Edmund Husserl's importance for the philosophy of our century is immense, but his influence has followed a curious path. Rather than continuous it has been recurrent, ambulatory and somehow irrepressible: no sooner does it wane in one locality than it springs up in another. After playing a major role in Germany during his lifetime, Husserl had been filed away in the history-books of that country when he was discovered by the French during and after World War II. And just as the phenomenological phase of French philosophy was ending in the 1960's, Husserl became important in North America....