INTRODUCTION Ever since the beginning of the modern phenomenological movement disciplined attention has been paid to various patterns of human experience as ...

the Logische Untersuchungen,l phenomenology has been conceived as a substratum of empirical psychology, as a sphere comprising "imma nental" descriptions of psychical mental processes, a sphere compris ing descriptions that - so the immanence in question is understood - are strictly confined within the bounds of internal experience. It 2 would seem that my protest against this conception has been oflittle avail; and the added explanations, which sharply pinpointed at least some chief points of difference, either have not been understood (...) or have been heedlessly pushed aside. Thus the replies directed against my criticism of psychological method are also quite negative because they miss the straightforward sense of my presentation. My criticism of psychological method did not at all deny the value of modern psychology, did not at all disparage the experimental work done by eminent men. Rather it laid bare certain, in the literal sense, radical defects of method upon the removal of which, in my opinion, must depend an elevation of psychology to a higher scientific level and an extraordinary amplification ofits field of work. Later an occasion will be found to say a few words about the unnecessary defences of psychology against my supposed "attacks. (shrink)

One of the cornerstone books of Western philosophy, Critique of Pure Reason is Kant's seminal treatise, where he seeks to define the nature of reason itself and builds his own unique system of philosophical thought with an approach known as transcendental idealism. He argues that human knowledge is limited by the capacity for perception and attempts a logical designation of two varieties of knowledge: a posteriori, the knowledge acquired through experience; and a priori, knowledge not derived through experience. This accurate (...) translation by J. M. D. Meiklejohn offers a simple and direct rendering of Kant's work that is suitable for readers at all levels. (shrink)

This book consists of transcripts from two lecture courses on ethical relation Levinas delivered at the Sorbonne.

As Emmanuel Levinas states in the preface to Existence and Existents, "this study is a preparatory one. It examines . . . the problem of the Good, time, and the relationship with the other [person] as a movement toward the Good." First published in 1947, and written mostly during Levinas's imprisonment during World War II, this work provides the first sketch of his mature thought later developed fully in Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence. This new (...) edition marks the first time this important work has been made available in an inexpensive paperback edition. Levinas's project in Existence and Existents is to move from anonymous existence to the emergence of subjectivity; to subjectivity's practice, theory and morality; to its encounter with the alterity of the other person. He is concerned here primarily with the time of the solitary subject; time is the inner structure of subjectivity, of the movement of existing. "Levinas's work," says Alphonso Lingis, "contains not only wholly new analyses of the forms of time of the present, the past, the future but also a new conception of the work of time." Beginning with Existence and Existents, then, it is possible to begin tracing the progressive "alterization" of time as it unfolds across the development of Levinas's entire philosophy. As a "preparatory" study, Existence and Existents introduces the major themes and concerns that occupied Levinas throughout his career. This is essential reading for understanding both Levinas's own philosophy and the developments in philosophical thought in the twentieth century. (shrink)

Un hasard malicieux a fait paraître Totalité et infini en 1961, l'année de la mort de Merleau-Ponty. On se rend maintenant compte que le livre de Lévinas était le signe avant-coureur d'un tournant de la phénoménologie française. Alors que la compréhension de l'être-au-monde chez Sartre et Merleau-Ponty excluait tout recours à une transcendance de type idéaliste ou métaphysique, une orientation toute différente s'est peu à peu affirmée. Se tournant vers " l'inapparent ", la phénoménologie s'est mise en quête d'une manifestation (...) originaire ou de la révélation de l'Autre comme tel, jusqu'à se faire la servante d'un discours plus ou moins explicitement théologique. Le présent essai entend mettre en question les présupposés méthodologiques de ce tournant. A quel prix cette mutation s'est-elle opérée? Quels en sont les enjeux et les limites? Une pensée attentive à toutes les facettes de la phénoménologie ne réserve-t-elle pas d'autres possibles? Faisant suite au vif débat qu'a suscité la première édition de ce livre, Dominique Janicaud a publié dans la même collection : La phénoménologie éclatée (1998). (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas (1905-1995) is at the center of the renewed debate over the question of the ethical. In the context of the phenomenological tradition, Levinas defines ethics as an originary response to the face of the other. Between 1982 and 1992, Levinas gave numerous interviews, closing a distinguished sixty-year career. Of the twenty interviews collected in this volume, seventeen appear in English for the first time. In the interviews Levinas sets forth the central features of his ethical philosophy. He underlies (...) his dedication to the phenomenological search for the concrete and the nonformal signification of alterity. He also elaborates on issues that do not receive extensive treatment in his formal philosophical works, including the question of pre-philosophical experiences, the ethical signification of money, justice, and the State. The informality of the interviews prompt Levinas to address matters about which he is reticent in his published works. (shrink)

The possible and revelation -- The saturated phenomenon -- Metaphysics and phenomenology: a relief for theology -- "Christian philosophy": hermeneutic or heuristic? -- Sketch of a phenomenological concept of the gift -- What cannot be said: Apophasis and the discourse of love -- The banality of saturation -- Faith and reason.

What, at this historical moment "after Auschwitz," still remains of the questions traditionally asked by theology? What now is theology's minimal degree? This magisterial study, the first extended comparison of the writings of Theodor W. Adorno and Emmanuel Levinas, explores remnants and echoes of religious forms in these thinkers' critiques of secular reason, finding in the work of both a "theology in pianissimo" constituted by the trace of a transcendent other. The author analyzes, systematizes, and formalizes this idea of an (...) other of reason. In addition, he frames these thinkers' innovative projects within the arguments of such intellectual heirs as Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, defending their work against later accusations of "performative contradiction" (by Habermas) or "empiricism" (by Derrida) and in the process casting important new light on those later writers as well. Attentive to rhetorical and rational features of Adorno's and Levinas's texts, his investigations of the concepts of history, subjectivity, and language in their writings provide a radical interpretation of their paradoxical modes of thought and reveal remarkable and hitherto unsuspected parallels between their philosophical methods, parallels that amount to a plausible way of overcoming certain impasses in contemporary philosophical thinking. In Adorno, this takes the form of a dialectical critique of dialectics in Levinas, that of a phenomenological critique of phenomenology, each of which sheds new light on ancient and modern questions of metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics. For the English-language publication, the author has extensively revised and updated the prize-winning German version. (shrink)

Levinas and the Philosophy of Religion Jeffrey L. Kosky Reveals the interplay of phenomenology and religion in Levinas’s thought. "Kosky examines Levinas’s thought from the perspective of the philosophy of religion and he does so in a way that is attentive to the philosophical nuances of Levinas’s argument.... an insightful, well written, and carefully documented study... that uniquely illuminates Levinas’s work." —John D. Caputo For readers who suspect there is no place for religion and morality in postmodern philosophy, Jeffrey L. (...) Kosky suggests otherwise in this skillful interpretation of the ethical and religious dimensions of Emmanuel Levinas’s thought. Placing Levinas in relation to Hegel and Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger, Derrida and Marion, Kosky develops religious themes found in Levinas’s work and offers a way to think and speak about ethics and morality within the horizons of contemporary philosophy of religion. Kosky embraces the entire scope of Levinas’s writings, from Totality and Infinity to Otherwise than Being, contrasting Levinas’s early religious and moral thought with that of his later works while exploring the nature of phenomenological reduction, the relation of religion and philosophy, the question of whether Levinas can be considered a Jewish thinker, and the religious and theological import of Levinas’s phenomenology. Kosky stresses that Levinas is first and foremost a phenomenologist and that the relationship between religion and philosophy in his ethics should cast doubt on the assumption that a natural or inevitable link exists between deconstruction and atheism. Jeffrey L. Kosky is translator of On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism: The Constitution and the Limits of Onto-theo-logy in Cartesian Thought by Jean-Luc Marion. He has taught at Williams College. Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion—Merold Westphal, general editor May 2001 272 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, bibl., index, append. cloth 0-253-33925-1 $39.95 s / £30.50. (shrink)

Marked sharply by its time and place (Paris in the 1970s), this early theological text by Jean-Luc Marion nevertheless maintains a strikingly deep resonance with his most recent, groundbreaking, and ever more widely discussed phenomenology. And while Marion will want to insist on a clear distinction between the theological and phenomenological projects, to read each in light of the other can prove illuminating for both the theological and the philosophical reader - and perhaps above all for the reader who wants (...) to read in both directions at once, the reader concerned with those points of interplay and undecidability where theology and philosophy inform, provoke, and challenge one another in endlessly complex ways." "In both his theological and his phenomenological projects Marion's central effort to free the absolute or unconditional (be it theology's God or phenomenology's phenomenon) from the various limits and preconditions of human thought and language will imply a thoroughgoing critique of all metaphysics, and above all of the modern metaphysics centered on the active, spontaneous subject who occupies modern philosophy from Descartes through Hegel and Nietzsche. (shrink)

This book follows up the developments inphenomenology discussed in Phenomenology andthe “Theological Turn”: The French Debate, attempting toestablish what potentialities in the phenomenologicalmethod exist at present.

Analyse ce qui, dans la Révélation, suggère ou dépasse une phénoménologie du révélé.

Unarguably, Jean-Luc Marion is the leading figure in French phenomenology as well as one of the proponents of the so-called “theological turn” in European philosophy. In this volume, Kevin Hart has assembled a stellar group of philosophers and theologians from the United States, Britain, France, and Australia to examine Marion's work—especially his later work—from a variety of perspectives. The resulting volume is an indispensable resource for scholars working at the intersection of philosophy and theology. “This is a ground-breaking book by (...) leading continental thinkers on one of the most pioneering and controversial voices to emerge in French thought in decades. This volume addresses the lynch-pin of Marion's thought—the point where philosophy and theology, gift and revelation, impossibility and grace, intersect in fascinating and arresting ways. Kevin Hart, as editor, assembles and conducts a magisterial intellectual orchestra.” —Richard Kearney, Boston College “The collective strength of these exceptionally high-quality essays is the authors’ diversity of reflection on the relation of phenomenology to theology. Readers new to Marion will find their way into the _corpus_ and those already familiar with Marion’s work will encounter stimulating interpretations, challenges, and defenses. Valuable, too, are Hart’s introduction to Marion as phenomenologist and Marion’s defense of the saturated phenomenon that bookend the volume.” —Merold Westphal, Fordham University “As a sophisticated engagement with the question of Marion’s relation to Christian theology specifically, and as a general response to Marion’s work as a whole, _Counter-Experiences_ is an undeniable success. The authors treat Marion’s texts carefully, bring impressive intellectual force to their task, and provide rich documentation in the strongest volume of work on Marion’s thought yet to appear in English.” —Jeffrey Bloechl, College of the Holy Cross. (shrink)

The immemorial and recollection -- The reserve of forgetting -- The unforgettable -- The sudden and the unhoped for -- Retrospection.

Words of Life is the sequel and companion to Phenomenology and the "Theological Turn," edited by Dominique Janicaud, Jean-Francois Courtine, Jean-Louis Chrétien, Michel Henry, Jean-Luc Marion, and Paul Ricoeur. In that volume, Janicaud accuses Levinas, Henry, Marion, and Chrétien of "veering" from phenomenological neutrality to a theologically inflected phenomenology. By contrast, the contributors to this collection interrogate whether phenomenology's proper starting point is agnostic or atheistic. Many hold the view that phenomenology after the theological turn may very well be true (...) both to itself and to the phenomenological "things themselves." In one way or another, all of these essays contend with the limits and expectations of phenomenology. As such, they are all concerned with what counts as "proper" phenomenology and even the very structure of phenomenology. None of them, however, is limited to such questions. Indeed, the rich tapestry that they weave tells us much about human experience. Themes such as faith, hope, love, grace, the gift, the sacraments, the words of Christ, suffering, joy, life, the call, touch, listening, wounding, and humility are woven throughout the various meditations in this volume. The contributors use striking examples to illuminate the structure and limits of phenomenology and, in turn, phenomenology serves to clarify those very examples. Thus practice clarifies theory and theory clarifies practice, resulting in new theological turns and new life for phenomenology. The volume showcases the work of both senior and junior scholars, including Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Yves Lacoste, Kevin Hart, Anthony J. Steinbock, Jeffrey Bloechl, Jeffrey L. Kosky, Clayton Crockett, Brian Treanor, and Christina Gschwandtner-as well as the editors themselves. (shrink)

This collection of ground-breaking essays considers the many dimensions of prayer: how prayer relates us to the divine; prayer's ability to reveal what is essential about our humanity; the power of prayer to transform human desire and action; and the relation of prayer to cognition. It takes up the meaning of prayer from within a uniquely phenomenological point of view, demonstrating that the phenomenology of prayer is as much about the character and boundaries of phenomenological analysis as it is about (...) the heart of religious life.The contributors: Michael F. Andrews, Bruce Ellis Benson, Mark Cauchi, Benjamin Crowe, Mark Gedney, Philip Goodchild, Christina M. Gschwandtner, Lissa McCullough, Cleo McNelly Kearns, Edward F. Mooney, B. Keith Putt, Jill Robbins, Brian Treanor, Merold Westphal, Norman Wirzba, Terence Wright and Terence and James R. Mensch. Bruce Ellis Benson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College. He is the author of Graven Ideologies: Nietzsche, Derrida, and Marion on Modern Idolatry and The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music. Norman Wirzba is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Georgetown College, Kentucky. He is the author of The Paradise of God and editor of The Essential Agrarian Reader. (shrink)

Since their separation in Platonic metaphysics, the Western philosophical tradition has given primacy to the question of being and neglected the question of the good. This, according to French phenomenologist Emmanuel Levinas, was not merely oversight, but a result of the manner in which being was thought. The present book is a series of reflections on being and the good written between 1940 and 1945, originally published in 1947, and translated in conjunction with the projected translations of Levinas’s essays on (...) the philosophy of religion and other matters as well as his major work Autrement qu'être ou au delà de l'essence. It is to be read in the context of Levinas’s later efforts to think this relation through anew by grounding metaphysics in ethics rather than by constructing an ethic upon pre-established metaphysical foundations. The original difficulty derives from the nature of consciousness itself which attempts to encompass the one and the other in a single point of view. By thus reducing the alterity of the other, otherness is incorporated into the same thus compromising it as other. This is especially pernicious in the matter of other persons since they are then taken to be the sum total of their observable roles and behaviors. This procedure holds mutatis mutandis for the intricate economic and political structures of society which are incorporated in like fashion into a totality. But what gives meaning and worth to existence lies beyond constituting consciousness and beyond totality: other persons, irreducible to the sums of their behaviors, are the ultimate source of values. (shrink)