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This book presents the remarkable correspondence between Alfred Schutz and Aron Gurwitsch, emigre philosophers influenced by Edmund Husserl, who fled Europe on the eve of World War II and ultimately became seminal figures in the establishment of phenomenology in the United States. Their deep and lasting friendship grew out of their mutual concern with the question of the connections between science and the life-world. Interwoven with philosophical exchange is the two scholars' encounter with the unfamiliar problems of American academic life what Gurwitsch called the "passology" of exile. Apart from its brilliant and moving portrait of two distinguished men, the correspondence holds rich significance for current issues in philosophy and the social sciences."

At The present time, reason is not held in any too great esteem; “rationalism” is deprecated in most intellectual circles. “To believe in reason” is to be behind the times, to give evidence of a mode of thinking that is out of date, out of contact with what today is called “progress.”The “belief in reason” is now replaced by all sorts of psychological and sociological sciences: the psychology of the unconscious, of the subconscious, of behavior, of suppressed desires and conditioned reflexes. The variety of sociologies is no less disconcerting—not should we forget the sociological psychologies and the psychological sociologies. Formerly man was considered to be an animal rationale, a rational being; now he has become simply a vital being, not further qualified. Since man lives in community with his fellows, it was formerly the practice to inquire into the structure and organization which society ought to have in order to correspond to the rational and human nature of its members. But today no such question is raised; it is taken for granted that man, as a social animal, must adjust himself to his environment or suffer the consequence to his well-being and his happiness. It is no longer a question of whether one may or one should adjust oneself to certain social conditions: it is now only a question of what is the most effective means or technique of adjustment.

« C'est dans l'epreuve que je fais d'un corps explorateur voue aux choses et au monde, d'un sensible qui m'investit jusqu'au plus individuel de moi-meme et m'attire aussitot de la qualite a l'espace, de l'espace a la chose et de la chose a l'horizon des choses, c'est-a-dire a un monde deja la, que se noue ma relation avec l'etre. » M. Merleau-Ponty. Date de premiere edition : 1945.