To become fully aware of the original and radical character of his transcendental phenomenology Edmund Husserl must be located within the historical tradition of Western philosophy. Although he was not a historian of philosophy, Husserl's historical reflections convinced him that phenomenology is the necessary culmination of a centuries-old endeavor and the solution to the contemporary crisis in European science and European humanity itself.¹ This teleological viewpoint requires the commentator to consider the tradition of Western philosophy from Husserl's own perspective.