2007 Handbooks

At the beginning of the 20th century, philosophy was revolutionized by the emergence of phenomenology, the method devised by German philosopher Edmund Husserl. The aim of phenomenology is to "return to the things themselves", to describe the multiple ways in which the world gives itself to us in experience. Phenomenology thus aims to retrieve the layers of conscious and bodily experience at the origins of, for instance, the perception of objects in space, the consciousness of time, the relationship of the self to its own body, to other selves, and to other bodies.

The course begins with Husserl himself and examines his definition of phenomenology. We study its applications to two specific topics: artistic discovery (how phenomenology proceeds in ways akin to the creative methods of artists), and the social world (the experiential aspects of social interaction). We then study the thoughts of his most influential heirs: Heidegger's turn towards everyday experience and the fundamental question of Being, Sartre's interpretation of phenomenology in terms of existence and human freedom, and Merleau-Ponty's emphasis on the body, as the primary locus of meaning. Two weeks are dedicated to phenomenological and existentialist ethics and aesthetics. In the final week, we assess the influence of phenomenology in contemporary thought by looking at its critical reception in Lévinas and Derrida.