Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl and Its Interpretation [Book Review]
Abstract
This book is a splendid piece of editing. Its format is tripartite: a consideration of specifically Husserlian themes, such as intersubjectivity, reduction, the life-world, intentionality, and constitution by distinguished Husserlian scholars and, in two instances, Husserl himself; the translation and adaptation of phenomenology into existential phenomenology, the illustration of which is centered around selections from Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty with commentary support from Kockelmans, Schrag, Edie, Kwant, Natanson, and Spiegelberg; the exemplary deployment of phenomenology into the area of the human sciences, particularly psychology. In this last part the uniformly solid though sometimes non-harmonious interpretations of the relation between phenomenology and psychology are proffered by Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Kockelmans, Strasser, and Schuetz. This book would provide excellent supplementary reading for any course in phenomenology or existential phenomenology, and, in addition, for any course in the philosophy of the social sciences.—E. A. R.