1. Goals
In collaboration with the Husserl-Archief te Leuven (HA), the CEP has taken on the following tasks:
- making the Husserl archive documents accessible to UCL researchers via the Husserl-Archief,
- enhancing the Husserl Nachlass by editing and translating texts,
- participating in the co-management of the Phaenomenologica collection (the 200th volume was published in 2010), founded in the 1950s,
- promoting not only research into Husserl's thought, but also phenomenological studies, in the broadest sense, as well as the phenomenological approach to philosophical problems.
The CEP belongs to the international networks of phenomenology and Husserl archive centres:
- AH Leuve
- AH Cologne
- AH Freiburg
- AH Paris
- AH New York (New School)
Husserl archives
A “reserved” part of the CEP library holds the UCLouvain “Husserl Archives”. This Archive contains a duplicate of most of the original Husserl manuscripts held at the Husserl Archief te Leuven, along with manual files for special research purposes. For the most up-to-date information, please consult the catalog available on the KU Leuven Husserl Archives website.
To consult documents held in the CEP library, please contact one of the center's academic members in advance.
Some readings on the history of the Husserl Archives
Geschichte des Husserl-Archivs/History of the Husserl-Archives, Dordrecht, Springer, 2007. With the following contributions, also in English:
- Zum Geleit (R. Bernet)
- Die Rettung von Husserls Nachlass und die Gründung des Husserl-Archives (H. L. Van Breda)
- Kurze Geschichte des Husserls-Archives in Leuven und der Husserl-Edition (T. Vongehr)
- Bilder
- Appendix
CEP library
The CEP library is located within the premises of the BISP library, more exactly on the first floor of the Higher Institute of Philosophy. The library is divided into two sections. The first one, which is accessible to the public, provides researchers and students with an ample collection of specialised works, in particular those written in German, French and English, the three scientific languages. The second section, of restricted access, contains, besides the complete works of Husserl and Heidegger and the entire series of works contained in the Phaenomenologica collection, a reconstitution of a significant part of Husserl's personal library (see "S" below).
The classification of authors in the centre's library is carried out according to the following format: CEP + Year of birth of the author + Letters + 2/3 digits + volume number. Acronyms details :
- A: Bibliographies, biographies, index
- C: Selected works
- E: Correspondence
- F: Selected fragments
- G: Monographs
- H: Blends, tributes, colloquia
- OC: Complete works
- OS: Separate works
- S: Sources of Husserl
- The rest of the collection is classified by topic and collection. Acronyms details :
- ANTH: Anthologies
- CONF: Confrontations
- HERM: Hermeneutics
- HIST: History of Philosophy
- INTR: Introduction to Phenomenology
- SHUM: Humanities
- SNAT: Natural Sciences
- THEM: Themes
- ETHI: Ethics
- RELI: Philosophy of Religion
- VARI: Varia
The CEP library and the BISP provide a wide range of phenomenological or phenomenologically orientated journals in several languages, among which: ALTER. Revue de phénoménologie, Phänomenologische Forschungen, Husserl-Studies, Heidegger-Studies, Heidegger-Jahrbuch, Continental Philosophy Review, Phenomenology and Cognitive Sciences, Phenomenology and Philosophical Research, New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, Annales de phénoménologie, etc. Current issues of a number of these can be found on display at the entrance to the BISP. The complete collections are available above the floor.
2. Mission
The CEP does not seek an orthodoxy; its concern is to pay vigilant attention both to a heritage of which the famous Husserlian motto zu den Sachen selbst, as diverse as it was early on, was a striking emblem, and to the echoes, extensions and renewals of this heritage in contemporary thought.
The CEP's main areas of research are
current methodological, ontological, epistemological, ethical and political issues in phenomenology
the history of phenomenology: from Husserl to Marion, via Scheler, Reinach, Stein, Heidegger, Arendt, Jonas, Patocka, Merleau-Ponty and Levinas.
In particular :
phenomenological aesthetics and its confrontation with analytic philosophy and other currents in contemporary philosophy of art
the practical dimension of phenomenology and the foundation of ethics
the links between phenomenology and German idealism
the relationship between phenomenology and hermeneutics
the historical and systematic genesis of the phenomenology of religion
interpretations of Kant in phenomenological and post-phenomenological philosophy