In a series of conversations, Jean-Luc Marion reconstructs a career’s path in the history of philosophy, theology, and phenomenology. Discussing such concepts as the event, the gift, and the saturated phenomenon, Marion elaborates the rigor displayed by the things themselves. He discusses the major stages of his work and offers his views on the forces that have driven his thought.The conversation ranges from Marion’s engagement with Descartes, to phenomenology and theology, to Mari...

Walter Lowrie's classic, bestselling translation of Søren Kierkegaard's most important and popular books remains unmatched for its readability and literary quality. Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death established Kierkegaard as the father of existentialism and have come to define his contribution to philosophy. Lowrie's translation, first published in 1941 and later revised, was the first in English, and it has introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to Kie...

The present attempt to introduce the general philosophical reader to the Phenomenological Movement by way of its history has itself a history which is pertinent to its objective. It may suitably be opened by the following excerpts from a review which Herbert W. Schneider of Columbia University, the Head of the Division for International Cultural Cooperation, Department of Cultural Activities of Unesco from 1953 to 56, wrote in 1950 from France: The influence of Husserl has revolutionized c...

The concept of the imaginary is pervasive within contemporary thought, yet can be a baffling and often controversial term. In Imagination and the Imaginary, Kathleen Lennon explores the links between imagination - regarded as the faculty of creating images or forms - and the imaginary, which links such imagery with affect or emotion and captures the significance which the world carries for us.Beginning with an examination of contrasting theories of imagination proposed by ...

This edited collection discusses phenomenological critiques of formalism and their relevance to the problem of responsibility and the life-world. The book deals with themes of formalization of knowledge in connection to the life-world, the natural world, the history of science and our responsibility for both our epistemic claims and the world in which we live. Readers will discover critiques of formalization, the life-world and responsibility, and a collation and comparison of Patočka’s an...

This study, originally published in 1977, focuses on a critical examination of the life-work of Alfred Schutz, the most important and influential ‘father’ of several recent schools of empirical social research.The author shows why Shutz and his followers fail in their attempts to ‘humanize’ empirical social science. The problems they encounter, he argues, are due to their attempt to achieve a methodological synthesis of self-determining subjectivity and empirical criteria of valida...

Addressing Merleau-Ponty's work Phenomenology of Perception, in dialogue with The Visible and the Invisible, his lectures at the Collège de France, and his reading of Proust, this book argues that at play in his thought is a philosophy of “ontological lateness”. This describes the manner in which philosophical reflection is fated to lag behind its objects; therefore an absolute grasp on being remains beyond its reach.Merleau-Ponty articulates this philosophy again...

What role do fables play in Cartesian method and psychology? By looking at Descartes’ use of fables, James Griffith suggests there is a fabular logic that runs to the heart of Descartes’ philosophy. First focusing on The World and the Discourse on Method, this volume shows that by writing in fable form, Descartes allowed his readers to break from Scholastic methods of philosophizing. With this fable-structure or -logic in mind, the book reexamines the relationship between...

The first part of this textbook introduces philosophy to the reader as a part of culture, in addition to science, religion, art. It outlines various disciplines of philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, philosophy of mind etc. The second part maps the understanding of history, or the philosophical reflection of history in the history of philosophy.

Jacques Rancière's work has challenged many of the assumptions of contemporary continental philosophy by placing equality at the forefront of emancipatory political thought and aesthetics. Drawing on the claim that egalitarian politics persistently appropriates elements from political philosophy to engage new forms of dissensus, Devin Zane Shaw argues that Rancière's work also provides an opportunity to reconsider modern philosophy and aesthetics in light of the question of equality. In Pa...

This book intertwines phenomenological fieldwork with a wide range of Heidegger’s writings to explore how our everyday uses of mobile media technologies permit a unique avenue to rediscover poiēsis, our creative cultivation that is simultaneously a bringing forth, a revealing. Shining a light on poiēsis better allows us to see how human beings are, at their core, dwellers that disclose worlds and cultivate meaning. In our chaotic modern world, our ability to appreciate th...

This book explores the relation between Heidegger, Levinas and Derrida by means of a dialogue with experts on the work of these mutually influential thinkers. Each essay in this collection focuses on the relation between at least two of these three philosophers focusing on various themes, such as Alterity, Justice, Truth and Language. By contextualising these thinkers and tracing their mutually shared themes, the book establishes the question of difference and its ongoing radicalization as...