Phenomenology and the Metaphysics of Presence [Book Review]

Review of Metaphysics 30 (4):760-761 (1977)
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Abstract

In this text, the reader will find a well focused, clearly written, and concise review of major themes in the philosophy of Edmund Husserl. This work could well serve the beginning student to focus on the major problems in Husserlian thought. Fuchs argues that Husserl’s phenomenology is in conformity with and an outgrowth of the traditional orientation of Western philosophy called the metaphysics of presence. In separate discussions of evidence, temporality, and intersubjectivity, the author attempts to demonstrate both that Husserl is tied to this traditional metaphysical doctrine which grants primacy to presence over absence, and that he nonetheless laid the foundation for the overcoming of this metaphysic. Throughout, Husserl is portrayed as wrestling with the juxtaposition of presence and absence; and yet on each point, presence is said to remain of primary constitutive status: evidence is seen as "absolute presence," the presence of impression plays a stronger constitutive role than the absences of past and future, and knowledge of other human beings is secured on the ground of presence. In short, the author claims that Husserl provided the foundation for the overcoming of the prejudice of the metaphysics of presence, and yet did not succeed in fully extricating himself from the confusions of this tradition.

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