Description
Book SynopsisDesire and Distance constitutes an important new departure in contemporary phenomenological thought, a rethinking and critique of basic philosophical positions concerning the concept of perception presented by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, though it departs in significant and original ways from their work. Barbaras''s overall goal is to develop a philosophy of what life isone that would do justice to the question of embodiment and its role in perception and the formation of the human subject. Barbaras posits that desire and distance inform the concept of life. Levinas identified a similar structure in Descartes''s notion of the infinite. For Barbaras, desire and distance are anchored not in meaning, but in a rethinking of the philosophy of biology and, in consequence, cosmology.
Barbaras elaborates and extends the formal structure of desire and distance by drawing on motifs as yet unexplored in the French phenomenological tradition, especially the notions of life and the l
Trade Review
"Desire and Distance is based on recent research and presents new ideas on the problem of perception—ideas that are quite enticing. Barbaras is the world's leading Merleau-Ponty scholar, but what makes this book remarkable and philosophically important is that Barbaras distances himself from Merleau-Ponty and develops his own set of concepts with a high level of originality. In my opinion, Barbaras' book is remarkable."
—Leonard Lawlor, University of Memphis
"As an attempt to grasp the specificity of the phenomenon as it comes to be, that of the world within which it appears, and that of the subject to whom it becomes apparent, Desire and Distance is an ambitious, dense, rigorously argued work of philosophy in the phenomenological tradition, certainly amongst the most original of recent years." —Philosophy in Review/Comptes Rendus philosophiques
Table of Contents
@fmct:Contents @toc4:Acknowledgments iii @toc2:Introduction: The Problem of Perception 000 1. A Critique of Transcendental Phenomenology 000 2. Phenomenological Reduction as Critique of Nothingness 000 3. The Three Moments of Appearance 000 4. Perception and Living Movement 000 5. Desire as the Essence of Subjectivity 000 Conclusion 000 Author's Afterword 000 @toc4:Notes 000 Bibliography 000 Index of Names 000
