Only Husserl’s trained assistants could read his shorthand manuscripts

Evidence

The situation of Husserl’s Nachlass, and of his widow, attracted the attention of a Belgian philosopher and Franciscan monk named Herman Van Breda. He put together a proposal urging Louvain University’s Institut Supérieur de Philosophie to support transcription of key Freiburg papers — work that could only be done by former assistants able to read Husserl’s shorthand. With Edith Stein having become a Carmelite nun and Heidegger having gone his own way, this mainly meant two men who had been working with Husserl in recent years: Eugen Fink, originally from nearby Konstanz but now based in Freiburg, and Ludwig Landgrebe, currently in Prague. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 410

Categorization

• DEFINE: Conveys that Husserl’s Nachlass exists in a specialized shorthand readable only by initiated students — a material constraint defining the archive’s fate.
• XREF: connects to: Husserl’s unpublished manuscripts held his most important work — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 434