Human Studies 15: 385--388, 1992.

© 1992 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Some recollections of Herbert Spiegelberg*

FRED KERSTEN
Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin - Green Bay, Green Bay, WI
54311, USA

I studied under Herbert Spiegelberg at Lawrence College (now Lawrence

University) in Appleton, Wisconsin, from 1952-1954. I had known him
before that time, however, and, of course, after I left Lawrence in the Spring
of 1954. When we could not meet, we corresponded. For some time now I
have been reading as much as possible of that correspondence lasting for
almost 35 years trying to recover a sense of Herbert Spiegelberg that I can
put into words at the present time. I am not certain that I can; but I would
like to try.
Herbert Spiegelberg has re-emerged for me as a very shy, very private,
profoundly kind person, yet intensely social in his philosophizing. It is this
sociality that I would like to talk about for a few minutes because it seems
to me to have been intrinsic to his philosophy. My remarks about it will be
confined, with one exception, to several years at Lawrence, To help the
recollections along, I shall introduce several photos.
This is an early "plan" of the historical study of the "phenomenological
movement." It dates from around early 1953, and I still vividly recall the
occasion: Spiegelberg had rounded up some of what then passed as
philosophy majors and took us to a comer table overlooking the Fox River
in the Student Union. The memory is vivid: Spiegelberg had to tell someone
about itl
The diagram is a chronology of the Phenomenological Movement, to be
sure, but also showing various lines of influence (the Rickert/Lask was
added in answer to a question I asked). Besides the excitement of the
occasion, and the realization that, for the fhst time, I was on the verge of
what would be for me a long philosophical adventure, the diagram still
reconstitutes for me my first introduction to the phenomenological method,

* This paper is edited from remarks made at the meetings of The Society for
Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy and of The Society for Phenomenology
and the Human Sciences, Memphis State University, 19 October 1991.
386

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Photo 2.
 387

and that in an intriguing way: according to my notes the basic steps of the
phenomenological method find a common ground in the Jahrbuch in 1913
and the new step of the method, the phenomenological reduction. Although
Spiegelberg much later would change his view to some extent on this issue,
nonetheless the basic order of presentation would remain. Equally interest-
ing is the note to the effect that Brentano had formulated eidetic insights
before Husserl, and a note in the upper right hand comer indicates that
Spiegelberg had already discovered the work of Michotte on the perception
of "causality."
The excitement of that afternoon, the shared passion of fresh discovery
of, and initiation into, phenomenology I still associate with the field.
While I was at Lawrence, Spiegelberg organized meetings at his home on
a fairy regular basis to discuss ideas central to phenomenology and
philosophy. When weather permitted we met on an enclosed back porch of
his home on Washington Street in Appleton. Here again the intense
sociality of his philosophizing was evident. Photo 2 shows one such
meeting: myself, another student, Spiegelberg and, on the far right, Carl
Wellman, Spiegelberg's colleague at Lawrence and later at Washington
University. My notes from those sessions throughout 1953 and 1954 show a
variety of topics discussed: Husserl's lectures on time consciousness, the
nature of the domain of the pre-predicative, the relation of Jasper's and
Heidegger's concepts of truth, differences and similarities of Heidegger and
Husserl, difficulties in the 5th Cartesian Meditation, the problem of the
transcendental ego in connection with the philosophic attitude. With great
enthusiasm Spiegelberg interspersed the discussions with the anecdotal
history of phenomenology. He was fascinated by the anecdotes: a recovery
of sociality past.
Sometimes I was invited by Spiegelberg "to talk shop," as he expressed
it; he did have a sense of humor. For such occasions I would prepare an
outline and set of questions for discussion, and we would meet of an
afternoon in his study to discuss them. The need to discuss the questions
was energetic, exhausting (at least for me). My notes on those discussions
contain ideas that I am still working on thirty five years later.
Photo 3 dates from the early 1970s. Still driven by the sociality of
philosophizing, Spiegelberg turned up on my doorstep "to talk shop;" I had
not been able to see him at a certain time. He greeted me with: "If the
mountain won't come to Mohammet, then Mohammet has to come to the
mountain." We discussed Pf'a_nder at length. The need to "talk shop" was
insatiable.
Rather than multiply similar anecdotes, I wish to close with another
memory from my years at Lawrence. During that time Spiegelberg worked
on a number of projects, one of which came to fruition only some ten years
388

Photo 3.

later: the often overlooked book on Socrates published in 1964: The

Socratic Enigma. It is, I still think, the most unusual of his books. He
marked the copy he sent me: "some Pre-Phaenomenologica." That it may
well have been; references to his work on the book are strewn throughout
my notes on his discussions of the "phaenomenologica" he was working on.
It seems fitting to close with a reference to this book, subtitled "A Collec-
tion of Testimonies Through Twenty-Four Centuries." Perhaps the only
thing those testimonies have in common is that Socrates was the most social
of all philosophers who "holds up a mirror to the twenty-five centuries
since his death - a mirror which reflects their concerns, their virtues, and
their foibles with remarkable clarity." Grown tired of the "fatuous
generalities of [Socrates'] immortal fame," Spiegelberg, in a remarkable
effort of phenomenological hermeneutics, decided to make "accessible in
the most direct and concentrated form" the "mutual mirroring" between the
"relentless life-examiner of Athens and the ages" by letting the ages since
"speak for themselves," thereby providing "meaningful proof of the
greatness of great men, of great ideas, and even of 'great books'." I like
those words because not only do they express the phenomenological
character even of "pre-Phaenomenologica," but also because those words
remind me in remembering Herbert Spiegelberg that the sociality of his
philosophizing was not confined to his own times, but rather belongs to
subsequent generations, and holds up its own unique mirror reflecting
concerns, virtues, even foibles.