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The current fashions in both analytic and continental philosophy are staunchly anti-metaphysical. There is supposedly no way to talk about the world itself — the philosopher is confined to antiseptic discussions of language, or of other modes of human access to the world. In this provocative work, Graham Harman expands the discussion from his previous book, Tool-Being, arguing for a theory of "the carpentry of things" — a more accessible way of viewing the world that incorporates ideas from Husserl, Levinas, Lingis, and other philosophers. ... Read more

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Interesting, but rather rediculous in the end
I've read this book twice.At first I was quite excited by the ideas and the approach Harman was taking.Now I'm less so.Anyone who is really excited about metaphysics and speculative philosophy should read this.Harman is WILDLY speculative, however.

What I do not like:

Ultimately, one gets the feeling that this book is a bit worthless and something akin to fiction rather than genuinely "philosophical" material.Harman combines Bergson, Whitehead, Heidegger, Aristotle, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Ortega y Gasset, Levinas, Lingis, Latour, and others without *really* taking advantage of what these authors exploited in order to make their philosophies great, such as: concrete phenomenology, cosmology, psychology, or natural science.

The whole thing is a bit....contrived.Harman often makes these grand claims about beginning a new wave of ultra-spectulative ultra-realist metaphysics (semi-reminiscent of a more entertianing and more easily readible version of Husserl's repetitive proclaiming: "back to the things themselves!" in his middle-period when writing IDEAS, always returning to beginnings and the working out of methods) without ever *really* beginning.That is, without ever *really* engaging objects, Harman constantly discusses how one *might* engage them in the future via his metaphysical notions (i.e., vicarious causation, fission/fusion, etc.).Perhaps this work should be viewed as preliminary.Still, if you don't mind this caveat, his work is rewarding.

What still makes Harman's work worthwhile:

-Has a kind of rigorous logic to it, similar to the style of Plotinus.You're 'lured' in by seemingly commonsensicle propositions which lead one to wild conclusions. This leaves you scratching your chin a bit, wondering how you were lead down such a path, and where the imperceptible twist occured where things went from everyday to strange so quickly.

-Wonderful writing style, excellent descriptions. Its like "eye candy" for the reader's imagination at times.

-It is an interesting synthesis of different ideas.

-Harman is clear because he reviews and repeats his ideas over and over again. This makes it impossible for the reader to be unsure about what has been said thus far at any stage in the development of his argument.But, simultanously, this can make the book a bit monotonous at times.

-A kind of originality.While it seems to me that Harman's principles for how objects act upon other objects are largely based upon linguistic devices (i.e., metaphor, metonymy, etc.) and his iffy interpretation of Heidegger's fourfold, the way Harman presents these ideas has an originality, which, if it proves useful for ACTUAL metaphysical explanations of the universe of objects, would be, at a minimum, highly original and thought provoking.

Well, thats about all I can think of for now.

Worldly flesh
It is easy to mistake Graham Harman with an unorthodox Heideggerian, but in this work he develops a philosophy which is, at its core, genuinely independent of Heidegger. Guerilla Metaphysics begins with the objection that both analytical and continental traditions are not interested in objects, but in human access to them. Harman proposes a philosophy which does not aim to reconcile the analytical with the continental, but instead is determined to free metaphysics from its anthropocentric residues and reclaim it on behalf of a direct contact with all nonhuman entities. This is the main objective of Harman's object-oriented philosophy which is comprehensively laid out and pursued step by step. As a "carnal phenomenologist" and a "guerilla carpenter" Harman writes a book that resembles a novel imagined by Alain Robbe-Grillet, but written by William James. Following his renowned teacher Alphonso Lingis, Harman develops a cheerful style which is preoccupied with all sorts of earthly objects such as pollens, bicycles, chess boards, pebbles, puppies, and beads in the most alluring way. For people who imagine that fresh thoughts in philosophy are not possible any more, Guerilla Metaphysics is a lively refutation.

To the being of beings
Since most philosophical writing of high caliber usually comes in the obtuse-to-American-ears stylings of continental French and German academia, Graham Harman's book makes for a brilliant gem of thought to American readers interested in high caliber philosophy. Along the lines of Alphonso Lingis, this book flies the flag of a refreshing and inventive turn away from the long obsession with liguistic subjectivity in philosophy departments, demonstrating a movement toward phenomenological reacquaintence with things themselves. This is exciting, intense, relevant philosophy. ... Read more

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This book follows up the developments inphenomenology discussed in Phenomenology andthe "Theological Turn": The French Debate, attempting toestablish what potentialities in the phenomenologicalmethod exist at present. ... Read more

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The essays in this volume focus on some of the topics that are shaping recent continental philosophy of religion. These primary topics include self and other, evil and suffering, religion and society and the relation between philosophy and theology. The articles are by an international group of leading contributors to recent continental philosophy of religion.

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Customer Reviews (5)

30+ missing pages....
While I agree with other reviewers that this is an excellent introduction to Husserl's work, I am giving this book one star because it came to me missing pgs. 119-150. That is a significant printing error!! Unfortunately I did not catch this until after my window for returning it had expired, so I have to shell out the money again. I hate providing a bad rating, because it does not reflect on the author or the content, but I do want to ensure others avoid a similar fate.

Zahavi shows his masterful understanding of Husserl
In _Husserl's Phenomenology_ Zahavi has really blown me away with how much he could fit into such a short amount of space with such clarity.This is, without a doubt, the best slim volume written on Husserl to date.

Very concise, supremely competent
At first glance, it seems improbable that Zahavi's slim volume (the text is only 144 pages) could do justice to the voluminous, minutely argued, stylstically challenged, sometimes tortured work of Edmund Husserl.In fact such a suspicion is well-taken, since no single volume that anyone could carry is likely to exhaust all the possibilities for commentary that Husserl inspires.But it is hard for me to imagine that anyone could write a better introduction in terms of lucidly and precisely explicating the central themes of Husserl's phenomenology.Any normal mortal who is seriously interested in Husserl would profit from reading this book.

The themes that have given students the greatest difficulty are treated concisely and with an elegance of expression that belies a deep understanding on Zahavi's part.These include intentionality, the nature of evidence and "apodicticity," the transcendental reduction and epoche, the balance of idealism and realism in Husserl's thought, the transcendental ego and constitution, time consciousness, the body, intersubjectivity, and the life world.The discussion of idealism/realism is very good, to a great extent owing to Zahavi's encyclopedic knowledge of all of Husserl's work -- both the major works published during or shortly after his lifetime, and the Husserliana, Husserl's notes and lectures that have only been available fairly recently.The discussion of the body, particularly in its role as both subject and object, and the foundation for intersubjectivity, is also extremely useful.The discussion of intersubjectivity is nothing short of superb.And the discussion of the life world, and the complexities and subtleties that this idea interjects into Husserl's developing understanding of the phenomenological project, is quite valuable.

It is a measure of how good this book is that I like it in spite of fundamentally disagreeing with several of the author's central arguments about how Husserl should be interpreted.Zahavi is one of a growing number of revisionists that challenge the traditional interpretation of Husserl.The traditional interpretation is held by explicators and anthologists such as Dermot Moran (Introduction to Phenomenology, Routledge, 2000), and other philosophers such as Paul Ricouer (Husserl: an Analysis of his Phenomenology, Northwestern, 1967), Leszek Kolakowski (Husserl and the Search for Certitude, St. Augustine's Press, 1975), and Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton, 1979).This tradition sees Husserl as the culmination of a philosophical line that begins with Descartes, touches upon the skepticism of Hume, and comes to its fullest statement in Kant.It emphasizes Husserl's debt to Descartes, his focus on subjectivity as the basis and origin of knowledge, a radical understanding of Husserl's doctrine of the ego's activity in constituting the given world, the foundationalist nature of Husserl's approach, and the consequent disjuncture between Husserl and the continental philosophers -- hermeneuticists, existentialists, and postmodernists -- that come after him.Not surprisingly, the revisionists tend to take opposing positions on each of these points.Examples of revisionist commentary in addition to Zahavi's are The Cambridge Companion to Husserl (Cambridge, 1995), and The New Husserl (Donn Welton, ed., Indiana, 2003).

Some correction of the received wisdom on Husserl is probably in order.It is possible to take an overly restrictive view of his treatment of subjectivity, for instance.But a couple of Zahavi's arguments just seem wrong to me.For instance, Zahavi argues that Husserl is not a foundationalist thinker.This is a difficult position to maintain in the face of Husserl's oft repeated claim that through phenomenology philosophy can finally fulfill its promise of a life lived according to reason alone.He also argues, against a number of other interpreters, that Husserl is able to escape the solipsism that is implied by the radical focus on subjectivity set forth at the beginning of the Crisis and the Cartesian Meditations, among other places.Here he points to the extensive attention that Husserl gives to "intersubjectivity," the objectivity leant to the external world by the overlapping of the consciousnesses of multiple subjects.My constitution of a particular object must take into account the consitution of the same object by others.But the problem for Husserl, as for Descartes before him, is not one of focus but of method.The question is how either, given the radical subjectivity of their initial methodology, can build a bridge to an objectively existing world.Descartes relies on God.Husserl offers a tortured doctrine of "the Other."Many, including some of Husserl's disciples, believe that neither approach is altogether satisfactory.

One of the well-taken points made by many of the revisionists, however, is that the relative neglect of Husserl in favor of later thinkers such as Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, and Gadamer is not justified.Husserl changed the face of continental philosophy, and gave much to analytical philosophy as well.Happily, because of his work among thers, Zahavi can say that "Husserl is no longer simply regarded as a surpassed chapter in the history of phenomenology."

Zahavi's Husserlian Phenomenology
Dan Zahavi is widely recognized for his numerous contributions to different areas of Husserlian scholarship and his expertise in these areas of research are reflected, as he admits freely, in the selection of themes with which the strengths of Husserl's phenomenology are introduced and exhibited. The themes of time, body, inter-subjectivity and life-world, with which Zahavi navigates the expansion of transcendental phenomenology in Husserl's later thinking, attest to the range of Zahavi's familiarity with Husserl's written corpus. His specialized work is, I think, best characterized by its intellectual dexterity, as it operates on and across different fronts simultaneously: correcting mistaken and uninformed views of Husserl's phenomenology, not only by way of scrupulous reconstructions of Husserl's arguments but also by way of original research into Husserl's vast Nachlaß; reflecting on and engaging with recent trends in Husserlian scholarship, not only on both sides of the Atlantic but also on both sides of the Rhine; and assessing the defining claims of Husserlian phenomenology with an ear for and an openness to contemporary discussions in analytic philosophy of mind and epistemology. All of these strengths of Zahavi's specialized studies richly inform Husserl's Phenomenology, which confidently weaves a course through sympathetic reconstructions of key Husserlian arguments, the dismantling of widespread misconceptions afflicting Husserlian phenomenology, redressing apparent inconsistencies in Husserl's views and staking out Husserl's positions vis-à-vis contemporary debates. Through-out, Zahavi's discussion of Husserl's concepts expertly attains what has often eluded other notable introductions to phenomenology: a balance between the complex talk of phenomenology, the continual shifting and development of Husserl's views, and the teasing out of arguments in an accessible manner that speaks to a broad range of philosophical talent, and not just to those long initiated to the esoteric domain of the phenomenological reduction. Striking a perfect balance is perhaps an impossible ideal; but in the form of Zahavi's introduction, we have a text that remains readable from beginning to end that does not, however, shy away from technical discussions nor from wrestling with the profounder issues that define the enduring significance of Husserl's phenomenology. An introduction should not only introduce the basic concepts and arguments that define a philosophy, it should also introduce readers to what is philosophically at stake in it-both tasks are executed with aplomb in Husserl's Phenomenology.

In the first section, `The Early Husserl: Logic, Epistemology, and Intentionality,' we are introduced to Husserl's phenomenology in the form of an introduction to the central concept of intentionality, as first developed in the Logical Investigations. Zahavi rightly seizes on the concept of intentionality as a vehicle with which to present the basic orientation of Husserl's phenomenology but also as providing the central plot to the unfolding of the phenomenological drama. The more notable moments in this first section are an especially succinct and lucid account of Husserl's tripartite distinction of act, meaning, and object and a well-tempered appraisal of phenomenology's metaphysical neutrality. The second section, `Husserl's Turn to Transcendental Philosophy: Epoché, Reduction, and Transcendental Idealism,' sets Husserl's controversial "transcendental turn" in the context of unresolved ambiguities in Husserl's early conception of intentionality. The ambiguous status of the intentional correlate coupled with the basic "anti-metaphysical" orientation of phenomenology motivates, for Zahavi, Husserl's transcendental turn. The novel methodological instruments of epoché and reduction and the decisive, if nonetheless ambiguous concept of the noema are well presented in this section and Zahavi here convincingly argues how interpretative questions surrounding the concept of noema are crucial for deciding and clarifying the sense in which Husserl's brand of transcendental idealism over-comes a series of traditional distinctions: idealism / realism; internalism / externalism; subject / object. In the process of following the motivation and strategy of Husserl's transcendental turn, a number of widespread misunderstandings of Husserl's phenomenology (mainly: the overly simplistic "Cartesian" image of Husserl) are confidently undone on the strength of explaining the relationship between the "Cartesian and Ontological" ways to the reduction. This section ends with an extremely truncated report of Husserl's notion of constitution that unhesitatingly opts for a Heideggerian interpretation of constitution as a "process of disclosing." In the final and to my mind best section of the book, `The Later Husserl: Time, Body, Intersubjectivity, and Lifeworld,' a suggestion made at the end of the second section is expanded into a panoramic view of the expansion of transcendental phenomenology. At the end of the second section, Zahavi claimed that "constitution" is not a one-sided affair for Husserl involving a solitary subjectivity, but rather must involve what Zahavi terms the three "transcendental constituents" of subjectivity, intersubjectivity and world. Each of the four themes treated in this third section is meant to further articulate in detail the significance of this proposal and the entire section is subsumed under the undisputable claim that Husserl's later thinking is characterized by an expansion of the transcendental domain-a process largely motivated by the inclusion of inter-subjectivity and world into the nexus of constitution. Zahavi's nimble discussion of his four themes covers much complicated ground in an expertly manner. However, his treatment of intersubjectivity is, to my mind, the high-point of this section; his argument that there is not one but at least three concepts of intersubjectivity coupled with his claim that Husserl does not regard the intersubjective transformation of transcendental philosophy as implicating a rejection of subjectivity but, rather, its radicalization, are compellingly argued. On the basis of Zahavi's third section alone, we would be convinced that Husserl is not a "surpassed chapter in the history of phenomenology." Taking all three sections of Husserl's Phenomenology together, we can also no longer avoid recognizing that Husserl is equally not a surpassed chapter in the history of philosophy.

Dan Zahavi's Husserlian Phenomenology is unquestionably one of the most accessible and engaging introductions to Husserl's complex thinking. Undergraduates at any level of study as well as individuals versed in other fields of philosophy would do themselves well to read this book.

Great Husserl introduction
The book is concise, clear, and up to date. The best introduction to Husserl currently available. ... Read more

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Available for the first time in English!

Winner of the Prix Médicis Essai!

Marginalized by the scientific age with its metaphysical and philosophical systems, the lessons of the senses have been overtaken by the dominance of language and the information revolution.

Exploring the deleterious effects of the systematic downgrading of the senses in Western philosophy, Michel Serres -- a member of the Académie Française and one of France's leading philosophers -- traces a topology of human perception. Writing against the Cartesian tradition and in praise of empiricism, he demonstrates repeatedly, and lyrically, the sterility of systems of knowledge divorced from bodily experience.

The fragile empirical world, long resistant to our attempts to contain and catalog it, is disappearing beneath the relentless accumulations of late capitalist society and information technology. Data has replaced sensory pleasure, we are less interested in the taste of a fine wine than in the description on the bottle's label. What are we, and what do we really know, when we have forgotten that our senses can describe a taste more accurately than language ever could? ... Read more

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`Sanctity of life' and `human dignity' are two bioethicalconcepts that play an important role in bioethical discussions.Despite their separate history and content, they have similarfunctions in these discussions. In many cases they are used to bring adifficult or controversial debate to an end. They serve asunquestionable cornerstones of morality, as rocks able to weather thestorms of moral pluralism. This book provides the reader with analysesof these two concepts from different philosophical, professional andcultural points of view. Sanctity of Life and Human Dignitypresents a comparative analysis of both concepts. ... Read more

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Against traditional interpretations, which claim either that Heidegger has rendered all accounts of subjectivity - and consequently of ethics - impossible, or, on the contrary, that Heidegger merely renews the modern metaphysics of subjectivity, Raffoul demonstrates how Heidegger's destruction/deconstruction of the subject opens the space for a radically non-subjectivistic formulation of human being. Raffoul reconstitutes and analyses Heidegger's debate with the great thinkers of subjectivity (Descartes, Kant, Husserl), in order to show that Heidegger's 'destructive' reading of the modern metaphysics of subjectivity is, in fact, a positive re-appropriation of the ontological foundations of the subject. Raffoul's recasting of Heidegger's work on human subjectivity should prove indispensable in future debates on the fate of the subject in the post-modern era. ... Read more

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Afirst-rate analysis of Heidegger's thought of selfhood
This is a first-rate and thorough analysis of Heidegger's thought of selfhood, from the early writings focusing on fundamental ontology to the last seminars in the late sixties and early seventies. Raffoul provides an in-depth treatment of Heidegger's critique of the tradition of the subject, particularly through close readings of Descartes and Kant. He then carefully unfolds Heidegger's ontological appropriation of the subject, focusing on Heidegger's thought of Dasein, of transcendence and being-in-the-world, ecstasis and reflection. The work culminates in a meditation on Heidegger's notion of 'mineness' (Jemeinigkeit), a notion that indicates that the event of being is 'each time mine,' that is, each time my own task to be. Raffoul thus argues that Heidegger's thought is not without a reflection on the proper being of human beings, and that his critique of the subject opens onto a renewed understanding of what it means to be human.This is an important work, for it engages Heidegger's texts rigorously while staying away from sterile polemics. It is both a contribution to Heidegger studies and to the task of a philosophical rethinking of selfhood. ... Read more

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Continental Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction looks at the development of the tradition, tracing it back from Kant to the present day. Taking a thematic approach, the book carefully attempts to establish the continental framework in terms of the major, as well as less-well known, thinkers. ... Read more

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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

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Outside the Cosmos
Titled "The Human Place in the Cosmos", Max Scheler's book finds that the human place is largely outside the Cosmos. Scheler (1874 -- 1928), was a German philosopher who studied with Dilthey and Simmel.His own pupils included Edith Stein, and he deeply influenced other thinkers including Merleau-Ponty and Pope John Paul II. Scheler was deeply influenced by Edmund Husserl's phenomenology even though he became a sharp critic of Husserl. Before Scheler's death, Martin Heidegger called him the most important force in the philosophy of his day.

"The Human Place in the Cosmos" was Scheler's final work and appeared just before his death in 1928.It is short, difficult, and dense -- more of a essay than a fully developed book. This edition was publishedin 2009 in the "Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy" series of Northwestern University.The translation is by the late Manfred Frings (1925 -- 2008), the editor of Scheler's collected works, with an introduction, notes, and glossary of Scheler's philosophical terminology by Professor Eugene Kelly, who has written extensively about Scheler. Kelly aptly describes Scheler's text as "an adventure in high philosophy".

This is a book for readers who think that philosophy is important in discussing the large questions of life. It is also a book which will appeal to readers with a modernist, post-religious outlook.In other words, Scheler seeks to find meaning and spirituality in life but not within traditional theism or religion. Some of the thinkers that receive attention in this book are the Buddha, Spinoza, and William James. A good background in thinking about philosophical questions and a willingness to study a text closely are helpful in approaching this book.

Scheler describes his book as a "philosophical anthropology" and says its aim is to address two questions: "what is the human being and what is his place in being?" Scheler finds three broad answers to the questions, each of which includes insights but are individually unsatisfactory: 1. The Jewish-Christian view of creationism; 2. the Greek view of reason and participation in logos; 3. the view of the natural sciences, evolutionary biology, and genetics.Scheler's develops his own answers to these questions which begin with inorganic matter and work up through plants and animals to determine what human beings share with other forms of things and how they differ.He then approaches his questions from the other direction, so to speak, to try to understand the role of human beings in what he terms the cosmos.

The crux of the book is in the development of what Scheler calls spirit. Spirit is what makes people human and which separates them from other living things. The development of spirit is what human beings ultimately share with the cosmos and with large reality. Scheler's understanding of "spirit" is difficult and should not be confused with "soul" or with "mind" in idealism or Cartesian dualism. For Scheler, spirit is not a thing or a substance. Animals show a greater or lesser degree of instinctual, associative or possibly reasoning ability to protect themeselves and to find food and sex.Human beings show a much greater problem-solving ability. But only humans have an ability to step outside their surroundings, objectify them, and ask themselves what they mean. This ability to step back and reflect, Scheler calls Spirit, and it is a process and an ongoing subject rather than a thing. For all his criticism, this strikes me as a Husserelian approach.

Scheler develops a Spinozistic answer to the relationship between physical process and mental processes, finding that both are two sides of the same thing unified together by spirit.Spirit stands aside from pragmatic issues and searches for meaning through art, law, literature, music, philosophy. It enables people to say "no" to their impulses, upon occasion, in a way animals cannot do. Scheler's understanding of spirit differs from that of traditional religions and earlier philosophies. Most importantly, Scheler's spirit is a weak, difficult reed.It has now power of its own, unlike, say, a transcendental God, and only fully comes through rarely, at the upper reaches of human effort. "Short and rare is what is beautiful in its tenderness and vulnerability", Scheler writes (p.47).While animals are enclosed in their lives and in the environment, human beings live outside of it, in rare moments, through spirit, reflectiveness, and the objectification of their environment.Hence the human place "in the cosmos" is "outside the cosmos."

With its existence "outside the cosmos" spirit tries to find meaning in God or other forms of transcendence.But it is not to be found there for Scheler, but rather from within. Meaning and transcendence are developing concepts that come from below, rather than from above. Thus it is the role of human beings through the generations to develop their varying understandings of spirit.At the conclusion of the book, Scheler writes:

"One might tell me at this point, and, indeed, I was once told, that it is impossible to bear the idea of an unfinished and God-in-becoming.My answer is that metaphysics is not an insurance company for weak people in need of protection.Metaphysics requires and presupposes human beings with strong and courageous minds." (p. 66)

Readers with a strong interest in philosophical and religious questions will benefit from studying Scheler's book.

Robin Friedman

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In this fresh translation of five lectures delivered in 1907 atthe University of Göttingen, Edmund Husserl lays out thephilosophical problem of knowledge, indicates the requirements for itssolution, and for the first time introduces the phenomenologicalmethod of reduction. For those interested in the genesis anddevelopment of Husserl's phenomenology, this text affords a uniqueglimpse into the epistemological motivation of his work, his conceptof intentionality, and the formation of central phenomenologicalconcepts that will later go by the names of `transcendentalconsciousness', the `noema', and the like. As a teaching text,The Idea of Phenomenology is ideal: it is brief, it isunencumbered by the technical terminology of Husserl's later work, itbears a clear connection to the problem of knowledge as formulated inthe Cartesian tradition, and it is accompanied by a translator'sintroduction that clearly spells out the structure, argument, andmovement of the text. ... Read more

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A Bit Pricey but Good
The Idea of Phenomenology is Volume VIII of the recent Husserl's Collected Works Series published by Kluwer.This small text consists of five short lectures (and some immediate post-lecture reflections) given by Husserl in 1907.These lectures represent the first public exposition of his phenomenology and are reminiscent of Descartes' Meditations - in that Husserl grapples with the question of knowledge.Lee Hardy's new English translation is generally clear and readable.Although probably for a limited readership, I recommend it for fans of Husserl and readers interested in the origins of phenomenology.
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"(This) account constitutes one valuable introduction to Husserl's philosophy". -- International Philosophical Quarterly ... Read more

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Superb book by a consummate expert on Husserl
This book is an outstanding presentation of Husserl's philosophy. The book draws upon important texts that are not readily available to English-speaking readers (e.g., the Husserls' lectures in Amsterdam and Paris), and it provides a careful analysis of how Husserl's ideas evolved over time. It provides a lucid account of the relation between phenomenological psychology and transcendental phenomenology. Chapter Seven ("The Transcendental Problem: Its Origin and Its Quasi-Solution by Psychologism") describes the origins of the concept of the transcendental and presents an account of how that concept evolved in the thought of Kant and Husserl. That chapter also discusses the evolution of Descarte's concept of the cogito. Dr. Kockelmans' understanding of Husserl's thought and of Husserl's importance to the history of philosophy is impeccable. He is currently Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Penn State. I had the good fortune of attending quite a few of his classes and seminars in the 1970s. He is a man of deep and abiding compassion. He was a superb teacher who invariably presented his subject with elegance, grace, critical exactitude, transparent clarity, and sublime intellectual humility. This book is a fine book, and I highly recommended it to anyone with an interest Husserl, phenomenology, and transcendental idealism.

not really inspiring
Unfortunately Kockelman's book turned out to be a encyclopedic summary of Husserlian phenomenology, and as such much poorer and less illuminative than the Brittanica article of Husserl's which was similar in aim, and which is the movement point for this book. Students of some intelligence need books that are really engaging and developing, and not just encyclopedic knowledge. Of course by reading this sort of a book we may learn definitions of concepts like noema and noemata, but I believe we would better have no idea of a subject than having a junk of poor and lifeless concepts. I would recommend the reader, especially the more sophisticated and good-willed one, to turn to Husserl's own numerous introductions like Cartesian Meditations or the Crisis even if he does not know much phenomenology, and put some sweat into them. Still this book might be helpful with some undergraduate exams- to'fill in' papers.

kockelmans' approach clairvoyant, rigorous but "smooth"
Prof. Kockelmans navigates the reader (even the uninitiated, as was I) through the prinicpal features of Husserl's thought.His writing is extremely well-structured, such that the reader's comprehension proceeds in equal rhythm with the author's careful explanations.After studying some medieval philosophy with Prof. Kockelmans I can confidently say that his understanding of the history of thought, art, and science are inspiring; all of this adds to the finish of the book.His style is never cumbersome--though he retains all of the slippery terminology of the discipline--and his summary is without superfluity.This is a highly important and recommendable work. Jason Stell ... Read more

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Excellent book in great condition
The price was right and the service was excellent.I needed the book urgently and it arrived promptly.

Cutting Edge Research Methodology
Dr. Giorgi et al. lay out the phenomenological approach in a very understandable way. Not only is the philosophical foundation explained well, the method is delineated step by step so that the novice can begin to apply it.

The phenomenological method provides an approach that preserves the "voice" of the research participants while maintaining sufficient objective analysis in the process. The chapter authors provide examples of research in which the method was applied. I believe, "seeing is believing" when one reads a phenomenological psychological research report. Unlike the dominant quantitative research methods, one does not have to understand statistics and theory-laden psychological terminology. The phenomenological approach provides a descriptive psychology rather than and interpretive psychology wherein the veracity of its results is lain bare for review by the reader.

In sum, the phenomenological methodology presented in this book provides a sound alternative to those research methods and philosophies that were invented for the physical sciences. For one to fully appreciate the contrast between this cutting edge research methodology and those dominating experimental psychology today, reading Dr. Giorgi's Psychology as a human Science a Phenomenologically Based Approach, published in 1970 by Harper and Row Publishers. ... Read more

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This work provides the first book-length study on Heidegger's relation to the philosophy of religion, offering greater accessibility into an area that continues to fascinate philosophers, theologians, and all those interested in the philosophy of religion. The book deals intimately with hotly debated topics such as Heidegger's interpretation of Saint Paul, Nietzsche and the death of God, ontotheology, and Heidegger's discussion of the 'last god', taking into account the early, middle, and later texts of Heidegger. Significantly, Vedder draws heavily on Heidegger's "The Phenomenology of Religious Life", long available in German, but only recently available to English readers. Vedder describes the tension between religion and philosophy, on the one hand, and religion and poetic expression, on the other. If we grasp religion completely from a philosophical point of view, we tend to neutralise it; but if we conceive it in a simply poetic way, we tend to be philosophically indifferent to it. Vedder demonstrates how Heidegger speaks a 'poetry of religion', a description of humanity's relationship to the divine, and why Heidegger's thinking is ultimately a theological thinking. ... Read more

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Offering a diversity of strategies and approaches to the philosophical issues involved in reading and thinking about the Presocratics in the wake of Martin Heidegger's thought, the authors explicate the thinking of key figures such as Homer, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Empedocles. The philosophical problems of logos, logic, truth, history, tradition, ethics, and tragedy are presented and re-thought in relation to Heidegger's thinking. Not only is the role of the Presocratics in Heidegger's reading re-thought but also, following a trajectory opened up by Heidegger, questions and readings of the Presocratics that he himself did not broach are pursued. These include: How does logos change in Heidegger's dialogue with the Presocratics? What is the place of the Presocratics in the "other inception" of thinking? How is Heidegger's reading of tragedy also a dialogue with Nietzsche and Holderlin? How do concealment and disclosure function in Homer's corpus? Do the pronouncements of Anaximander bring us to think the beginning of history and to question the need for ethics and justice? How does Anaximenes come to think and speak all that manifests itself? What is the role of presence in Parmenides' divine pedagogy? How does Heidegger come to remember Heraclitus and what is the disruptive nature of Heraclitus' sayings? ... Read more

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This important book brings together in one volume a collection of illuminating encounters with some of the most important philosophers of our age by one of its most incisive and innovative critics.

For more than twenty years, Richard Kearney has been in conversation with leading philosophers, literary theorists, anthropologists, and religious scholars. His gift is eliciting memorably clear statements about their work from thinkers whose writings can often be challenging in their complexity.

Here, he brings together twenty-one originally published extraordinary conversations his 1984 collection Dialogues: The Phenomenological Heritage, his 1992 Visions of Europe: Conversations on the Legacy and Future of Europe, and his 1995 States of Mind: Dialogues with Contemporary Thinkers. Featured interviewees include Stainless Breton, Umber to Eco, Hans-George Gaudier, Herbert Marcus, George Steiner, Julia Kristina, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jean-Francois Lyotard. To this classic core, he adds recent interviews, previously unpublished, with Paul Ricoeur, Jean-Luc Marion, Jacques Derrida, and George Dumezil, as well as six colloquies about his own work.Wide-ranging and accessible, these interviews provide a fascinating guide to the ideas, concerns, and personalities of thinkers who have shaped modern intellectual life. This book will be an essential point of entry for students, teachers, scholars, and anyone seeking to understand contemporary culture. ... Read more