Studies in Contemporary Phenomenology28 Phenomenology, Ontology, Metaphysics

The volume collects papers by leading North American scholars of phenomenology to explore the intersection and mutual determination of phenomenology, ontology, and metaphysics, focusing on Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Derrida, and Deleuze. Given the current mainstream landscape of philosophy, one might assume that phenomenology is merely a tradition, a perspective, or a method of philosophizing among others. Likewise, one might assume that ontology and metaphysics—despite being concerned with everything and anything there is—are just subfields of philosophy, such that one could engage in philosophy without engaging in ontology or metaphysics. This volume rejects both assumptions. Instead, it situates phenomenology, particularly in the context of the English-speaking world, in the philosophical tradition that attempts to achieve a unitary concept of philosophy as such, everywhere animated by ontological and metaphysical questions. The essays collected here attend first to the seminal determination of the concepts in Husserl and Heidegger, then to reformulations by Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Derrida, and Deleuze, challenging standard narratives about the end of metaphysics and the limits of philosophy as phenomenology.