INTRODUCTION HOW DIFFERENT — HOW DOWNRIGHT INCONGRUOUS — the philosophical essays and the ad hoc, primarily political observations which make up this volume ...

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 Internc.. tional Cultural Cooperation, Department of Cultural Activities of Unesco from 1953 to 56, wrote in 1950 from France: The influence of Husser! has revolutionized continental philosophies, not (...) because his philosophy has become dominant, but because any philosophy now seeks to accommodate itself to, and express itself in, phenomenological method. It is the sine qua non of critical respectability. In America, on the contrary, phenomenology is in its infancy. The aver age American student of philosophy, when he picks up a recent volume of philosophy published on the continent of Europe, must first learn the "tricks" of the phenomenological trade and then translate as best he can the real import of what is said into the kind of analysis with which he is familiar....... No doubt, American education will gradually take account of the spread of phenomenological method and terminology, but until it does, American readers of European philosophy have a severe handicap; and this applies not only to existentialism but to almost all current philosophicalliterature. (shrink)

A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes is a popular-science book on cosmology (the study of the origin and evolution of the universe) by British physicist Stephen Hawking. It was first published in 1988. Hawking wrote the book for readers who have no prior knowledge of the universe and people who are interested in learning.

This work presents the first systemic account of the author's innovative theory of semiotic phenomenology and its place in the philosophy of communication and language. The creative and compelling project presented here spans more than fifteen years of systematic eidetic and empirical research into questions of human communication. Using the thematics of Merleau-Ponty's existential phenomenology, the author explores the concepts and practices of the human sciences that are grounded in communication theory, information theory, language, logic, linguistics, and semiotics. The hermeneutic (...) discussion ranges over contemporary theories that include Roman Jakobson's phenomenological structuralism, the semiotics of Umberto Eco, Charles Pierce, and Alfred Schutz, the theory of speech acts offered by Jurgen Habermas and John Searle, and Michel Foucault's phenomenological rhetoric of discourse. In general, this highly developed study offers the reader a fresh account of the problematic issues in the philosophy of communication. It is a work that any scholar in communication, philosophy, linguistics, or social theory would welcome for its scope and sustained research. (shrink)

Cinema is a sensuous object, but in our presence it becomes also a sensing, sensual, sense-making subject. This title challenges basic assumptions of current film theory that reduce film to an object of vision and the spectator to a victim of a deterministic cinematic apparatus.

Communicology is the study of human discourse in all of its forms, ranging from human gesture and speech to art and television. Commuicology also represents the dominant qualitative research paradigm in the discipline of human communication, especially in the applied areas of mass communication, philosophy of communication, and speech communication. Lanigan's work offers the bold and original thesis that Michel Foucault's thematic study of the discourse of desire and power is an elaboration of the problematic discourse explicated in Maurice Merleau-Ponty's (...) interrogation of freedom and terror. Various chapters cover such topics as art versus science, culture and communication, modernity versus postmodernity, feminism versus humanism, research methodology, and the capta versus data distinction for research validity. Actual examples of research cover the aesthetics of painting and sculpture, radio and television, rhetorical criticism of oral and written texts, and the East-West perspective on cross-cultural encounter -- all using the approach of semiotic phenomenology. Two special features of this book make it useful for both teacher and scholar alike. First, Lanigan provides an encyclopedic dictionary that illustrates and defines the theory and method of the human sciences in general and the discipline of communicology in particular. Used for several years by teachers in a number of universities, this dictionary had already become a "classic" among students before its publication here. Second, Lanigan analyzes and illustrates what has been missing for years in the study of Foucault's work: a definition (with appropriate illustrative figures and tables) of Foucault's method of archaeology and genealogy (criticism) for research in the human sciences, especially in the study of human discourse. (shrink)

From FRANZ BRENTANO's manuscripts for his Vienna lectures 1888/89. Photo by his son, Dr. John CM Brentano, Highland Park, Illinois...

KEY TO FOOTNOTE ABBREVIATIONS MM-P. Structure Phenomenology Sense Praise Signs Visible Themes Humanism Primacy Maurice Merleau-Ponty The Structure of ...

THEODORE KISIEL Date of birth: October 30,1930. Place of birth: Brackenridge, Pennsylvania. Date of institution of highest degree: PhD., Duquesne University, 1962. Academic appointments: University of Dayton; Canisius College; Northwestern University; Duquesne University; Northern Illinois University. I first left the university to pursue a career in metallurgical research and nuclear technology. But I soon found myself drawn back to the uni versity to 'round out' an overly specialized education. It was along this path that I was 'waylaid' into philosophy by (...) teachers like H. L. Van Breda and Bernard Boelen. The philosophy department at Duquesne University was then (1958-1962) a veritable "little Louvain," and the Belgian-Dutch connection exposed me to (among other visiting scholars) Jean Ladriere and Joe Kockelmans, who planted the seeds which eventually led me to the hybrid discipline of a hermeneutics of natural science, and prompted me soon after graduation to make the first of numerous extended visits to Belgium and Germany. The endeavor to learn French and German led me to the task of translating the phenomenological literature bearing especially on natural science and on Heidegger. The talk in the sixties was of a "continental divide" in philosophy between Europe and the Anglo-American world. But in designing my courses in the philosophy of science, I naturally gravitated to the works of Hanson, Kuhn, Polanyi and Toulmin without at first fully realizing why I felt such a strong kinship with them, beyond their common anti positivism. (shrink)

The nature and function of language as Man's chief vehicle of communi cation occupies a focal position in the human sciences, particularly in philosophy. The concept of 'communication' is problematic because it suggests both 'meaning' (the nature of language) and the activity of speaking (the function of language). The philosophic theory of 'speech acts' is one attempt to clarify the ambiguities of 'speech' as both the use of language to describe states of affair and the process in which that description (...) is generated as 'communication'. The present study, Speech Act Phenomenology, is in part an exam ination of speech act theory. The theory offers an explanation for speech performance, that is, the structure of speech acts as 'relationships' and the content of speech acts as 'meaning'. The primary statement of the speech act theory that is examined is that presented by Austin. A seconda ry concern is the formulation of the theory as presented by Searle and Grice. The limitations of the speech act theory are specified by applying the theory as an explanation of 'human communication'. This conceptual examination of 'communication' suggests that the philosophic method of 'analysis' does not resolve the antinomy of language 'nature' and 'function'. Basically, the conceptual distinctions of the speech act theory (i. e. locutions, illocutions, and perlocutions) are found to be empty as a comprehensive explanation of the concept 'communication'. (shrink)

This book focuses on two primary concerns, language and philosophical thinking. The first part of the book examines the ways that language, particularly the English language, shapes and channels our thoughts. The second part considers the three basic processes in concept formation: abstracting, imagining and generalizing. Lastly, the rational process itself is examined, looking at definition, rational inquiry and philosophical system building. First published in 1967, this edition is a reprint of the 1972 enlarged edition published by University of New (...) Mexico Press. (shrink)