Customer Reviews (2)

A great translation of the time lectures
The time lectures of Edmund Husserl are essential reading for anyone interested in the fields of phenomenology, psychology, or time in general. Here, Husserl attempts to unravel the many layers of our consciousness of time. Husserl's extended study stands as the most compelling analysis of the subject in the history of western philosophy and has exerted much influence onresearch in phenomenology. This particular work is also of interests since what is found here is taken up in much less detail in his other introductions. In addition, this particular aspect of Husserl's philosophy can be seen again in Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. The Brough translation excels in many ways. Brough offers a thorough and clear translation of the work with many scholarly bonuses. This is not to say that he made Husserl easy to read, but he retains the power of Husserl's thought through the difficult translation. He also offers clearifying notes throughout the text that cross reference appendices and sections of the Husserl's notes and an introduction that clearifies the context in which the text was produced and the many difficulties that are present in this work. Brough's translation is far superior to that of the previous english translation by James Churchill. This work is well worth the effort and the translation is the best yet (the price is another story altogether). Husserl's lectures on the consciousness of internal time are of continued value to the student and scholar alike and this editions offers much for both types.

Awesome Bearded Philosophers
Professor Brough delivers Husserl to English-reading audiences with remarkable flair. ... Read more

Book Description
Exploring the first-person narratives of three figures from the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic mystical traditions--St. Teresa of Avila, Rabbi Dov Baer, and Rūzbihān Baqlī, Anthony J. Steinbock provides a full phenomenology of mysticism based in the Abrahamic religious traditions. Steinbock relates a broad range of religious experiences, or verticality, to the many philosophical problems of evidence, selfhood, and otherness. From this philosophical description of vertical experience, Steinbock develops a social and cultural critique in terms of idolatry--as pride, secularism, and fundamentalism--and suggests that contemporary understandings of human experience must come from a fuller, more open view of religious experience. This careful study will interest all readers of philosophy and religion. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An excellent phenomenological study...
Steinbock is author of _Home and Beyond: Generative Phenomenology after Husserl_ (Northwestern University Press, 1995), translator of Edmund Husserl's _Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis_ (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001) and professor of philosophy at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Here he concerns himself with carefully describing one mode of "givenness" that is different from the ways in which objects are "presented" in human experience: epiphany. He successfully traces the "verticality" of experience that gives or yields an experience as "religious." Additionally, Steinbock critically analyzes the obverse of epiphany -- idolatry. Utilizing descriptions of three mystics from the Abrahamic religious traditions, Steinbock thoroughly investigates the problem of evidence. _Phenomenology and Mysticism_ represents the first of a planned trilogy of books, each devoted to a particular mode of vertical experience. The other two volumes are analyses of moral and ecological experience, respectively, investigating the modes of givenness of revelation/manifestation and disclosure/display. In this impressive project, Steinbock embarks on a full explication of three central dimensions of human experience, and in doing so, takes up and embodies the phenomenological project envisioned by Edmund Husserl. I highly recommend this text to professors, scholars, and advanced students in phenomenology, philosophy of religion, and religious studies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Be looking for the emotional outcries!
Edmund Husserl's "The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology" resonates well. The following are my impressions and reflections after reading this very interesting book.

Every object-subject composite (relation) is a "phenomenon", and Husserl begins his phenomenology from Descartes' doubt that cannot be doubted. Husserl notes that the phenomenon is open to exploration. We explore so we can discover what is pregiven, so we can find our preconditions. Husserl reminds us that Kant was sterred from his slumber by Hume's skepticism. Kant's "appearance" is embedded in a space-time manifold, and as such it represents a phenomenon that hides the "thing-in-itself". The phenomenon is a composite uniting the provisional with the universal, and Kant had to feel it to be so reactive once Hume and Leibniz made their points known. Husserl reminds us to look beyond the ego-soul of Descartes, and to look beyond the dualism where Kant got stuck.

Every feeling is such a composite, so every feeling is also a phenomenon. Every feeling holds the slightest spark of awareness. I might add that every law of nature given by an equation is experiential in the sense that the law is first conceived in the mind, and then later is it empirically verified. Therefore, the law as an equation is abstraction that forgets the experiential. Because natural laws are experiential they involve feelings, and therefore these laws are phenomenological too. It is not surprising that Husserl is very critical of objective philosophy and positive science that has lost track of the subjective ingredients that come with all phenomenon.

Husserl tells us that meaning may become lost in history, and meaning relates to the preconditions of history which has to do with the geometrical horizons that history grows into. Husserl (page 49) is translated to write: "The geometry of idealities was preceded by the practical art of surveying, which knew nothing of idealities. Yet such a pregeometrical achievement was a meaning-fundament for geometry, a fundament for the great invention of idealization; the latter encompassed the invention of the ideal world of geometry, or rather the methodology of the objectifying determinations of idealities through the construction which create `mathematical existence.'"

Science grew out of traditions, and geometry is no less a tradition. The pregivens are found sleeping, Husserl tells us that the pregivens are taken for granted. Husserl (page 69) writes: "Only a radical inquiry back into subjectivity - and specifically the subjectivity which ultimately brings about all world-validity, with its content and in all its prescientific and scientific modes, and into the `what' and the `how' of the rational accomplishments - can make objective truth comprehensible and arrive at the ultimate ontic meaning of the world."

In Husserl day (right before World War II) positivist science and existential philosophy lost their meaning (I add that the meaning is still lost today), as these were all about extensions of the status quo that were no longer connected to their original preconditions.

To find the original meaning there must be a reactivation of the construction of geometry, among other exercises. Husserl tells us that meaning is discovered by reactivating the construction that have hid themselves in history. This leads us to what is self evident and beyond doubt.

The precondition of history is the stark reminder that the universal has connected with the provisional; this is the stark mystery of life, the relation again.

Husserl's phenomenology studies the precondition as it is, rather than through presumptions that derive from an extended historicism that has lost its meaning.

Husserl has much to say about intentionality, and the validation that is always sought when truth statements are attempted. And we all see people that seek validation; the pay received for a hard days work; the affirmation that is required when gifts are exchanged; the suicide note that betrays its own reason for being, as no message is needed to announce a departure unless the issue of validation is found even in the confused.

We see the need for validation in others, but can we also see it in ourselves too? Ask yourself if you seek validation in all your activities? Am I to expect an angry reaction, a denial? If so, an emotional reaction (the phenomenon again) that denies validation is an emotion that is found announcing its need for validation. In which case, the announcement is only concealed from you, but the meaning is clear to me and others that the answer is found to be yes again. If emotion is not expressed, and the answer is - yes -, then there is no disagreement. Therefore, the challenge remains to answer - no - while expressing a more reflective emotion. This challenge may be impossible to meet, as a calm denial today may follow by an angry release tomorrow, and this will cause me to return to my original conclusion: that the intentionality that seeks validation is a universal, and leads to Husserl's intersubjective person. But note also the emotional issues. It is no wonder that Husserl takes his phenomenology into psychology.

This drive to seek validity is what gives birth to our "objective" meanings, according to Edmund Husserl, but note I put objective in quotations to refer to the observation that I am referring to a subjective transcendentalism rather than an objectivity that Husserl tells us is illusory. Science and logic can give us no help if the emotional temperament is missing, yet scientism is found today expressing its need for validation. Dawkins's "The God Delusion" is an expression that is asking religiosity to love science too. But how can religion love science if scientism lacks the emotional certitude to deal with its own pregivens? It is not unsurprising that atheist Sam Harris is now making a call for contemplation within atheistic circles. Contemplation delivers the reflexive capacity to deal with our drive for validation, for both believer and nonbeliever.

Husserl (page 168) writes on elementary intentionalities that seek validity: "The being of these intentionalities themselves is nothing but one meaning-formation operating together with another, `constituting' new meaning through synthesis. And meaning is never anything but meaning in modes of validity. Intentionality is the title which stands for the only actual and genuine way of explaining, making intelligible."

All objective philosophy and positive science are unreal, that is, they all depend on pregivens that are subjective in nature. To question the pregivens is to enter phenomenology, and it is here that psychology transforms itself into Husserl's transcendental phenomenology. All "objective" science requires its purification by a transcendental psychology. Husserl (page 257) writes: "a pure psychology as positive science, a psychology which would investigate universally the human beings living in the world as real facts in the world, similarly to other positive sciences (both sciences of nature and humanistic disciplines), does not exist. There is only a transcendental psychology, which is identical with transcendental philosophy."

All of our beliefs are dependent on Husserl's pregivens, and to explore the pregivens is to enter the transcendental world that rediscovers hidden meanings of dimensionality. This activity engages our emotions, and so it is that the innate feeling is found supporting a universal grammar. As long as we remain true to our purpose, to love our self, to love others, to love God, we may always re-look at our slumber and find the hidden dimensions in our own mistakes; we can always overcome our feelings of doubt in this way, finding a deeper feeling expressed in a deeper beauty. This allows us to purify our feelings, by referring to the original intention that was never meant to do harm to ourselves, others or God. Husserl's universal drive that seeks affirmation is no more than the past that seeks wholeness with the present, it is no more than what I call the affirmation of Trinity, it is the work of the Holy Spirit among our vast plurality. This insight was meant to be shared, but in sharing this expect the emotional outcries that are found seeking their own validation.

Trinity: The Scientific Basis of Vitalism and Transcendentalism

The Return to Things Themselves
Husserl is a tremendous apologist of "philosophy as rigorous science." This volume ("The Crisis") serves as the philosopher's clearest and most distinct exposition of the problems that beset modern Civilization and that still prevent many of us from appreciating an understanding of reality unmediated by empiricist and historicist biases.Most succinctly, Husserl has shown how and why it is possible for practical judgment to remain unbiased, and for theoretical/pure reason to remain in touch with life.

Husserl has helped later generations re-discover a rational/classical alternative to both modern reason and modern irrationalism.With Husserl, the critique of modernity points to a reason above "the machine." That is why Husserl rejected the anti-rationalist disposition displayed by his brilliant student, Martin Heidegger, whose inconclusive turn to pre-Socratic Wisdom arguably suffered from an inadequate understanding of the Socratic/"mediating/moderating" Quest for wisdom.

With Husserl, two options were disclosed to public attention: 1) a "new [atheistic, nihilistic] thinking" finding its core representation in Heideggerian "Existentialism"; 2) Classical (pre-Cartesian, non-Machiavellian) Rationalism, or "rational life" not subject to the Cartesian tendency to decay into the historicization and mechanization of reason/philosophy.

Most scholars today have found a way to dilute "Existentialism" to a degree that makes it possible to place "Existentialism" at the service of the powers that be (conformism).Among the very few who prefer to seek out a classical, non-historicist understanding of reason and history, we find two of Husserl's students--Jacob Klein and Leo Strauss.The first helped expose the essential link between Husserl's teachings and classical Socratic/Platonic philosophy; the second, inaugurated an exceptional return OF classical political rationalism--of a School of Philosophy, in the Platonic sense--at a time when the "temple" of science (the Academy) had become a sea of suspicion-breeding sophisticated ideologies.

It need not surprise the disinterested bystander that Strauss has henceforth become target of many an ideological reprisal.What is perhaps most "disturbing" about Strauss is that he makes it extremely difficult to critique rationalists such as Husserl for their (unremarkable?) inadequacies.That is because with Strauss such a critique presupposes access to a degree of speculative reason that is higher, and NOT lower, than the one exemplified by Husserl: one must understand an author as clearly and distinctly as he understood himself, BEFORE claiming to understand him "better."

Husserl's last introduction
It is somewhat ironic that Phenomenology, as a term or as a philosophical school, has yet to really reach the popular consciousness, given that phenomenology is in many respects a study of consciousness and how reality impacts consciousness. Phenomenology in the most formal sense of being a school of philosophy is largely traced to Franz Brentano (1838-1917) and Edmund Husserl (1859-1938). Husserl's great work at the turn of the last century, Logical Investigations, set the stage for the development of phenomenology as a way of seeing, a descriptive study with roots in empiricism going back to inspiration from Aristotelian ideas. This is a key word - description. Rather than being a set of constructs and principles typical of previous philosophical systems, Phenomenology attempts to describe reality fully as reality is presented to our senses.

Phenomenology is different from scientific study in that it does not pretend toward a universal truth or experience unmediated through our subjectivity (a principle modern science seems to be incorporating more and more). Editor Dermot Moran has a solid introduction to the subject, including distinctions of different kinds of study, some of the personalities involved in the development of phenomenology, and the current state of the discipline.

This book by Husserl is one written late in his career.The Nazi party was well on its way to taking complete power in Germany, and other forces of despair were very present in the Western culture.Husserl's protege Heidegger had gone from phenomenology to existentialism, a philosophical framework that Husserl distrusted, but understood as completely in keeping with the overall crisis of meaning and purpose that he saw taking root in society at its very core.

Husserl's work from 1900 forward was always involved in recasting and adapting phenomenology to the current culture; each of his books in that time had as a title or subtitle 'An Introduction to Phenomenology', and this particular text was no different.Often overlooked in this text's presentation is that it was actually unfinished at Husserl's death, and had once again taken phenomenology in new directions.Perhaps the most radical departure of this version of phenomenology to Husserl's earlier constructs is the incorporation of psychological ideas.

Husserl's concern is to overcome the lack of meaning found in science and technology, the lack of telos and the lack of an inherent moral structure.Husserl traces the history of ideas and search for meaning in intellectual enterprise, and ends with a sense of a 'life-world' that draws closer to the aims of existentialism than he had ever done before.

This is a fascinating text.

. . . the Spirit alone is immortal.
Written at the end of his career and on the eve of the Holocaust, the Crisis stands, I believe, as one of the greatest one volume educations in print today.Unlike his more "technical" works which rigorously deal with phenomenology in itself, the Crisis is more of a look at the need for phenomenology and phenomenological psychology in modern humanity's life.Looking at the history of science and philosophy, Husserl traces the development and "success" of scientism and materialism.In doing so phenomenologically, Husserl makes a very strong case for the need of phenomenology in order to overcome the lifelessness of materialism and inaugurate a "heroism of reason" and humanism.Anyone interested in philosophy, science, sociology, civil rights, etc. I urge to read this book actively and critically.For non-specialists and people who aren't "scholars" of any kind or degree may find the language a bit dense or heavy at times, but ! . . . it's good for you.The volume also features appendices which include the classic Vienna Lecture as well as other essays and lectures.The Crisis is a classic and brilliant look into science, philosophy and society which, unlike a lot of theory today, offers a cohesive system grounded in humanism, to wit, Husserlian phenomenology.Please read this book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

uninspiring
How I see it, philosophy books can be inteligent and inspiring, daring you to take another leap to the world of unknown, or they can be inteligent. Main difference being that this last one is that kind of philosophy that you can almost always find on academy benches, that rather dull and uninspiring chain of thought that somehow presents itself as philosophy.

Whether you think of it as philosophy in general or not, you cannot mistake these two ways of expression.

Yes, I know this is Lyotard, and I know that he is one of the people responsible for making the groundwork for great human acomplishment which is called postmodernism, but that doesn't say anything at all about this book.

Taking the work of Husserl, Lyotard debates phenomenology on its basis, diachronicaly and sinchronicaly, making debates with psichology, sociology, history and finally marksism. Being what it is, that's to say left winged intelectual, Lyotard tends to overpresent marksist arguments about nature of the world, object, subject and matter.

Now, this here is highly developed thought which expects from his reader to know the background of philosophical debates of early twentieth century, knowedge from which he can draw conclusion about the facts that are being discussed in this book. If you lack this knowledge it will be very hard for you to follow Lyotard's thought and you'll often find yourself wandering aimelessly amongst the pages.

All in all, after tiresome trouble of getting to the point of the text, one feels almost disappointed. All this one turns out to be is just another solastic work (almost scientific in its nature) without any heart or zeal for the matter being discusse. It is debate for the sake of debate.

But, maybe second reading (and trust me, you will need this one) will reveal some new layers of meaning, of that I cannot say anything yet.

Until than, cheers.

... Read more

Book Description
Hannah Arendt and The Phenomenology of Human Rights examines contemporary debates on the foundations of human rights through the lens of Arendt's writings, showing how Arendts phenomenological standpoint, unique within these debates, is able to shed new light a number of problems within human rights theory. ... Read more

Book Description
Phenomenology and the “Theological Turn” brings together the debate over Janicaud’s critique of the “theological turn” represented by the works of Emmanuel Levinas, Paul Ricœur, Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-François Courtine, Jean-Louis Chrétien, and Michel Henry. ... Read more

Book Description
Explores how continental philosophy can inform environmental ethics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

eminently readable and interesting
This is an eminently readable translation of Heidegger--a chore that is indeed quite difficult. Moreover, the material Heidegger treats here finds a very concise, cohesive presentation, so it is all in all a very approachable text. As a reviewer noted below, this text is quite helpful in understanding _Being and Time_, or just generally for its own value in exposing Heidegger's thought around this time. Highly recommeded for someone serious about approaching texts by Heidegger.

Clean as a whistle, until it defines "is"
Mostly, philosophy is clean as a whistle, and we rarely understand it well enough to bow to the obviously superior form of intellect which, lecturing in 1927, strove to convince those who would like to consider themselves at the cutting edge of knowledge that:

"We have here once again the peculiar circumstance that the unveiling appropriation of the extant in its being-such is precisely not a subjectivizing but just the reverse, an appropriating of the uncovered determinations to the extant entity as it is itself."(p. 219).

If you read the small print on the cover of THE BASIC PROBLEMS OF PHENOMENOLOGY (1982, published in German as Die Grundprobleme der Phanomenologie in 1975) by Martin Heidegger, you will see that this book includes "Translation, Introduction, and Lexicon by Albert Hofstadter."The Lexicon is quite an accomplishment:pages 339 to 396 contain a wealth of information about the pages on which particular words ended up in this translation of lectures by Heidegger on philosophical problems.If you read the book first, then come to the first entry on page 340, "already, always already, antecedent, before, beforehand, earlier, in advance, precedent, prior--expressions used with great frequency: . . ." you know that dozens of pages can be cited for "some characteristic instances: . . . "Longer entries provide more complete indexing for being, being-in-the-world, beings, Da, Dasein, exist, extant, horizon, interpretation, "is" (See copula), Kant, now, nows (nun), ontological, ontology, philosophy, problem, problems, problems, specific, projection, project, self, structure, subject, Temporal, Temporality, temporal, temporality (zeitlich . . .), temporalize (zeitigen), theses, thing, thingness, thinghood, thinking, time, transcend, truth, understand, understanding of being, unveil, and world.

Frankly, I am glad that I have previously attempted to read lectures and the Heraclitus seminars which used the Greek alphabet (alpha, beta, gamma, delta, etc.) for Greek words, so that I was warned that translation was necessary, and I learned enough Greek words to recognize that ancient language even when it is printed in transliterated form, with no indication that a foreign language is being used, as frequently occurs in this book.

"In a corresponding passage Aristotle says that this `is' means a synthesis and is accordingly en sumploke dianoias kai pathos en taute, it is the coupling that the intellect produces as combining intellect, and this `is' means something that does not occur among things; it means a being, but a being that is, as it were, a state of thought."(p. 182).

People with absolutely no knowledge of Greek might try reading the Lexicon entry for "Greek expressions" (pp. 358-359) before reading pages 73, 86, 115, etc. to remind themselves that when they read "to on" on page 53, they were reading Greek, as "to ti en einai" on page 85 is a bit more obviously not in English, as Aristotle was not.How helpful is this?Consider the final entry in Greek expressions:zoe, 121.Looking it up, I find in the final paragraph of section 12:

"First, however, one problem makes its claim on our attention:besides the extant (at-hand extantness) there are beings in the sense of the Dasein, who exists.But this being which we ourselves are--was this not always already known, in philosophy and even in pre-philosophical knowledge?Can one make such a fuss about stressing expressly the fact that besides the extant at-hand there is also this being that we ourselves are?After all, every Dasein, insofar as it is, always already knows about itself and knows that it differs from other beings.We ourselves said that for all its being oriented primarily to the extant at-hand, ancient ontology nevertheless is familiar with psuche, nous, logos, zoe, bios, soul, reason, life in the broadest sense.Of course.But it should be borne in mind that the ontical, factual familiarity of a being does not after all guarantee a suitable interpretation of its being."(pp. 120-121).

The actual lectures only consist of 22 sections, with "The Being of the Copula" in Chapter Four (pp. 177-224) primarily considered in sections 16 and 17, though the outline of the subject at the end of Heidegger's Introduction, section 6, suggested that this would be at the end of Part One, Chapter Four.Section 18 on the existential mode of being of truth has also been included at the end of Chapter Four, where it seems to follow quite naturally.Though it is only followed by Part Two, Chapter One, anyone who wishes to imagine more may adopt the idea stated by Heidegger on page 225 that Part Two would also have four chapters, in which we could encounter the basic problems again ending with "fourthly, the problem of the truth-character of being."

There isn't anything about pandering in the Lexicon, but the 22 listings for "copula" might be close, considering the "See `is' " cross-reference and the amount of political scandal that has recently been generated by President Clinton when he was trying to think non-copulatively in the way he defined "is."The 1908 Oxford translation of Aristotle included in note 4 on page 181 illustrates the kind of compartmentalization that most people exhibited in thinking about the impeachment proceedings:

"For neither are `to be' and `not to be' and the participle `being' significant of any fact, unless something is added; for they do not themselves indicate anything, but imply a copulation, of which we cannot form a conception apart from the things coupled."

Continuation of Being and Time
This book is a must read for those that choose to read Being and Time.The book itself is based, like so many of Heidegger's books, off of a lecture course he gave at the University of Marburg in the summer of 1927.This is important because Being and Time was ready for publication in 1927.If we put Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics alongside The Basic Problems of Phenomenology and Being and Time, we have the predominant whole of early Heideggerian thinking.

As for the book itself (for now on referred to as BP), the book is incomplete--just like Being and Time.Heidegger undertakes Three Parts each with Four chapters (see page 24).But BP only deals with all of Part One and only chapter 1 of Part Two.Heidegger gets no farther than the Problem of Ontological Difference (entities vs. the Being of entities) and the lecture course ends.But the book is extraordinarly helpful because of what it does address.Part One is elaborate and interesting because it deals with other philosophers and their ideas.Heidegger pays particular attention to Kant, Aristotle, Descartes and explains how their ideas have been inherited into the contemporary philosophic era.What I found most interesting was the deconstruction of Medieval and Modern ontology.Heidegger thus gives a broad historical interpretation of the history of philosophy and explains the presuppositions of each period.

Obviously this book is not for philosophical neophytes.The book should only be undertaken by those with some background in 20th century philosophy and knowledge of basic Heideggerian thought.The book's appeal should thus be limited to few individuals, and certainly only those with philosophic interest.

The book borrows much of the terminology from Being and Time with some notable exceptions.Authenticity and inauthenticity have pracitically been dropped.The term "horizon" becomes notably more important and the term "Temporality" is of great importance to understanding what is being disclosed from the text.Ontological difference is explicitly defined, though it was implicitly defined in Being and Time.Pay particular attention to Part Two of the work, for it questions through many of the underlying questions I had after completing Being and Time.If you are disappointed how the book abruptly ends, it is to be expected.But for those 285 people on Earth interested in Heidegger this book is indispensable.But read Being and Time first!

Philosophy Student,
Drake University ... Read more

Book Description
This collection of ground-breaking essays considers the many dimensions of prayer: how prayer relates us to the divine; prayer's ability to reveal what is essential about our humanity; the power of prayer to transform human desire and action; and the relation of prayer to cognition. It takes up the meaning of prayer from within a uniquely phenomenological point of view, demonstrating that the phenomenology of prayer is as much about the character and boundaries of phenomenological analysis as it is about the heart of religious life.The contributors: Michael F. Andrews, Bruce Ellis Benson, Mark Cauchi, Benjamin Crowe, Mark Gedney, Philip Goodchild, Christina M. Gschwandtner, Lissa McCullough, Cleo McNelly Kearns, Edward F. Mooney, B. Keith Putt, Jill Robbins, Brian Treanor, Merold Westphal, Norman Wirzba,Terence Wright and Terence and James R. Mensch. Bruce Ellis Benson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College. He is the author of Graven Ideologies: Nietzsche, Derrida, and Marion on Modern Idolatry and The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music. Norman Wirzba is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Georgetown College, Kentucky. He is the author of The Paradise of God and editor of The Essential Agrarian Reader. ... Read more

Book Description
The Early Heidegger and Medieval Philosophy is amajor interpretive study of Heidegger's complex relationship to medievalphilosophy. S. J. McGrath's contribution is historical and biographical aswell as philosophical, examining how the enthusiastic defender of theAristotelian-Scholastic tradition became the great destroyer ofmetaphysical theology.

This book provides an informative and comprehensive examination ofHeidegger's changing approach to medieval sources--from the seminarystudies of Bonaventure to the famous phenomenological destructions ofmedieval ontology. McGrath argues that the mid-point of this development,and the high point of Heidegger's reading of medieval philosophy, is thewidely neglected habilitation thesis on Scotus and speculative grammar. Heshows that this neo-Kantian retrieval of phenomenological moments in themetaphysics of Scotus and Thomas of Erfurt marks the beginning of a turnfrom metaphysics to existential phenomenology. McGrath's carefulhermeneutical reconstruction of this complex trajectory uncovers the rootsof Heidegger's critique of ontotheology in a Luther-inspired defection fromhis largely Scholastic formation.

In the end McGrath argues that Heidegger fails to do justice to thespirit of medieval philosophy. The book sheds new light on a long-debatedquestion of the early Heidegger's theological significance. Far from aneutral phenomenology, Heidegger's masterwork, Being and Time, isshown to be a philosophically questionable overturning of the medievaltheological paradigm. ... Read more

Book Description
Continental Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction surveys the main trends of European philosophy from Kant to the present. It is clearly written and accessible to students. In a novel approach, Andrew Cutrofello looks at continental philosophy through the lens of four questions that derive from Kant:

-How is truth disclosed aesthetically?
-To what does the feeling of respect attest?
-Must we despair, or may we still hope?
-What is the meaning of philosophical humanism?

Cutrofello shows how these questions have been taken up by (1) phenomenologists, (2) continental ethicists, (3) hermeneuticians and critical theorists, and (4) existentialists and their critics. In the introduction and conclusion, he explains how the questions raised by continental philosophers differ from their analogues in the analytic tradition. With its frequent references to Shakespeare, Cutrofello's style is lively and engaging. His remarkably comprehensive book will be of interest not only to students but to anyone seeking a reliable overview of the continental tradition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

a great introduction to continental philosophy
Cutrofello, a professor of philosophy at Loyola University, has done a great service for students of philosophy with this book. His guiding premise is that the fundamental problems of continental philosophy, as also of analytic philosophy, develop from out of the various "loose ends" left open by Kant's critical phlosophy and the various failed attempts to "resolve" Kantian dualisms. In this way, Cutrofello is able to connect diverse strands of continental philosophy through a historical and systematic narrative that is illuminating rather than reductive.While sometimes Cutrofello is a bit too schematic, and I sometimes feel as though he gives Spinoza and Nietzsche short shrift, this book is a remarkable resource for anyone who wishes to gain a sense for the "big picture" of continental thought. ... Read more

Book Description
Impressive in both scope and imagination, it uses the example of perception to return the body to the forefront of philosophy for the first time since Plato. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Breakthough Phenomenology
"What is phenomenology? It may seem strange that this question has still to be asked half a century after the first works of Husserl" So says Merleau-Ponty in the opening pages of `Phenomenology of Perception,' perhaps the major work of phenomenology after `Being and Time.' Merleau-Ponty sought, rather brilliantly, to redirect attention to the human body as the locus of our being-in-the-world for phenomenological inquiry. Unfortunately, I am convinced that Merleau-Ponty's efforts to turn the results of his phenomenology into an ethics and a politics are less impressive and important than Heidegger's breathtakingly brilliant attempt to use phenomenology as a means to fundamental ontology. Still, one has to admire Merleau-Ponty's command over biology and the natural sciences. His descriptions of visual illusions and phantom limbs are by now established classics of the field. However, many of his examples are needlessly extensive and dense. Less committed readers should turn to the final chapters of the book, where the majority of his philosophy can be found.

As a side note, Routledge has produced an edition here that is positively replete with typos. Surprising for such a reputable publisher.Most readers will find the carelessness on their behalf extremely irritating.

Routledge Murders a Great Work
Merleau-Ponty's work is nothing less than a classic, one of the great works of philosophy in the 20th century. It should go without saying, then, that this work should be made available in an up-to-date and scholarly translation.
Unfortunately, this is what Routledge has refused to do. Not only does this "new" edition maintain all of the known mistakes and inconsistencies of the original translation (most of which were not corrected when the translation was revised twenty years ago), but it also introduces literally dozens of type-setting errors. In addition to all of the obvious mistakes in punctuation and spelling (e.g., "intelfection" on p. xx; "in a world" instead of "in a word" on p. 129; "deralizes" for "derealizes" on p. 140; "writes" for "writers," p. 163; "Rinswanger" for "Binswanger," note 6, p. 185, and the list goes on and on), you will also encounter such lovely gems as "Bergson's inferiority" (instead of "interiority", p. 67) and "adduction" transformed into "abduction" -- when distinguishing between the two is precisely the point of Merleau-Ponty's discussion (p. 243). In short, an already flawed translation has now been bungled into a bloody mess. If you are reading this book for the first time, you would be well-advised to check the used bookstores for a copy of the earlier edition. If you are trying to use this text with students, lots of luck to you!
It is also worth mentioning that Routledge has again failed to include a translation of Merleau-Ponty's original table of contents in this edition, so that many English readers are still unaware that he provided a detailed outline of the entire text to guide the reader. A translation by Daniel Guerriere is available in the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 10, no. 1 (1979) - although, of course, the page numbers no longer correspond to this "new" edition.

A masterpiece!
Merleau-Ponty's masterpiece is really an exquisite piece of writing.I know from an excellent source that there is a new translation coming soon.The French to English translation was done by a French professor, not a philosopher so some of M-P's subtle nuances are lost.Then again, so much is lost in translation anyway.Anyway you slice it, though, it is an excellent read and I recommend it full-heartedly.

Wonderful
Very prompt shipping and the book was in excellent condition when it arrived, in plenty of time for classes starting.

Stunning
While reading this book you get a sense of a man truly on the verge of profound truth.It's a difficult read (the section on time alone will make you wonder if the book is written in English) yet it's importance is still being discovered.More grounded in science than Sartre or Heidegger, MP's work is that of a supremely disciplined thinker, one who builds a case and sees it through a series of arguments supported by actual evidence. (although the evidence is from studies done 50 years ago, it's impressive how much his work still holds up in the face of current cognitive science research)

I have two complaints with the book.One is the translation.While I'm sure MP is a difficult read in any language, the sentence structure is nearly incomprehensible at times.It's hard for me to believe that the best, most accurate translation would leave it so awkward.My second problem is the index.If you ever want to find anything in the book after you read it I suggest you dogear it because the index is a cruel joke. ... Read more

Book Description
Philosophical work on the mind flowed in two streams through the 20th century: phenomenology and analytic philosophy. The phenomenological tradition began with Brentano and was developed by such great European philosophers as Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty. As the century advanced, Anglophone philosophers increasingly developed their own distinct styles and methods of studying the mind, and a gulf seemed to open up between the two traditions. This volume aims to bring them together again, by demonstrating how work in phenomenology may lead to significant progress on problems central to current analytic research, and how analytical philosophy of mind may shed light on phenomenological concerns. Leading figures from both traditions contribute specially written essays on such central topics as consciousness, intentionality, perception, action, self-knowledge, temporal awareness, and mental content. Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind demonstrates that these different approaches to the mind should not stand in opposition to each other, but can be mutually illuminating. ... Read more

Book Description
A Companion to Phenomenology and Existentialism is a complete guide to two of the dominant movements of philosophy in the twentieth century.

• Written by a team of leading scholars, including Dagfinn Føllesdal, J. N. Mohanty, Robert Solomon, Jean-Luc Marion.
  
• Highlights the area of overlap between the two movements.
  
• Features longer essays discussing each of the main schools of thought, shorter essays introducing prominent themes, and problem-oriented chapters.
  
• Organised topically, around concepts such as temporality, intentionality, death and nihilism.
  
• Features essays on unusual subjects, such as medicine, the emotions, artificial intelligence, and environmental philosophy.

Customer Reviews (1)

The future of philosophy?
Hubert Dreyfus is the leading American existential philosopher today and the spiritual parent of "California" phenomenology and existentialism (the godparent of this contemporary movement is of course Paul Tillich, for whom Dreyfus was a teaching assistant at Harvard).All the existential philosophers currently tenured in major analytic philosophy departments - Sean Kelly at Harvard, John Richardson at NYU, Carmen Taylor at Columbia - had Dreyfus for their graduate supervisor.(Interestingly, Tillich produced not only Dreyfus but also directed Rollo May's dissertation - later published as The Meaning of Anxiety - and then literally told Ernest Becker to write The Denial of Death).Hence the Tillich-Dreyfus legacy alone guarantees that existential thinking will continue to powerfully confront the analytic tradition regarding the inherent limitations of its intellectualism well into the twenty-first century. ... Read more

Book Description
Wayne Martin traces attempts to develop theories of judgment in British Empiricism, the logical tradition stemming from Kant, nineteenth-century psychologism, recent experimental neuropsychology, and the phenomenological tradition associated with Brentano, Husserl and Heidegger. His reconstruction of vibrant but largely forgotten nineteenth-century debates links Kantian approaches to judgment with twentieth-century phenomenological accounts. He also shows that the psychological, logical and phenomenological dimensions of judgment are not only equally important, but fundamentally interlinked. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

elegant, lucid, poetic, thoughtful
I teach a course on William James at John F. Kennedy University, and one of my students came across this fine book and told me about it. Going forward I'm going to be using parts of it for my course. Professor Wilshire has given us a lively, well-informed study of the indigenous-experiential-ecological base within the thought of James, Dewey, Hocking, Bugbee, and other seminal and often-neglected American philosophers. The book's Foreword was provided by Ed Casey, who has written so much and so deeply about the experience of place, particularly in Western culture.

I love quotable books. Read this, in relation to the ongoing scientistic attack on contact with the world: "There is no mirror-lined mental domain in which we can sequester ourselves" (p. 55). Or this: "We do not float in the blue surveying the universe. We are humans sunk over our heads in the thingy and messy world" (p. 81). And a favorite, which I plan to use in my ecopsych course: "It is not merely the blueness of the sky that can possess us if we dilate to it. It is also animals and plants--those with great regenerative powers like snakes, or sage or red willow bark, or roots that regenerate themselves and grow in the dark" (p. 85).

With another reviewer of this book I would like to have heard more about native traditions other than Black Elk's, particularly the influence those found in the places where thinkers like James and Dewey worked and lived. Also, it would be nice to take a break from the customary transpersonalist equation of Native with experiential and hear more about other aspects of Native culture in terms of how they impacted American philosophy. The motif of reanimation is a key one in James' life and also in various Navajo customs, but I don't know of any direct influence and would like to.

Someone (Mencken?) once defined a professional philosopher as a person who upon hearing the statement "the sky is blue today" will ask you what you mean by "sky," by "blue," and by "today." Professor Wilshire's book is a refreshing and urgently needed departure from this kind of bloodless, abstractified, intellectual one-upmanship. He leads the reader along a trail of ideas difficult to take leave of even when the book ends.

Thought-provoking, original, inventive.
Bruce Wilshire is among those few professional philosophers who are willing to take philosophy beyond the academy - and beyond traditionally academic interests - to address the experiences and concerns of real people.(See John Stuhr and Richard Shusterman, both also working from the pragmatist tradition, for other examples.)This is philosophy in the flesh, as it were, addressing what it means to be embodied and emplaced beings, rather than atomic selves; what it means to possess emotion and 'spirit' as well as intelligence.The essays are written with a sense of urgency that captures (if not always explicitly) Wilshire's sense that real philosophical problems are rooted in the exigencies of daily life.The reader fairly gets the sense that Wilshire writes his essays not out of merely academic interest, but out of deep and profound personal interest.He wants to live what he writes.But this is not to say that his work is lacking in scholarship - on the contrary, he provides insight and illumination into the work of several prominent (and not-so-prominent) American philosophers.The essays on James and Dewey are particularly well-argued; his essays on the latter contribute to a general reinvestigation of Dewey's work that takes it beyond the common (and mistaken) view of Dewey as a crass instrumentalist.(Wilshire's essay on Dewey's poetry is the only essay, with which I am familiar, that addresses that aspect of Dewey's temperament.)

Wilshire's chief resources in this quest are phenomenology and (of course) American pragmatism.His work is a model of phenomenological inquiry, demonstrating the subtlety of description and insight that phenomenology ideally should produce (but too often does not).Further, Wilshire is among the few philosophers who seek to embody and live pragmatic values.In other words, this is not a work of merely intellectual history, but is an attempt to put his philosophical views into practice.This itself is a pragmatic value.(But what is, again, too often not expressed in actual practice.)

My great difficulty with this work concerns what a lot of his readers, I think, would find most interesting or compelling or unusual - his treatment of Native Americans, on the one hand, and his use of 'archetypal' thinking, on the other.Wilshire is not the only thinker to argue that American philosophy (particularly pragmatism) bears some similarities with Native American traditions; nor is he the only thinker to suggest that what makes American philosophy distinctive is its foundation in Native American thought.(See Pratt's "Native Pragmatism" for a more thorough-going attempt to defend these claims.)Unfortunately, Wilshire's arguments on these issues are rather weak.His principal source for "Native American" thought is Black Elk.This is problematic for a couple of reasons.First, Wilshire does not adequately address the geneaology of Black Elk's views (as recorded by John Neihardt in "Black Elk Speaks").Black Elk is not really placed in his historical and cultural context; neither is his conversion to Catholocism well-addressed.(It is telling, for example, that Black Elk lived after Emerson - but is treated as offering a timeless source of Native American wisdom that, in a sense, prefigures Emerson.)Second, Wilshire does not seem to recognize the diversity of Native American thought.Black Elk's views are particular to his culture, the Lakota.They are not representative of all Native American cultural groups - and are significantly different from, say, Pueblo views.

I find archetypal thinking difficult for the simple reason that it seems to negate (or diminish) the importance of time, history, and evolution.Archetypal thinkers will often claim that human 'nature' was essentially set some 10,000 years ago (or before), when humans lived in small bands as hunter-gatherers.Obviously, most humans today do not live in such conditions.The question is whether changing social and environmental conditions have prompted some kind of evolution in the species that better suits us (now) to the conditions most of us actually live in - or whether we're basically displaced cavemen.I find it hard to believe that the human species has not changed somewhat to fit its agricultural-urban environment.But I find it more difficult to accept that Wilshire, who draws so deeply upon the pragmatist tradition, would identify a basic, ancient human nature without asking whether that nature hasn't changed in the last 10,000 years.Pragmatism places a great emphasis on time, change, and the lack of a distinct and universal human nature.(Human nature is plastic and malleable.)This is one of its strengths and great contributions to philosophical thought generally - why not emphasize that?

These difficulties apply mostly to the first part of his book.Much of the book remains valuable and interesting.And, of course, though I disagree with some of his premises and conclusions, I applaud and value his efforts to extend American philosophy into generally unexplored or overlooked domains.Engaging with Wilshire's work has only strengthened and refined my own basic commitment to pragmatism.

Wilshire really gets at a new vision in this book!
Bruce Wilshire continues on a fearless path beyond traditional philosophical abstractions and what passes for "common sense" in our culture in order to open up new vistas on reality and the renewal of the spirit. This book takes the reader step by step into a deepening sense of how energies of the cosmos flow through our knowing bodies towards a new vision of existence that resonates with what Wilshire calls "primal philosophy," the mythic, and modern physics. Along the way, the reader is treated with a rereading of American philosophy, especially the work of William James, John Dewey and Charles Pierce, that uncovers the radical energies in their writing and a connection with the philosophical wisdom of Native American tribal groups, other indigenous peoples and the power of the natural landscape. The reader will learn about aspects of American philosophy that are not usually covered, such as Dewey's poetry, Pierce's struggle with his profession or James' inner demons in a way that reveals new dimensions of their thought.Wilshire's book also makes us reconsider the restrictive role of education and of professionals, such as medical practitioners, scientific researchers and philosophy professors in casting our sense of who we are and can be. As his vision develops throughout the book with his repeated consideration of Black Elk's pivotal cure, the reader finds himself or herself in the midst of energy flows and depths of archetypal significance that can liberate us from addictions and our despair over aging, losses, and the death of those we love. Some figures who have been under-appreciated, such as William Earnest Hocking or Henry Bugbee, as well as those who have perhaps been over-appreciated, such as Richard Rorty, are seen in a new light. Other writers, who have been taken to be central to American Letters, Thoreau and Emerson, but who have not been properly appreciated for their philosophical depth are articulated by Wilshire as our key philosophical thinkers. Two major accomplishments of this book are to embody the sense of spirit and to place American philosophy in a different context. Spirit becomes a fleshly phenomenon of the entire Earth communicated among its members in rhythm and song. Wilshire is particularly adept at considering the body-self, as he calls it, in its visceral and passionate engagement. Surprises abound, once American philosophy is no longer seen as a poor relative of European philosophy, but is the unique voice of the power of the Earth and of indigenous peoples coming together with these newer peoples who came to settle this continent. American feminism can be seen in its inspiration from matrilineal Native American traditions, and the shaman is the figure to call us home to kinship with the Earth and its creatures, not the solitary reflective thinker. Philosophy returns to awe and resonance. The books ends with an amazing essay about the spiritual significance of the death of the author's gifted daughter and the energies that may persist beyond this ultimate boundary. We follow Wilshire into an unfathomable depth and find physics and Earth-centered spirituality agreed on welcoming the Unlocatable and the Unsayable. ... Read more

Book Description
The editor, Iso Kern, of the three volumes on intersubjectivity in Husserliana XIII-XV, observes that in his Nachlass Husserl probably refers to no other lecture so often as this one, i.e., The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (1910-1911). Husserl regarded this work (along with the 1907 "Five Lectures") as basic for his theory of the phenomenological reduction. He regarded these lectures as equally fundamental for the theory of empathy and intersubjectivity, for his theory of the life-world, and for his planned "great systematic work." It contrasts favorably with several later "introductions" because, although quite brief, it has a larger scope than they do and conveys in a relatively elementary way to the students the sense of fresh new beginnings. Further, with the appendices, it reveals Husserl in a critical dialogue with himself. That the second part of the lectures was never written down, can be accounted for in part, because at that time Husserl was busy writing the 1911 path-breaking essay, which complements these lectures, "Philosophy as a Rigorous Science." ... Read more