A Phenomenological Argument for Realism

Denis Seron

Metaphysical concerns occupy a central place in Ludwig Landgrebe’s thought.1To a large extent, it is a contribution to metaphysics that he read and appropriatedHusserl’s work. Already in 1933’s “The method of Edmund Husserl’sphenomenology,” one of his very first publications, he claims that the mostcentral aim of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology is to pave the route for a“universal philosophical science.” Later, Landgrebe conceived the project of ametaphysics of his own, based on Husserl’s method of phenomenologicalreduction. This project as well as his metaphysical reading of Husserl seemparadoxical, because the term “phenomenological reduction” usually denotessome sort of emancipation from metaphysics. The present paper aims to outlinesome aspects of Landgrebe’s phenomenological metaphysics and thereby toexplain why, in his view, this paradox is only apparent.