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This volume contains Gurwitsch's magnum opus, which emphasizes how items in the thematic field are relevant to the theme. It is introduced by his student Richard Zaner. This volume also includes the posthumous text, Marginal Consciousness.

The articles collected in the present volume were written during a period of more than 30 years, the?rst having been published in 1929, the last in 1961. They are arranged here in a systematic, not a chronological, order, starting from a few articles mainly concerned with psychological m- ters and then passing on to phenomenology in the proper sense. Within the latter group, the sequence is from articles dealing with more g- eral questions of principle to those in which rather special questions are discussed. The articles are reprinted or translated unchanged except for “phenomenology of Thematics and of the Pure Ego,” in which a certain number of pages have been omitted because the author has long since come to consider them erroneous. Almost all of the articles are in the service of Husserlian phenomen- ogy, which they are intended to advance and to develop further rather than merely expound. When the author made his?rst acquaintance with Husserl's philosophy about 40 years ago, he was overwhelmed by the spirit of uncompromising integrity and radical philosophical respon- bility, by the total devotedness which made the man disappear behind his work. Soon the young beginner came to realize the fruitfulness both of what Husserl had actually accomplished and of what he had initiated, the promise of further fruitful work.

1 The present volume is rich in essential phenomenological descriptions 2 and insightful historico-critical analyses, some of which cannot be fully appreciated, however, except by close examination on the part of the reader. Accordingly, such a task ought to be left to the consideration and judgment of the latter, save where such discussions are directly relevant to the topics I will be dwelling upon. I prefer, then, to approach the matters and questions contained here otherwise, namely, archeologically. In this I 3 follow Jose ´ Huertas-Jourda, the editor of the corresponding French vol- 4 ume, in his felicitous terminological choice, although I adopt it here for my purposes in an etymological sense, i. e., as signifying a return to prin- 5 ciples or origins. This, after all, is consistent not only with the spirit and practice of phenomenology, as acknowledged by Aron Gurwitsch often enough, but as well with what he has actually said, to wit: it is a qu- tion of 1 Cf., e. g., infra,in An Outline of Constitutive Phenomenology, Chapter 4, pp. 185 ff. (Henceforth I shall refer to this book as Outline.) This essay will be devoted to the study of selected parts of the contents of this volume, although, when necessary, use will be made here of other works by various authors, including Gurwitsch. 2 Cf., e. g., ibid., Chapter 3, pp. 107 ff.

Das Bewuatseinsfeld (Phhanomenologisch-Psychologische Forschungen.).