•  81
    Understanding Derrida (edited book)
    with Jon Roffe
    Continuum. 2004.
    The essays cover language, metaphysics, the subject, politics, ethics, the decision, translation, religion, psychoanalysis, literature, art, and Derrida's ...
  •  388
    Throughout much of the twentieth century, the relationship between analytic and continental philosophy has been one of disinterest, caution or hostility. Recent debates in philosophy have highlighted some of the similarities between the two approaches and even envisaged a post-continental and post-analytic philosophy. Opening with a history of key encounters between philosophers of opposing camps since the late nineteenth century - from Frege and Husserl to Derrida and Searle - the book goes on …Read more
  •  94
    Direct Perception, Inter-subjectivity, and Social Cognition: Why Phenomenology is a Necessary but not Sufficient Condition
    The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Research 333-354. 2015.
    In this paper I argue that many of the core phenomenological insights, including the emphasis on direct perception, are a necessary but not sufficient condition for an adequate account of inter-subjectivity today. I take it that an adequate account of inter-subjectivity must involve substantial interaction with empirical studies, notwithstanding the putative methodological differences between phenomenological description and scientific explanation. As such, I will need to explicate what kind of …Read more
  •  154
    Continental Philosophy and Chickening Out: A Reply to Simon Glendinning
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 17 (2): 255-72. 2009.
    This paper critically engages with Simon Glendinning’s The Idea of Continental Philosophy. Glendinning purports to show that there can be no coherent philosophical understanding of continental philosophy as comprising any sort of distinct or unified tradition. In this paper, however, I raise some questions about the largely unilateral direction in which his account of the motives for the divide is pursued: analytic philosophy is envisaged as pathologically projecting the internal and unavoidabl…Read more
  •  116
    Existentialism, Philosophy of
    In Michael T. Gibbons (ed.), Encyclopedia of Political Thought, Wiley-blackwell. 2014.
    This chapter examines the connections between French existentialism and politics. Fellow travellers like Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and de Beauvoir saw themselves as engaging with two theoretical trajectories that for them dominated the mid-twentieth century intellectual milieu, one of which was ostensibly apolitical (phenomenology), the other of which involved a politicised understanding of philosophy (Marxism). Part of the motivation behind renewing phenomenology as existential phenomenology, as o…Read more
  •  98
    Phenomenology and Science (edited book)
    Palgrave-Macmillan. 2016.
    This book investigates the complex, sometimes fraught relationship between phenomenology and the natural sciences. The contributors attempt to subvert and complicate the divide that has historically tended to characterize the relationship between the two fields. Phenomenology has traditionally been understood as methodologically distinct from scientific practice, and thus removed from any claim that philosophy is strictly continuous with science. There is some substance to this thinking, which h…Read more
  •  242
    On the question of precisely what role common sense (or related datum like folk psychology, trust in pre-theoretic/intuitive judgments, etc.) should have in reigning in the possible excesses of our philosophical methods, the so-called ‘continental’ answer to this question, for the vast majority, would be “as little as possible”, whereas the analytic answer for the vast majority would be “a reasonably central one”. While this difference at the level of both rhetoric and meta-philosophy is sometim…Read more
  •  125
    Merleau-Ponty: Key Concepts
    with Rosalyn Diprose
    Routledge. 2008.
    Having initially not had the attention of Sartre or Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty's work is arguably now more widely influential than either of his two contemporaries. "Merleau-Ponty: Key Concepts" presents an accessible guide to the core ideas which structure Merleau-Ponty's thinking as well as to his influences and the value of his ideas to a wide range of disciplines. The first section of the book presents the context of Merleau-Ponty's thinking, the major debates of his time, particularly existen…Read more
  •  82
    In Telling Flesh: the Substance 0f the C0rporeul, Vicki Kirby suggests, among other things, that it is not in the interests of feminism to propound what she describes as an ‘inessentialist’ position in regards to embodiment. While she objects to undifferentiating biological givens that might, for example, attempt to construe women as confined to a nurturing role, she also does not want to simplistically insist that embodiment has nothing to do with subjectivity. To pose the problem in terms more…Read more
  •  138
    Time, Philosophy and Chronopathologies
    Parrhesia (15): 64-80. 2012.
    This essay is an elaboration on some central themes and arguments from my recent book, Chronopathologies: Time and Politics in Deleuze, Derrida, Phenomenology and Analytic Philosophy (Rowman and Littlefield 2012). There is hence an element of generality to this essay that the book itself is better able to justify. But a short programmatic piece has its own virtues, especially for those of us who are time poor (which is pretty much everyone in contemporary academia). Moreover, it adds a dimension…Read more
  •  60
    In this paper, I argue that the negative injunctions against certain ways of conceiving of the ethico-political that we can draw explicitly from the methodological strictures of phenomenology are also consistent with some of the core more positive dimensions of contemporary virtue ethics (especially at the more anti-theoretical end of the virtue ethical spectrum), and that central aspects of virtue ethics are consistent with most of the explicit reflections on ethical matters proffered by canoni…Read more
  • Jacques Derrida, Rogues: Two Essays on Reason (review)
    Philosophy in Review 25 343-346. 2005.
  •  157
    There has recently been a plethora of attempts to understand the key differences that separate the analytic and continental traditions of philosophy, often involving either painstaking descriptions of the divergent argumentative techniques and methodologies that concern them, or comparatively examining in detail the work of certain major theorists in both traditions (e.g. Rawls and Derrida, Lewis and Deleuze). While partly drawing on these two approaches, in this particular essay I instead propo…Read more
  •  210
    Introduction: Post-analytic and meta-continental philosophy
    with James Chase, James Williams, and Edwin Mares
    In James Williams, Jack Reynolds, James Chase & Edwin Mares (eds.), Postanalytic and Metacontinental: Crossing Philosophical Divides, Continuum. 2010.
    This chapter sketches some of the difficulties involved in defining analytic and continental philosophy, but begins to elaborate an argument for the centrality of methodology to the 'divide'.
  •  99
    In this paper, I take inspiration from some themes in Ann Murphy’s recent book, Violence and the Philosophical Imaginary, especially her argument that philosophy’s identity and relation to itself depends on an intimate relationship with that which is designated as not itself, the latter of which is a potential source of shame that calls for some form of response. I argue that this shame is particularly acute in regard to the natural sciences, which have gone on in various ways to distance themse…Read more
  •  283
    Derrida, friendship and the transcendental priority of the ‘untimely’
    Philosophy and Social Criticism 36 (6): 663-676. 2010.
    This article examines Derrida’s insistence on the contretemps that breaks open time, paying particular attention to Politics of Friendship and the way in which this book envisages the ‘untimely’ as both interrupting, and making possible, friendship. Although I suggest that Derrida’s temporal deconstruction of the Aristotelian distinction between utility and ‘perfect’ friendships is convincing, I also argue that Derrida’s own account of friendship is itself touched by time, in the peculiar sense …Read more
  •  209
    I examine the relationship that obtains between the work of Derrida and Rawls, not least because of the conviction that Derrida (and post-structuralism more generally) offers certain invaluable things to political thought that analytic political philosophy would do well to take account of, particularly as concerns the relation between time and politics. In Derrida’s case, his emphasis on the radical difference of the future, the ‘to come’, serves as a guardrail against political absolutisms of a…Read more
  •  286
    Existentialism, Phenomenology and Philosophical Method
    with Felicity Joseph
    In Felicity Joseph, Jack Reynolds & Ashley Woodward (eds.), Continuum Companion to Existentialism, Continuum. 2011.
    This chapter explores some of the similarities and differences in the philosophical methods of five philosophers often considered existentialists: Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, de Beauvoir and Marcel. The relationship between existentialism and phenomenological methods, as well as transcendental reasoning in general, is examined.
  •  122
    Understanding Existentialism
    Routledge. 2005.
    This book discusses the work of the existential phenomenologists - Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and de Beauvoir - and the final chapter looks at the legacy of existentialism upon the thought of Derrida and other post-structuralist thinkers.
  •  117
    The fate of transcendental reasoning in contemporary philosophy
    with James Chase
    In James Williams, Jack Reynolds, James Chase & Edwin Mares (eds.), Postanalytic and Metacontinental: Crossing Philosophical Divides, Continuum. 2010.
    A significant methodological difference between analytic and continental philosophers comes out in their differing attitudes to transcendental reasoning. It has been an object of concern to analytic philosophy since the dawn of the movement around the start of the twentieth century, and although there was briefly a mini-industry on the validity of transcendental arguments following Peter Strawson’s prominent use of them, discussion of their acceptability – usually with a negative verdict – is fa…Read more
  •  84
    Hegel's famous descriptions of the “master–slave dialectic,” and the more general analysis of the struggle for recognition that it is a part of, have been remarkably influential throughout the nine...
  •  57
    Jean-Paul Sartre's moving eulogy for Merleau-Ponty on his death was entitled "Merleau-Ponty vivant" – Merleau-Ponty lives. And it is indeed difficult to deny that Merleau-Ponty’s thought remains a live and enduring part of the contemporary philosophical scene, in a manner that could not be said for his more famous contemporary. Despite the enduring significance of Merleau-Ponty and the voluminous writings about his work, the book that was intended to be his magnum opus, The Visible and the Invis…Read more
  •  92
    Review of Michael Marder, The Event of the Thing: Derrida's Post-Deconstructive Realism (review)
    with Richard Sebold
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010 (2). 2010.
    In this review we consider Michael Marder's association of Derrida with realism.
  •  109
    Habituality and undecidability: A comparison of Merleau-ponty and Derrida on the decision
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 10 (4). 2002.
    This essay examines the relationship that obtains between Merleau-Ponty and Derrida through exploring an interesting point of dissension in their respective accounts of decision-making. Merleau-Ponty's early philosophy emphasizes the body-subject's tendency to seek an equilibrium with the world (by acquiring skills and establishing what he refers to as 'intentional arcs'), and towards deciding in an embodied and habitual manner that minimizes any confrontation with what might be termed a decisio…Read more