Literature, Philosophy, and the Social Sciences : Essays in Existentialism and Phenomenology

A collection of one man's essays in book form tends to be viewed today with some suspicion, if not hostility, by philosophical critics. It would seem that the author is guilty of an academic sin of pride: causing or helping to cause separately conceived articles to surpass their original station and assume a new life, a grander articulation. It can hardly be denied that the essays which follow must face this sullen charge, for they were composed at different times for different sorts of audiences and, for the most part, have already been published. Their appearance in a new form will not allay commonplace criticisms: there are repetitions, certain key terms are defined and defined again in various places, a few quotations reappear, and, beyond this, the essays are unequal in range, depth, and fundamental intent. But it is what brings these essays together that constitutes, I trust, their collective merit. Underlying the special arguments that are to be found in each of the chapters is a particular sense of reality, not a thesis or a theory but rather a way of seeing the world and of appreciating its texture and design. It is that sense of reality that I should like to speak of here. Philosophy stands in a paradoxical relationship to mundane ex­ istence: it is at once its critique and one of its possibilities. Front Matter....Pages N2-XII Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Phenomenology: A Viewing....Pages 3-25 Phenomenology and Existentialism....Pages 26-33 Phenomenology and the Natural Attitude....Pages 34-43 The Empirical and Transcendental Ego....Pages 44-54 Being-in-Reality....Pages 55-61 Jean-Paul Sartre’s Philosophy of Freedom....Pages 62-75 Front Matter....Pages 77-77 Toward a Phenomenology of the Aesthetic Object....Pages 79-85 Phenomenology and the Theory of Literature....Pages 86-100 Existentialism and the Theory of Literature....Pages 101-115 Existential Categories In Contemporary Literature....Pages 116-130 The Privileged Moment: a Study in the Rhetoric of Thomas Wolfe....Pages 131-140 Albert Camus: Death At The Meridian....Pages 141-152 Front Matter....Pages 153-153 A Study in Philosophy and the Social Sciences....Pages 155-166 Knowledge and Alienation: Some Remarks on Mannheim’s Sociology of Knowledge....Pages 167-171 History as a Finite Province of Meaning....Pages 172-177 History, Historicity, and the Alchemistry of Time....Pages 178-194 Causation as a Structure of the Lebenswelt....Pages 195-211 Death and Situation....Pages 212-220 Back Matter....Pages 221-221