Levinas and James: Toward a Pragmatic Phenomenology

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Indiana University Press, 2010 - Phenomenology - 247 pages
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Bringing to light new facets in the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and William James, Megan Craig explores intersections between French phenomenology and American pragmatism. Craig demonstrates the radical empiricism of Levinas's philosophy and the ethical implications of James's pluralism while illuminating their relevance for two philosophical disciplines that have often held each other at arm's length. Revealing the pragmatic minimalism in Levinas's work and the centrality of imagery in James's prose, she suggests that aesthetic links are crucial to understanding what they share. Craig's suggestive readings change current perceptions and clear a path for a more open, pluralistic, and creative pragmatic phenomenology that takes cues from both philosophers.

 

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It is rare to find a book on philosophy that is both accessible and deeply relevant to the times, a page-turner of the highest order. By bringing together the profound phenomenologically based insights that Levinas brings to subjectivity, intersubjectivity and the infinite expanse of the alterity, the holiness, if you will, of the Other, and the radical pragmatism of William James that links philosophical inquiry to the concrete reality of everyday existence, Craig has created a tour de force that crosses multiple boundaries including that between philosophical insight into the contingencies of human existence and artistic expression engendered by and reflecting the affective response to the meaning attached to these conditions.  

Selected pages

Contents

One Insomnia
1
Two Faces
32
Three Experience
65
Four Emotion
96
Five Poetry
130
Six Painting
160
Afterword
188
Notes
199
Bibliography
233
Index
241
Copyright

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Levinas and James: Toward a Pragmatic Phenomenology
Megan Craig
No preview available - 2010

Common terms and phrases

abstract ambiguity anxiety appear becomes beginning Bergson Blanchot body calls chapter close consciousness critical dark death definitive describes distinct élan vital emotion empiricism Essence ethics everything examples Existence and Existents Existents experience explains expression face face to face fact feeling finds give Guston Heidegger hope human idea importance infinite insists insomnia interruption James James’s kind knowledge language later leaves less Levinas Levinas’s light living looking meaning mind moral move never one’s oneself Otherwise painting particular phenomenology philosophy plurality poetic poetry possibility pragmatic prose provides question radical reading reality reason reflection refuses relation remains resistance responsibility sense sensibility shows significance space stands takes texts theory things thinking thought tion Totality and Infinity trace trans transcendence truth turn unique University Press whole writing York

About the author (2010)

Megan Craig is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Art at Stony Brook University. She is also an artist and has exhibited her work internationally.

Bibliographic information

QR code for Levinas and James
TitleLevinas and James: Toward a Pragmatic Phenomenology
American philosophy
AuthorMegan Craig
Editionillustrated
PublisherIndiana University Press, 2010
ISBN0253355346, 9780253355348
Length247 pages
  
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