4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Guide to Phenomenology, Oct 11 2010
A Kid's Review - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Phenomenology (Paperback)
This is a clear, concise introduction to phenomenology, an investigative technique created by Edmund Husserl. It was used by such philosophical luminaries as Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty.
2 of 6 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
uninspiring, Aug 8 2007
By Matko Vladanovic - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Phenomenology (Paperback)
How I see it, philosophy books can be inteligent and inspiring, daring you to take another leap to the world of unknown, or they can be inteligent. Main difference being that this last one is that kind of philosophy that you can almost always find on academy benches, that rather dull and uninspiring chain of thought that somehow presents itself as philosophy.
Whether you think of it as philosophy in general or not, you cannot mistake these two ways of expression.
Yes, I know this is Lyotard, and I know that he is one of the people responsible for making the groundwork for great human acomplishment which is called postmodernism, but that doesn't say anything at all about this book.
Taking the work of Husserl, Lyotard debates phenomenology on its basis, diachronicaly and sinchronicaly, making debates with psichology, sociology, history and finally marksism. Being what it is, that's to say left winged intelectual, Lyotard tends to overpresent marksist arguments about nature of the world, object, subject and matter.
Now, this here is highly developed thought which expects from his reader to know the background of philosophical debates of early twentieth century, knowedge from which he can draw conclusion about the facts that are being discussed in this book. If you lack this knowledge it will be very hard for you to follow Lyotard's thought and you'll often find yourself wandering aimelessly amongst the pages.
All in all, after tiresome trouble of getting to the point of the text, one feels almost disappointed. All this one turns out to be is just another solastic work (almost scientific in its nature) without any heart or zeal for the matter being discusse. It is debate for the sake of debate.
But, maybe second reading (and trust me, you will need this one) will reveal some new layers of meaning, of that I cannot say anything yet.
Until than, cheers.