The beginnings of phenomenology in Yugoslavia

Zagorka Mićić on Husserl's method

Dragan Prole

Univerzitet u Novom Sadu

pp. 203-216

in: Witold Płotka, Patrick Eldridge (eds), Early phenomenology in Central and Eastern Europe, Berlin, Springer, 2020

Abstract

This contribution discusses Introduction into Edmund Husserl's Phenomenology, published in Belgrade 1937, by his student Zagorka Mićić, which was one of the first introductory works on Husserl in Europe. What she found fruitful in Husserl's thought was the idea that phenomenology does not uncover the existing world in a new way but uses a novel method to uncover a different, new world. The basic thesis of her interpretation is that methodology is the red thread that connects various phenomenologists whose philosophies, apart from method, have very little in common. Mićić saw phenomenology's core strength as consisting in the plurality of possibilities for the development and use of its method. She saw phenomenology's prime advantage in the way it grants the possibility of independent development, through a non-dogmatic, free approach to phenomena. Unlike the speculative, purely conceptual approach to philosophical problems, phenomenology was keen, above all, to dive deep into the actual facts. In addition to her exhaustive representation of the methodological specificity of transcendental phenomenology, and her strictly philosophical portrayal of phenomenological thinking, Zagorka Mićić displayed the philosophical and historical importance of the phenomenological understanding of humanity, and how its new ideal promotes tolerance. Owing to her personal encounters and conversations with the founder of phenomenology, Mićić was especially able to demonstrate the political importance of Husserl's concept of "absolute evil", which appears where egoism transforms into ruthlessness towards others.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund

Mićić Zagorka