Family Card - Person Sheet
NameGerhart Adolf Husserl 
BurialGünterstal
Birth22 Dec 1893
Death9 Sep 1973
FatherEdmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (1859-1938)
MotherMalvine Charlotte Steinschneider (1860-1950)
Notes for Gerhart Adolf Husserl
{geni:occupation} Philosopher
{geni:about_me} Gerhart Husserl
by H. Pallard and R. Hudson
Gerhart Husserl
(1893--1973)
Gerhart Husserl, the son of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), who was the founder of the phenomenological movement, emigrated to the United States after he was fired in 1933 from his position as a professor of law in Germany for being a"non-Aryan." He taught at the National University Law School and was a founding member of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. He published several articles in English, but his most important work is in German. In the 1950s,Husserl returned to Germany, continued his teaching and research in comparative and Anglo-American law, and also became very active in the reform of legal education.
His interest in the basic structure of law led to questions about legal personality, property, the relationship of substantive to procedural law, and especially the temporal structure of law. While he raised issues mainly in the area of civil law, he also drew upon other areas of the law, such as international and criminal law and the foundations of law. Husserl believed that comparative law---comparisons of Anglo-American to continental law or of modern law to the law of earlier periods in Europe---was particularly helpful for understanding basic legal structures.
Husserl was not really a member of any particular philosophical school; yet he took his own work to be phenomenological and he often referred to his father's writings. Like other legal theorists practising phenomenology, he believed we should grasp the a priori structures underlying legal phenomena by describing the givens of legal situations without imposing preconceived notions on them. His phenomenology is quite consonant with the movement's motto of returning to the things themselves.
Husserl thought that legal science was a special science based on a particular region of a priori probabilities. It then becomes the task of philosophy of law to work out a system of fundamental concepts which would found this science. He himself worked on broad legal concepts such as the legal object, legal subject versus legal persons, time and law, world and law, justice, property, and the promise.
Husserl's discussion of justice reflects the phenomenologist's concern to base analysis on the a priori structure of the object. He believed that justice is not an ontological entity possessing some independent existence; rather it is an attribute, an attitude of the mind, an expression of equality between two things. Justice is the equality which is based on the eidos, or essence, of the objects compared and not on their externality, homogeneity or similarity---and the essence of equality is justice.
It then becomes the task of the community of law to allow the transcendental ideal of justice to work itself out in the real world. Law is supposed to safeguard the essential equality of all persons and not to remedy social inequalities, redistribute wealth or reform the social order. Because the ideal of justice is transcendentally grounded, Husserl would argue that his distinction between formal or essential equality and material or existential equalityis impervious to Karl Marx's criticism that the former cannot exist without the latter and that such distinctions ultimately serve the interests of the dominant class.
According to Husserl, the gradual process of rationalisation of social life results in the rise and development of the legal order. He holds that when law is viewed as a social institution, it becomes readily apparent that there is a historical rationality working itself out in human existence. This conception of the historical development of law and community and of their relationship is similar to ideas developed by Friedrich von Savigny (1779--1861) andthe historical school of jurisprudence and to the distinction between community and society put forward by Ferdinand Tönnies (1855--1936).
The community plays an important role in the realization of justice because the just person is one who acts as a representative of the community and whose decision is valid throughout the community. Husserl arrives at this universal validity by transposing Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative from the individual into the social sphere, giving it the same transcendental validity.
The notions of community, justice and law are intertwined in Husserl's thought; law appears within the community and the task of the legal community is to ensure the reality and effectiveness of justice in the social world. Just action defines a community of law as one governed by the principles of justice. These find their expression in the constitution of the state. As the material realisation of the transcendental idea of justice, the constitution thusposes legal restraints on the activity of the state; the dictator then becomes one who simply refuses to admit that legal restraints exist. However it may be argued that the institution of law knows no legal restraints and that the transcendental restraints that Husserl would impose on the law cannot be legal restraints.
References
Husserl, Gerhart. Person, Sache, Verhalten: Zwei phänomenologische Studien (Person, Thing, Limit: Two Phenomenological Studies). Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1969.
________. Recht und Welt: Rechtsphilosophische Abhandlungen (Law and World: Studies in Philosophy of Law). Juristische Abhandlungen, Band 1. Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1964.
________. Recht und Zeit: Fünf rechtsphilosophische Essays (Law and Time: Five Essays of Philosophy of Law). Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1955.
________. Der Rechtsgegenstand: Rechtslogische Studien zu einen Theorie des Eigentums (Polarity in Law: Studies in Legal Logic Toward a Theory of Property). Berlin: Springer, 1933.
Würtenberger, Thomas, ed. Phänomenologie, Rechtsphilosophie, Jurisprudenz. Festschrift für Gerhart Husserl zum 75. Geburtstag (Phenomenology, Philosophy of Law, Jurisprudence: Essays in Honor of Gerhart Husserl on his 75th Birthday). Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1969.
{geni:about_me} Gerhart Husserl
by H. Pallard and R. Hudson
Gerhart Husserl
(1893--1973)
Gerhart Husserl, the son of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), who was the founder of the phenomenological movement, emigrated to the United States after he was fired in 1933 from his position as a professor of law in Germany for being a"non-Aryan." He taught at the National University Law School and was a founding member of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. He published several articles in English, but his most important work is in German. In the 1950s,Husserl returned to Germany, continued his teaching and research in comparative and Anglo-American law, and also became very active in the reform of legal education.
His interest in the basic structure of law led to questions about legal personality, property, the relationship of substantive to procedural law, and especially the temporal structure of law. While he raised issues mainly in the area of civil law, he also drew upon other areas of the law, such as international and criminal law and the foundations of law. Husserl believed that comparative law---comparisons of Anglo-American to continental law or of modern law to the law of earlier periods in Europe---was particularly helpful for understanding basic legal structures.
Husserl was not really a member of any particular philosophical school; yet he took his own work to be phenomenological and he often referred to his father's writings. Like other legal theorists practising phenomenology, he believed we should grasp the a priori structures underlying legal phenomena by describing the givens of legal situations without imposing preconceived notions on them. His phenomenology is quite consonant with the movement's motto of returning to the things themselves.
Husserl thought that legal science was a special science based on a particular region of a priori probabilities. It then becomes the task of philosophy of law to work out a system of fundamental concepts which would found this science. He himself worked on broad legal concepts such as the legal object, legal subject versus legal persons, time and law, world and law, justice, property, and the promise.
Husserl's discussion of justice reflects the phenomenologist's concern to base analysis on the a priori structure of the object. He believed that justice is not an ontological entity possessing some independent existence; rather it is an attribute, an attitude of the mind, an expression of equality between two things. Justice is the equality which is based on the eidos, or essence, of the objects compared and not on their externality, homogeneity or similarity---and the essence of equality is justice.
It then becomes the task of the community of law to allow the transcendental ideal of justice to work itself out in the real world. Law is supposed to safeguard the essential equality of all persons and not to remedy social inequalities, redistribute wealth or reform the social order. Because the ideal of justice is transcendentally grounded, Husserl would argue that his distinction between formal or essential equality and material or existential equalityis impervious to Karl Marx's criticism that the former cannot exist without the latter and that such distinctions ultimately serve the interests of the dominant class.
According to Husserl, the gradual process of rationalisation of social life results in the rise and development of the legal order. He holds that when law is viewed as a social institution, it becomes readily apparent that there is a historical rationality working itself out in human existence. This conception of the historical development of law and community and of their relationship is similar to ideas developed by Friedrich von Savigny (1779--1861) andthe historical school of jurisprudence and to the distinction between community and society put forward by Ferdinand Tönnies (1855--1936).
The community plays an important role in the realization of justice because the just person is one who acts as a representative of the community and whose decision is valid throughout the community. Husserl arrives at this universal validity by transposing Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative from the individual into the social sphere, giving it the same transcendental validity.
The notions of community, justice and law are intertwined in Husserl's thought; law appears within the community and the task of the legal community is to ensure the reality and effectiveness of justice in the social world. Just action defines a community of law as one governed by the principles of justice. These find their expression in the constitution of the state. As the material realisation of the transcendental idea of justice, the constitution thusposes legal restraints on the activity of the state; the dictator then becomes one who simply refuses to admit that legal restraints exist. However it may be argued that the institution of law knows no legal restraints and that the transcendental restraints that Husserl would impose on the law cannot be legal restraints.
References
Husserl, Gerhart. Person, Sache, Verhalten: Zwei phänomenologische Studien (Person, Thing, Limit: Two Phenomenological Studies). Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1969.
________. Recht und Welt: Rechtsphilosophische Abhandlungen (Law and World: Studies in Philosophy of Law). Juristische Abhandlungen, Band 1. Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1964.
________. Recht und Zeit: Fünf rechtsphilosophische Essays (Law and Time: Five Essays of Philosophy of Law). Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1955.
________. Der Rechtsgegenstand: Rechtslogische Studien zu einen Theorie des Eigentums (Polarity in Law: Studies in Legal Logic Toward a Theory of Property). Berlin: Springer, 1933.
Würtenberger, Thomas, ed. Phänomenologie, Rechtsphilosophie, Jurisprudenz. Festschrift für Gerhart Husserl zum 75. Geburtstag (Phenomenology, Philosophy of Law, Jurisprudence: Essays in Honor of Gerhart Husserl on his 75th Birthday). Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1969.