In Phenomenology and Lacan on Schizophrenia, Alphonse De Waelhens provides a clear summary of Lacan's theory of schizophrenia, as Lacan derived it from his commentary of Freud's study of the Memoirs of Schreber. De Waelhens also shows how Lacan's understanding of the schizophrenic as having a defective relation to language can also explain four other characteristics of schizophrenic behavior: the fragmented body image; lack of realistic evaluation of the world; so-called bisexuality; and confusion of birth and death. Third, De Waelhens gives a Hegelian interpretation of the pre-Oedipal experience of the child. He makes use of Freud's study on his grand-child using a bobbin and later the words fort-da (away-here), to demonstrate that a transitional object allows the child to take distance from its attachment to the mother so that it can start to separate itself from the mother. Taking distance is, according to De Waelhens, introducing the Hegelian negative, which is the birth of the subject. Fourth, De Waelhens gives a dialectic reading of the history of German and French psychiatry. He shows the epistemological contradictions in the work of some of the great nineteenth century psychiatrists relying too exclusively on a biological model of schizophrenia.In his contribution to this volume, Wilfried Ver Eecke draws several lessons from evaluating the literature on schizophrenia. He argues that epistemologically neither a biological nor a psychological method of reasoning can capture all the factors that can play a role in the creation of schizophrenia. He relies heavily, but not exclusively, on the Finnish studies of Tienari, Myrhman, and Wahlberg and their colleagues to provide statistical evidence that non-biological factors also play an important role in causing schizophrenia. He relies heavily, but again not exclusively, on the study by Karon and VandenBos to demonstrate statistically the efficiency of psychodynamically inspired therapy of schizophrenics.Ver Eecke also addresses an apparent inconsistency in De Waelhens' presentation of Lacan's theory of schizophrenia. Where De Waelhens seemed to argue at one time that the mother figure was the crucial figure to explain schizophrenia (leading to a defective relation to the body) and at another time that it was the role of the father which was crucial (leading to a defective relation to language and the symbolic), there Ver Eecke argues that the defective function of each influences the function of the other. He then draws a conclusion for the therapy of schizophrenics: to be helpful a therapist will have to address both deficiencies. The problem for treating schizophrenics is that correcting an unconscious deficiency to the body-a deficiency in the imaginary-requires a totally different kind of intervention than an attempt to correct a symbolic deficiency-a deficiency in the paternal function. A correction of the imaginary requires a kind of maternal mirroring; a correction of the symbolic requires making a distinction or a prohibition stick. One further difficulty arises. Psychotherapy uses language in its treatment. However, language in schizophrenics is deficient. We can therefore expect that language will be inefficient. This is so unless the therapist uses language, first, to make a repair at the imaginary level and only thereafter makes an attempt to make a correction in the symbolic. In analyzing successful therapeutic techniques reported by several therapists Ver Eecke discovers that all of them first try to repair the imaginary before they attempt to make corrections to the symbolic.

This comprehensive new book introduces the core history of phenomenology and assesses its relevance to contemporary psychology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science. From critiques of artificial intelligence research programs to ongoing work on embodiment and enactivism, the authors trace how phenomenology has produced a valuable framework for analyzing cognition and perception, whose impact on contemporary psychological and scientific research, and philosophical debates continues to grow. The first part of An Introduction to Phenomenology is an extended overview of the history and development of phenomenology, looking at its key thinkers, focusing particularly on Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, as well as its cultural and intellectual precursors. In the second half Chemero and Kaufer turn their attention to the contemporary interpretations and uses of phenomenology in cognitive science, showing that phenomenology is a living source of inspiration in contemporary interdisciplinary studies of the mind. Kaufer and Chemero have written a clear, jargon-free account of phenomenology, providing abundant examples and anecdotes to illustrate and to entertain. This book is an ideal introduction to phenomenology and cognitive science for the uninitiated, as well as for philosophy and psychology students keen to deepen their knowledge.

The German poet and mystic Novalis once identified philosophy as a form of homesickness. More than two centuries later, as modernity's displacements continue to intensify, we feel Novalis's homesickness more than ever. Yet nowhere has a longing for home flourished more than in contemporary environmental thinking, and particularly in eco-phenomenology. If only we can reestablish our sense of material enmeshment in nature, so the logic goes, we might reverse the degradation we humans have wrought-and in saving the earth we can once again dwell in the nearness of our own being. Unsettling Nature opens with a meditation on the trouble with such ecological homecoming narratives, which bear a close resemblance to narratives of settler colonial homemaking. Taylor Eggan demonstrates that the Heideggerian strain of eco-phenomenology-along with its well-trod categories of home, dwelling, and world-produces uncanny effects in settler colonial contexts. He reads instances of nature's defamiliarization not merely as psychological phenomena but also as symptoms of the repressed consciousness of coloniality. The book at once critiques Heidegger's phenomenology and brings it forward through chapters on Willa Cather, D. H. Lawrence, Olive Schreiner, Doris Lessing, and J. M. Coetzee. Suggesting that alienation may in fact be "natural" to the human condition and hence something worth embracing instead of repressing, Unsettling Nature concludes with a speculative proposal to transform eco-phenomenology into "exo-phenomenology"-an experiential mode that engages deeply with the alterity of others and with the self as its own Other.

When our smartphones distract us, much more is at stake than a momentary lapse of attention. Our use of smartphones can interfere with the building-blocks of meaningfulness and the actions that shape our self-identity. By analyzing social interactions and evolving experiences, Roholt reveals the mechanisms of smartphone-distraction that impact our meaningful projects and activities. Roholt's conception of meaning in life draws from a disparate group of philosophers - Susan Wolf, John Dewey, Hubert Dreyfus, Martin Heidegger, and Albert Borgmann. Central to Roholt's argument are what Borgmann calls focal practices: dinners with friends, running, a college seminar, attending sporting events. As a recurring example, Roholt develops the classification of musical instruments as focal things, contending that musical performance can be fruitfully understood as a focal practice. Through this exploration of what generates meaning in life, Roholt makes us rethink the place we allow smartphones to occupy in the everyday. But he remains cautiously optimistic. This thoughtful, needed interrogation of smartphones shows how we can establish a positive role for technologies within our lives.

Horst Ruthrof revisits Husserl's phenomenology of language and highlights his late writings as essential to understanding the full range of his ideas. Focusing on the idea of language as imaginable as well as the role of a speech community in constituting it, Ruthrof provides a powerful re-assessment of his methodological phenomenology. From the Logical Investigations to untranslated portions of his Nachlass, Ruthrof charts all the developments and amendments in his theorizations. Ruthrof argues that it is the intersubjective character to linguistic meaning that is so emblematic of Husserl's position. Bringing his study up to the present day, Ruthrof discusses mental time travel, the evolution of language, and protosyntax in the context of Husserl's late writings, progressing a comprehensive new phenomenological ontology of language with wide-ranging implications for philosophy, linguistics, and cultural studies.

This book compiles James L. Cox's most important writings on a phenomenology of Indigenous Religions into one volume, with a new introduction and conclusion by the author. Cox has consistently exemplified phenomenological methods by applying them to his own field studies among Indigenous Religions, principally in Zimbabwe and Alaska, but also in Australia and New Zealand. Included in this collection are his articles in which he defines what he means by the category 'religion' and how this informs his precise meaning of the classification 'Indigenous Religions'. These theoretical considerations are always illustrated clearly and concisely by specific studies of Indigenous Religions and their dynamic interaction with contemporary political and social circumstances. This collection demonstrates the continued relevance of the phenomenological method in the study of religions by presenting the method as dynamic and adaptable to contemporary social contexts and as responsive to intellectual critiques of the method.

Marking the 50th anniversary of one among this philosopher’s most distinguished pieces, Blumenberg’s Rhetoric proffers a decidedly diversified interaction with the essai polyvalently entitled ‘Anthropological Approach to the Topicality (or Currency, Relevance, even actualitas) of Rhetoric’ ("Anthropologische Annäherung an die Aktualität der Rhetorik"), first published in 1971. Following Blumenberg’s lead, the contributors consider and tackle their topics rhetorically—treating (inter alia) the variegated discourses of Phenomenology and Truthcraft, of Intellectual History and Anthropology, as well as the interplay of methods, from a plurality of viewpoints. The diachronically extensive, disciplinarily diverse essays of this publication—notably in the current lingua franca—will facilitate, and are to conduce to, further scholarship with respect to Blumenberg and the art of rhetoric. With contributions by Sonja Feger, Simon Godart, Joachim Küpper, DS Mayfield, Heinrich Niehues-Pröbsting, Daniel Rudy Hiller, Katrin Trüstedt, Alexander Waszynski, Friedrich Weber-Steinhaus, Nicola Zambon.

Best known for his groundbreaking and influential work in Buddhist philosophy, Mark Siderits is the pioneer of "fusion" or "confluence philosophy", a boldly systematic approach to doing philosophy premised on the idea that rational reconstruction of positions in one tradition in light of another can sometimes help address perennial problems and often lead to new and valuable insights. Exemplifying the many virtues of the confluence approach, this collection of essays covers all core areas of Buddhist philosophy, as well as topics and disputes in contemporary Western philosophy relevant to its study. They consider in particular the ways in which questions concerning personal identity figure in debates about agency, cognition, causality, ontological foundations, foundational truths, and moral cultivation. Most of these essays engage Siderits' work directly, building on his pathbreaking ideas and interpretations. Many deal with issues that have become a common staple in philosophical engagements with traditions outside the West. Their variety and breadth bear testimony to the legacy of Siderits' impact in shaping the contemporary conversation in Buddhist philosophy and its reverberations in mainstream philosophy, giving readers a clear sense of the remarkable scope of his work.

In a bold new argument, Ulrika Carlsson grasps hold of the figure of Eros that haunts Soren Kierkegaard's The Concept of Irony, and for the first time, uses it as key to interpret that text and his second book, Either/Or. According to Carlsson, Kierkegaard adopts Plato's idea of Eros as the fundamental force that drives humans in all their pursuits. For him, every existential stance-every way of living and relating to the outside world-is at heart a way of loving. By intensely examining Kierkegaard's erotic language, she also challenges the theory that the philosopher's first two books have little common ground and reveals that they are in fact intimately connected by the central and explicit topic of love. In this text suitable for both students and the Kierkegaard specialist, Carlsson claims that despite long-held beliefs about the disparity of his early work, his first two books both relate to love and Part I of Either/Or should be treated as the sequel to The Concept of Irony.

In her new book, Corine Pelluchon argues that the dichotomy between nature and culture privileges the latter. She laments that the political system protects the sovereignty of the human and leaves them immune to impending environmental disaster. Using the phenomenological writings of French philosophers like Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, and Paul Ricoeur, Pelluchon contends that human beings have to recognise humanity's dependence upon the natural world for survival and adopt a new philosophy of existence that advocates for animal welfare and ecological preservation. In an extension of Heidegger's ontology of concern, Pelluchon declares that this dependence is not negative or a sign of weakness. She argues instead, that we are nourished by the natural world and that the very idea of nourishment contains an element of pleasure. This sustenance comforts humans and gives their lives taste. Pelluchon's new philosophy claims then, that eating has an affective, social and cultural dimension, but that most importantly it is a political act. It solidifies the eternal link between human beings and animals, and warns that the human consumption of animals and other natural resources impacts upon humanity's future.

Addressing Merleau-Ponty's work Phenomenology of Perception, in dialogue with The Visible and the Invisible, his lectures at the College de France, and his reading of Proust, this book argues that at play in his thought is a philosophy of "ontological lateness". This describes the manner in which philosophical reflection is fated to lag behind its objects; therefore an absolute grasp on being remains beyond its reach. Merleau-Ponty articulates this philosophy against the backdrop of what he calls "cruel thought", a style of reflecting that seeks resolution by limiting, circumscribing, and arresting its object. By contrast, the philosophy of ontological lateness seeks no such finality-no apocalypsis or unveiling-but is characterized by its ability to accept the veiling of being and its own constitutive lack of punctuality. To this extent, his thinking inaugurates a new relation to the becoming of sense that overcomes cruel thought. Merleau-Ponty's work gives voice to a wisdom of dispossession that allows for the withdrawal of being. Never before has anyone engaged with the theme of Merleau-Ponty's own understanding of philosophy in such a sustained way as Whitmoyer does in this volume.

This book aims to enrich our understanding of the role the environment plays in processes of life and cognition, from the perspective of enactive cognitive science. Miguel A. Sepulveda-Pedro offers an unprecedented interpretation of the central claims of the enactive approach to cognition, supported by contemporary works of ecological psychology and phenomenology. The enactive approach conceives cognition as sense-making, a phenomenon emerging from the organizational nature of the living body that evolves in human beings through sensorimotor, intercorporeal, and linguistic interactions with the environment. From this standpoint, Sepulveda-Pedro suggests incorporating three new theses into the theoretical body of the enactive approach: sense-making and cognition fundamentally consist of processes of norm development; the environment, cognitive agents actually interact with, is an active ecological field enacted in their historical past; and sense-making occurs in a domain consisting of multiple normative dimensions that the author names enactive place.

Before now, there has been no comprehensive analysis of the multiple relations between A. Comte's and J.S. Mill's positive philosophy and Franz Brentano's work. The present volume aims to fill this gap and to identify Brentano's position in the context of the positive philosophy of the 19th century by analyzing the following themes: the concept of positive knowledge; philosophy and empirical, genetic and descriptive psychology as sciences in Brentano, Comte and Mill; the strategies for the rebirth of philosophy in these three authors; the theory of the ascending stages of thought, of their decline, of the intentionality in Comte and Brentano; the reception of Comte's positivism in Whewell and Mill; induction and phenomenalism in Brentano, Mill and Bain; the problem of the "I" in Hume and Brentano; mathematics as a foundational science in Brentano, Kant and Mill; Brentano's critique of Mach's positivism; the concept of positive science in Brentano's metaphysics and in Husserl's early phenomenology; the reception of Brentano's psychology in Twardowski; The Brentano Institute at Oxford. The volume also contains the translation of the most significant writings of Brentano regarding philosophy as science. I. Tanasescu, Romanian Academy; A. Bejinariu, Romanian Society of Phenomenology; S. Krantz Gabriel, Saint Anselm College; C. Stoenescu, University of Bucharest.