Description
Book SynopsisPragmatic Perspectives in Phenomenology offers a complex analysis of the pragmatic theses that are present in the works of leading phenomenological authors, including not only Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, as it is often the case within Hubert Dreyfusâ tradition, but also Husserl, Levinas, Scheler, and Patocka. Starting from a critical reassessment of existing pragmatic readings which draw especially on Heideggerâs account of Being-in-the-world, the volumeâs chapters explore the following themes as possible justifications for speaking about the pragmatic turn in phenomenology: the primacy of the practical over theoretical understanding, criticism of the representationalist account of perception and consciousness, and the analysis of language and truth within the context of social and cultural practices. Having thus analyzed the pragmatic readings of key phenomenological concepts, the book situates these readings in a larger historical and thematic context and introduces themes that until now have been overlooked in debates, including freedom, alterity, transcendence, normativity, distance, and self-knowledge. This volume seeks to refresh the debate about the phenomenological legacy and its relevance for contemporary thought by enlarging the thematic scope of pragmatic motives in phenomenology in new and revealing ways. It will be of interest to advanced students and scholars of phenomenology who are interested in moving beyond the analytic-continental divide to explore the relationship between practice and theory.
Trade Review"There are some excellent papers here that not only articulate the pragmatic turn in the history of phenomenology, but offer much-needed insight into the problems associated with long-standing pragmatic interpretations of the works of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Husserl." – Phenomenological Reviews
"The debate over the pragmatic turn in phenomenology is of the utmost significance since it will determine the future of the movement, and in this volume prominent philosophers examine the key positions and arguments that have been developing over at least a decade." – Michael D. Barber, St. Louis University, USA
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Localizing the Pragmatic Turn in Phenomenology
Ondřej Švec and Jakub Čapek
Part I: Contemporary Pragmatic Readings of Phenomenology
1. On Layer Cakes: Heidegger’s Normative Pragmatism Revisited
Mark Okrent
2. Heidegger’s Pragmatist Readers
Thomas Nenon
3. Primordiality and the Pragmata. A Critical Assessment of Rorty’s Challenge to Heideggerian Nostalgia
Andreas Beinsteiner
4. Two Forms of Practical Knowledge in Being and Time
Tucker McKinney
5. Discursive Intentionality as Embodied Coping. A Pragmatist Critique of Existential Phenomenology
Carl B. Sachs
Part II: Pragmatic Readings Challenged by the History of the Phenomenology
6. The Limits of Dreyfus’ View of Husserl: Intentionality, Openness, and praxis
Witold Płotka
7. On Dreyfus’ Naturalization of Phenomenological Pragmatism: Misleading Dichotomies, and the Counter-Concept of Intentionality
Sophie Loidolt
8. Perceptual Faith beyond Practical Involvement: Merleau-Ponty and His Pragmatist Readers
Jakub Čapek
9. Max Scheler and Pragmatism
Zachary Davis
10. From Circumspection to Insight
Eddo Evink
Part III: Opening up Perspectives
11. Freedom and The Theoretical Attitude
James Mensch
12. The Primacy of Practice and the Pervasiveness of Discourse
Ondřej Švec
13. Making Sense of Human Existence (Heidegger on the Limits of Practical Familiarity)
Mark Wrathall
14. Exemplary Necessity: Heidegger, Pragmatism, and Reason
Steven Crowell
