Systematische U ¨ berlegungen zu Husserls Einstellungslehre Andrea Staiti Published online: 18 September 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract In this paper I sketch a systematic reconstruction of Husserl’s funda- mental concept of ‘‘attitude’’. I first explore Husserl’s account with respect to the three faculties of intellect, will, and emotivity [Gemu ¨t], which also define the three basic kinds of attitude. The attitude assumed by the subject plays at this level the important role of articulating and unifying, according to an overall direction, various underlying moments of a complex act. I then focus on the specific intellectual, viz. cognitive attitudes and highlight the difference between the naturalistic attitude (which characterizes the natural sciences) and the personalistic attitude (which characterizes the human sciences). I then consider the notion of the natural attitude and argue that the personalistic attitude represents the systematic core of it. The natural attitude may be defined as the human attitude, i.e., as the attitude in which subjects posit themselves exclusively as human subjects belonging to the world, which is itself unceasingly posited as being. In the final part of the paper I explore the function of the phenomenological reduction insofar as it opens up a possibility of self-understanding that breaks with the natural, human self-apprehension and discloses subjectivity in its transcendental dimension. This opens up a radically new attitude, the phenomenological, which should not be confused with a first-person perspective within the framework of the natural attitude. Zusammenfassung In diesem Aufsatz skizziere ich eine systematische Rekon- struktion des pha ¨nomenologischen Grundbegriffs ,,Einstellung‘‘. Zuerst wende ich mich an Husserls Ero ¨rterung des Einstellungsbegriffs im Hinblick auf die drei grundlegenden Bewusstseinsvermo ¨gen: Verstand, Wille und Gemu ¨t. Auf dieser Ebene spielt die vom Subjekt eingenommene Einstellung die wichtige Rolle eines Artikulationsprinzips, das den untergeordneten Elementen eines komplexen A. Staiti (&) Department of Philosophy, Boston College, 21 Campanella Way 3rd Floor, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3806, USA e-mail: andrea.staiti@philosophie.uni-freiburg.de 123 Husserl Stud (2009) 25:219–233 DOI 10.1007/s10743-009-9061-y