Sebastian Luft and Søren Overgaard (Eds.): The Routledge Companion to Phenomenology

Abstract

The Routledge Companion to Phenomenology covers an impressive range of issues and authors from the phenomenological tradition and presents phenomenology's philosophical contributions in a clear and compelling way. The quality of the individual essays is consistently outstanding, and they nicely complement one another. In contrast to volumes such as Moran and Embree (2004), The Routledge Companion to Phenomenology is a collection of essays written specifically for this volume. Its formal approach can be compared to Dreyfus and Wrathall (2006), though the emphasis of the The Routledge Companion to Phenomenology is different. The existentialists do get their fair share of attention in The Routledge Companion to Phenomenology, but as the editors explicitly state in the introduction, their companion takes a more Husserlian starting point in selecting contributors and topics (p. 13). Finally, in contrast to the recently published The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Phenomenology (Zahavi 2012), which collects article length research papers on phenomenological topics, the contributions in The Routledge Companion to Phenomenology are shorter articles that could orient the newcomer to phenomenology or expand the horizons of those already familiar with this philosophical tradition. The volume succeeds in addressing a wide and diverse audience because the individual contributions are both accessible and display philosophical depth and accuracy. The volume is divided into four main parts. The first part treats the main figures in the phenomenological movement. Ten individual essays provide historical information and a general overview of the philosophical works and contributions of the phenomenologist in question. Some contributions focus more on the philosophical development of the respective phenomenologist throughout the different stages of their work (Moran on Husserl, Romdenh-Romluc on