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Bringing together established researchers and emerging scholars alike to discuss new readings of Husserl and to reignite the much needed discussion of what phenomenology actually is and can possibly be about, this volume sets out to critically re-evaluate (and challenge) the predominant interpretations of Husserl's philosophy, and to adapt phenomenology to the specific philosophical challenges and context of the 21st century.
"What is phenomenology?", Maurice Merleau-Ponty asks at the beginning of his Phenomenology of Perception - and he continues: "It may seem strange that this question still has to be asked half a century after the first works of Husserl. It is, however, far from being resolved." Even today, more than half a century after Merleau-Ponty's magnum opus, the answer is in many ways still up for grasp. While it may seem obvious that the main subject of phenomenological inquiry is, in fact, the subject, it is anything but self evident what this precisely implies: Considering the immense variety of different themes and methodological self-revisions found in Husserl's philosophy - from its Brentanian beginnings to its transcendental re-interpretation and, last but not least, to its 'crypto-deconstruction' in the revisions of his early manuscripts and in his later work -, one cannot but acknowledge the fact that 'the' subject of phenomenology marks an irreducible plurality of possible subjects.
Paying tribute to this irreducible plurality the volume sets out to develop interpretative takes on the phenomenological tradition which transcend both its naive celebration and its brute rejection, to re-articulate the positions of other philosophers within the framework of Husserl's thought, and to engage in an investigative dialogue between traditionally opposed camps within phenomenology and beyond.
List of contents
Part I. The Phenomenological Project: Definition and Scope.- 1. An Analytical Phenomenology. Husserl's Path to the Things Themselves (Jean-Daniel Thumser).- 2. Parts, Wholes, and Phenomenological A Priori (Adam Konopka).- 3. The Early Husserl between Structuralism and Transcendental Philosophy (Simone Aurora).- 4. Husserl and the Search for a Less Naïve Realism about Ideals (Molly Brigid Flynn).- 5. Philosophy as an Exercise in Exaggeration: The Role of Circularity in Husserl's Criticism of Logical Psychologism (Vedran Grahovac).- 6. Truth and Method in Husserl's Transcendental Phenomenology (Iulian Apostolescu).- 7. Transcendental Subjectivity: Subject, Object, or Neither? (Corijn van Mazijk).- Part 2. The Unfolding of Phenomenological Philosophy.- 8. Husserl´s Idea of Rigorous Science and its Relevance for the Human and Social Sciences (Victor Gelan).- 9. The Phenomenon of I-Split in the Transcendental Philosophies of Kant and Husserl (Marco Cavallaro).- 10. What is Productive Imagination? The Hidden Resources of Husserl's Phenomenology of Phantasy (Saulius Geniusas).- 11. Does Husserl's Phenomenology lead to Pluralistic Solipsism? (Rodney Parker).- 12. Finding a Way Into Genetic Phenomenology (Matt Bower).- 13. A Strange Vexierbild. Husserl and Fink on the Unity of Transcendental and Natural Subjectivity (Péter András Varga).- 14. The Allure of Passivity (Randall Johnson).- Part III. At the Limits of Phenomenology: Towards Phenomenology as Philosophy of Limits.- 15. Phenomenology and its Limits. The Significance of Limit-Cases for Phenomenology (Benjamin Draxlbauer).- 16. On the Verge of Subjectivity - Phenomenologies of Death (Christian Sternad).- 17. Spiritual Expression and the Promise of Phenomenology (Neal DeRoo).- 18. Individuation, Affectivity and the World: Reframing Operative Intentionality (Elodie Boublil).- 19. Husserl, Europe, and America. Reflections on the Limits of Europe as the Ground of Meaning and Value for Phenomenology (Ian Angus).- 20. Àla frontière: Merleau-Ponty and Husserl on the Crisis of Rationality (Keith Whitmoyer).- 21. Phenomenological Crossings: Givenness and Event (Emre San).- 22. Politicising the Epoché: Bernard Stiegler and the Politics of Epochal Suspension (Ben Turner).- 23. Synthesis Without Subjectivity. A Phenomenological Reading of French Historical Epistemology (David Pena-Guzman).- 24. Writing Limits. Phenomenology as Literary Practice (Phillipe Haensler).
About the author
Iulian Apostolescu is a PhD candidate at the Department of Philosophy, University of Bucharest. His research focuses on transcendental philosophy, phenomenology, continental philosophy, and philosophy of religion. He is editor-in-chief of the online journal
Phenomenological Reviews (ISSN: 2297-7627) and General Editor, Epoché Series, Ratio and Revelatio Publishing House. He is the co-editor (with Claudia Serban) of
Husserl, Kant and Transcendental Phenomenology (De Gruyter, 2020).
His current projects include two edited volumes on the German philosopher Eugen Fink and a special issue on the “Varieties of the Lebenswelt”.
Summary
Is a genuinely innovative contribution to the fieldRe-evaluates the predominant interpretations of Husserl’s philosophyBrings together established researchers and young scholars to discuss phenomenology in the 21st century
