A Letter from Edmund Husserl to Franz Brentano from 29 XII 1889

Abstract

Among the correspondence between Husserl and Brentano kept at the Houghton Library of Harvard University there is a letter from Husserl to Brentano from 29 XII 1889, whose contents were completely unknown until now. The letter is of some significance, both historically as well as systematically for Husserl’s early development, painting a vivid picture of his relation and indebtedness to his teacher Franz Brentano. As in his letter to Stumpf from February 1890, Husserl describes the issues he had encountered during the elaboration of his habilitation work into the Philosophy of Arithmetic, but also announces that he has finally found "clarity" regarding the arithmetica universalis.