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Work #170 · Early (the breakthrough work that founds phenomenology)

Logical Investigations

Edmund Husserl
1900 (vol. 1, Prolegomena to Pure Logic); 1901 (vol. 2, six investigations); revised editions 1913, 1921 · German
Two-volume systematic treatise · German phenomenology

The Prolegomena destroys psychologism in logic; the six Investigations begin to lay out the descriptive phenomenology of meaning, perception, and intentional consciousness

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.

Attribute Logical Investigations (Early (the breakthrough work that founds phenomenology))
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Substantival
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Infinite
Space · Ontological Status Substantival
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Local
Matter · Extent Infinite
Matter · Ontological Status Substantival
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Local
Observer · Time Instance Single
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Partial
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Total
Observer · Physicality Embodied
Observer · Agency Both
Observer · Number Plural
Observer · Metaphysical Agency None
Observer · Moral Authority Reason
Observer · Theological Method
Energy · Extent Infinite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Substantival
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Conserved
Information · Granularity Continuous

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

Logical Investigations

Inner time-consciousness becomes a central theme in Husserl's later lectures (1905); the LI opens but does not yet thematise temporal phenomenology.

Space

Logical Investigations

Phenomenology of perceived space begins here, to be developed in Ideas I and Thing and Space (1907).

Matter

Logical Investigations

The body as the medium of perceptual experience; the LI begins to thematise embodied perception, though embodiment is more fully developed in Ideas II.

Observer

Logical Investigations

The intentional consciousness as the central subject — meaning-conferring, evidence-receiving, self-constituting. Plural, embodied, both active and passive.

Energy

Logical Investigations

Not thematised; the LI is conceptual-philosophical, not physical.

Information

Logical Investigations

Meaning as the primary "information" of consciousness — ideal, available to many thinkers, preserved through expression and memory.

Internal Tensions

Where each work's argument pulls against itself.

Logical Investigations

The LI sits between Husserl's earlier descriptive-psychologistic period (Philosophy of Arithmetic, 1891) and his later transcendental phase (Ideas I, 1913; Cartesian Meditations, 1931). Whether the transcendental turn was already implicit in the LI or constituted a real break has been debated since Heidegger. The early Husserlian "realist phenomenologists" (Reinach, Conrad-Martius, Stein) thought the transcendental turn was a mistake; Husserl himself thought the LI insufficiently radical. The relation between Husserl and Frege on psychologism — both attacked it, but on different grounds — remains a continuing scholarly question.