This is the first translation into English of early phenomenologist Hedwig Conrad-Martius'
Metaphysical Conversations originally published in 1921. Conrad-Martius was one of Husserl's
first students an important part of the Göttingen Phenomenology Circle and mentor to Edith
Stein Jean Héring and other early phenomenologists. The present volume provides the full
German and English texts of the conversations a phenomenological discussion of the nature of
the human examining the nature of body soul and spirit and drawing distinctions between
plants animals humans and various other beings. The volume also includes two important
essays on phenomenology in which Conrad-Martius distinguishes between the phenomenological
approaches of Husserl Heidegger and the more ontological approach of the Göttingen school of
phenomenology. She is critical of Husserl's transcendental and Heidegger's existential
approach. The conversations illustrate her use of the phenomenological method for fundamental
investigations into the nature (or Wesen) of things.
