Heidegger privately dismissed Husserl even while benefiting from his patronage

Evidence

In private, Heidegger was becoming ever more dismissive about Husserlian philosophy. Even while Husserl was writing glowing letters of recommendation to help him get a job, Heidegger was telling other people that he considered his mentor ‘ludicrous’. To Karl Jaspers, whom he had now befriended, Heidegger wrote in 1923, ‘He lives with the mission of being the founder of phenomenology. No one knows what that is.’ … When Husserl and Heidegger tried to collaborate on an article on phenomenology for the Encyclopaedia Britannica early that year, they had to give up. For one thing, each felt that the other had problems expressing himself clearly. They were not wrong there. A more serious problem was that they now disagreed on almost every point in the definition of phenomenology. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 224

Categorization

• XREF: Shows rival definitions of phenomenology splitting in real time — useful orientation contrast for a reader mapping the movement. — connects to: Husserl informally adopted Heidegger as a surrogate son and heir — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 186; Heidegger enforced Nazi laws that stripped his mentor Husserl’s family of their posts — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 272

Broader Connections

• Heidegger enforced Nazi laws that stripped his mentor Husserl’s family of their posts #complicates (0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 272