appears in actual and possible appearance; it spoke instead of the (regulative) idea of such a space of appearance, the "ideal space' with "ideal right-angles', etc. All of "exact' physics dealt with such "idealities'; thus underlying actually experienced nature, the nature of actual living, was a nature as idea, as a regulative ideal norm, as its Logos in the highest sense."¹In theKrisis der europäischen Wissenschaften, Husserl examines in detail that first historical form of science, enlarging his philosophical method to uncover the constitutive sense of nature investigated by modern science.² Indeed, not only Husserl's own discussion, but also discussion and development of his work has chiefly centered on its relevance for modern science, thus having the unfortunate effect of confining the results of Husserl's insights to a certain period in history.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-011-7523-4_13

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