Questions of Phenomenology : Language, Alterity, Temporality, Finitude

Fran�oise Dastur is well respected in France and Europe for her mastery of phenomenology as a movement and her clear and cogent explications of phenomenology in movement. These qualities are on display in this remarkable volume. Dastur guides the reader through a series of phenomenological questions--language and logic, self and other, temporality and history, finitude and mortality--that also call phenomenology itself into question, testing its limits and pushing it in new directions. Like Merleau-Ponty, Dastur sees phenomenology not as a doctrine, a catalogue of concepts and catchphrases authored by a single thinker, but as a movement in which several thinkers participate, each inflecting the movement in unique ways. In this regard, Dastur is both one of the clearest guides to phenomenology and one of its ablest practitioners. Dastur is well respected in France and Europe for her mastery of phenomenology as a movement and her clear and cogent explications of phenomenology in movement. These qualities are on display in this remarkable volume.The book is organized into four areas of inquiry: "Language and Logic," "The Self and the Other," "Temporality and History," and "Finitude and Mortality." In each, Dastur guides the reader through a series of phenomenological questions that also serve to call phenomenology itself into question, testing its limits and pushing it in new directions. Taking a cue from Merleau-Ponty, Dastur sees phenomenology not as a doctrine, a catalogue of concepts and catchphrases authored by a single thinker, but rather as a movement in which several thinkers participate, each contributing to and inflecting the movement in unique ways.Through her critical and productive dialogue with multiple phenomenological thinkers, Dastur concisely shows each thinker's debts to and departures from others, as well as each thinker's innovations and limitations. She does this judiciously, without choosing sides because, for her, phenomenology is above all a way of thinking through a problem and practicing a method. The fecundity of the movement is appreciated only by participating in it - phenomenology has always thought of itself as philosophical research undertaken by and through a community of thinkers who share certain fundamental questions and ways of approaching those questions, even if their responses to these questions often differ. In this regard, Dastur is both one of the clearest guides to phenomenology and one of its ablest practitioners Frontmatter List of Abbreviations (page ix) Preface (page xiii) PART I: LANGUAGE AND LOGIC 1. The Logic of "Validity" (Husserl, Heidegger, Lotze) (page 3) 2. The Project of a Pure Logical Grammar (Husserl) (page 15) 3. The Problem of Pre-Predicative Experience (Husserl) (page 28) 4. The Phenomenological Gaze and Speech (Husserl and Heidegger) (page 41) PART II. THE SELF AND THE OTHER 5. Reduction and Intersubjectivity (Husserl) (page 57) 6. Time and the Other (Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas) (page 69) 7. Phenomenology and Therapy: The Question of the Other in the Zollikon Seminars (Heidegger and Boss) (page 82) 8. Conscience: The Most Intimate Alterity (Ricoeur, Heidegger, Levinas) (page 92) PART III. TEMPORALITY AND HISTORY 9. Temporality and Existence (Merleau-Ponty between Husserl and Heidegger) (page 105) 10. Phenomenology of the Event: Expectation and Surprise (Husserl and Heidegger) (page 116) 11. Phenomenology and History (Dilthey, Husserl, Heidegger) (page 127) 12. History and Hermeneutics (Ricoeur and Gadamer) (page 138) PART IV: FINITUDE AND MORALITY 13. Phenomenology and the Question of Man (Patočka and Heidegger) (page 149) 14. The Phenomenology of Finitude (Heidegger and Patočka) (page 157) 15. Worldliness and Mortality (Fink and Heidegger) (page 167) 16. The "Last God" of Phenomenology (Husserl and Heidegger) (page 177) Acknowledgments (page 185) Notes (page 187) Bibliography (page 235) Index of Names (page 247) Françoise Dastur is well respected in France and Europe for her mastery of phenomenology as a movement and her clear and cogent explications of phenomenology in movement. These qualities are on display in this remarkable volume. Dastur guides the reader through a series of phenomenological questions—language and logic, self and other, temporality and history, finitude and mortality—that also call phenomenology itself into question, testing its limits and pushing it in new directions. Like Merleau-Ponty, Dastur sees phenomenology not as a doctrine, a catalogue of concepts and catchphrases authored by a single thinker, but as a movement in which several thinkers participate, each inflecting the movement in unique ways. In this regard, Dastur is both one of the clearest guides to phenomenology and one of its ablest practitioners.