Description
Book SynopsisA study of Edmund Husserl's philosophy as a non-foundational approach to understanding the self as an embodied presence. It demonstrates how Husserl, anticipating the investigations of Merleau-Ponty, explored how the body functions to determine our self-presence, freedom, and sense of time.
Trade Review“This is a significant and original book. It offers insightful phenomenological investigations of important issues. It makes available in an English-language context a large amount of Husserl’s own work that is available only in unpublished manuscripts at the Husserl Archive. It challenges reigning orthodoxy concerning the validity of Heideggerian, Levinasian, and Derridean critiques of the ‘metaphysics of presence.’ And it points toward fruitful avenues for further exploration.”
—Steven Crowell,Rice University
“In this insightful book, James R. Mensch sets out to move beyond modern as well as postmodern endeavors, attempts that, he claims are both variations of a foundationalist enterprise. Leaving behind these unproductive oppositions. Mensch turns to the ‘things themselves’ and explores the rich accounts Husserl has given in his mature genetic phenomenology, drawing extensively from unpublished material. Displaying a sovereign mastery over these intricate analyses, Mensch connects these with a wide variety of issues discussed by philosophers from the Continental as well as the Analytic tradition, ranging from embodiment and instincts to ethics and artificial intelligence. He is thus able to bring phenomenology into the arena of current philosophical debate. A highly creative and original approach.”
—Sebastian Luft,Emory Universtiy
