Gerda Walther (1897-1977)

a sketch of a life

Rodney K. B. Parker

Dominican University College
Dominican University College

pp. 3-9

in: Antonio Calcagno (ed), Gerda Walther's phenomenology of sociality, psychology, and religion, Berlin, Springer, 2018

Abstract

Gerda Walther, a student of Alexander Pfänder and Edmund Husserl, penned numerous interesting contributions to phenomenology and phenomenological psychology during the 1920s, including her dissertation on social ontology and her studies on religious and mystical experience. This chapter gives a brief overview of Walther’s life and her relationship to both Marxism and the phenomenological movement, drawing attention to some of the interesting unpublished materials contained in her Nachlass. While Walther’s legacy has been widely neglected in the years since her death, there is renewed interest in her work on communities and we-experience. However, this only represents a small subset of her writings. Other aspects of her thought are relevant to contemporary philosophical debates in the phenomenology of religion and abnormal psychology.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund

Walther Gerda