Introduction to Phenomenology (Robert Sokolowski)

This book will be just great for introducing my master degree students on very important concepts on Phenomenology, especially intentionality. It will also cope with the hard task of explaining what phenomenology really is. I have used the D'Artigues book for many years, since it is a good one , however Sokolowsky gives e new breath to any one looking for a better understanding of that important philosophic approach to our complex and challenging human world, mainly nowadays due to so many conflicting relationships everywhere.

It is not important how many of books regarding phenomenology you have read, this Introduction is much, much more than only introduction. Can help you focused your mind again to the matter.

The phenomenological tradition, an oft used misnomer for "Continental Philosophy," diverges from Analytic philosophy in dramatic ways. One commentator stated, possibly disparagingly, that the Analytic side is all about problems while the Continental side is all about proper names. Regardless of that statement's veracity (both traditions seem equally addicted to eminent names), newcomers to phenomenology, or even to the Continental tradition altogether, will find the fibers of this book almost unsullied by proper names. In near defiance to the stereotype above, it seems populated with problems. For many of these it even suggests solutions. Though phenomenology comprises only part of the entire Continental lineage, it nonetheless played a massive role in that tradition's development. Heidegger and Sartre, names known everywhere, founded their thought in phenomenology and simultaneously expanded its influence and scope. Anyone desiring to understand either major figure's thought should gr... Read more

This is an excellent introduction to phenomenology. While the history of phenomenology is fascinating and rewards serious study, this book, unlike others, cuts through the differences between phenomenological thinkers to the 'meat and bones' of the approach and presents the basic methods of phenomenological analysis in a clear and penetrating fashion. I found it thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening. Anyone interested in philosophy would do well to sit down with this book for a few hours. It could very well change the way you look at the world and the way you approach philosophical problems (for the better!). Highly recommended.

As Cal Schrag notes in a fantastic litte essay called "The Recovery of the Phenomenological Subject": "In 1945 Maurice Merleau-Ponty began the preface to his classic work Phenomenologie de la perception, with the observation that the reader might find it odd that the question What is phenomenology? still needs to be answered one-half a century after the first writings of Edmund Husserl. The fact however remains, wrote Mereleau-Ponty, that this question still awaits an answer. Some fifty years after the publication of Merleau-Ponty's seminal work on perception we are still asking the question What is phenomenology?" I do not hesitate (well, maybe a little) to reply that reading this excellent book by Sokolowski will certainly put the beginner on the path to answering this difficult question. Perhaps it answers best What is Husserlian phenomenology? but what better place to begin the journey than at the beginning. This is certainly not a scholarly text. You will not find footno... Read more