Waterstones Phenomenology of Perception
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Price: £31.99
Brand: Waterstones
Description: First published in 1945, Maurice Merleau-Ponty's monumental Phénoménologie de la perception signalled the arrival of a major new philosophical and intellectual voice in post-war Europe. Breaking with the prevailing picture of existentialism and phenomenology at the time, it has become one of the landmark works of twentieth-century thought. This new translation, the first for over fifty years, makes this classic work of philosophy available to a new generation of readers. Phenomenology of Perception stands in the great phenomenological tradition of Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre. Yet Merleau-Ponty's contribution is decisive, as he brings this tradition and other philosophical predecessors, particularly Descartes and Kant, to confront a neglected dimension of our experience: the lived body and the phenomenal world. Charting a bold course between the reductionism of science on the one hand and intellectualism on the other, Merleau-Ponty argues that we should regard the body not as a mere biological or physical unit, but as the body which structures one's situation and experience within the world. Merleau-Ponty enriches his classic work with engaging studies of famous cases in the history of psychology and neurology as well as phenomena that continue to draw our attention, such as phantom limb syndrome, synaesthesia, and hallucination. This new translation includes many helpful features such as the reintroduction of Merleau-Ponty's discursive Table of Contents as subtitles into the body of the text, a comprehensive Translator's Introduction to its main themes, essential notes explaining key terms of translation, an extensive Index, and an important updating of Merleau-Ponty's references to now available English translations. Also included is a new foreword by Taylor Carman and an introduction to Merleau-Pontyby Claude Lefort. Translated by Donald A. Landes.
Category: Books
Merchant: Waterstones
Product ID: 9780415834339
Delivery cost: 0.00
ISBN: 9780415834339
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Author: Mr. M. H. Graubart
Rating: 5
Review: It is perfectly laughable to be asked by Amazon to review a dense, complex, major text of C20 European philosophy in a few sentences a week or two after purchasing it. Ask me again in six months, after I have read it and discussed it sentence by sentence with fellow-members of a philosophy seminar. In the meantime there are reviews and critiques of a few thousand words to be found in academic journals and text-books. It must be understood that Amazon's title and attribution are completely wrong. The book is not an introduction; nor is it by Taylor Carman. It is by Maurice Merleau-Ponty; it is a full exposition of his philosophy at this stage of his career; and Taylor Carman's contribution to this English translation is one of three introductory essays for English readers. For now, all I can say is: if you want one of the principal contributions to the development of post-Husserlian phenomenology, and of C20 philosophy outside the Anglo-American analytic sphere in general, buy it and struggle with it. If you want a good read to while away a long train-journey, don't.
Author: Paul Vallance
Rating: 1
Review: With all the hype surrounding this 'new translation' , a 'first' since the original English one (by Colin Smith) I was very much looking forward to re-reading this classic text again in a new light. Given the fact that Mr Landes (the translator) and his peer group are at pains to let us know how much improved this version is over the original, I began excitedly but within 30 pages of the actual translation I lost my patience and faith in it. Have to say that I am thoroughly disappointed. I remember reading and re-reading the original cover to cover at University during my studies. That style was accessible and readable, and I found no obstructions to understanding, nor haughty philosophical types waffling in long tracts of dry and tedious introduction. Frankly the original was a journey of joy and discovery. There are many glaring typographical errors and syntactical errors in this new translation that are so flagrantly grammatically incorrect (unreadable) and with such poor grammatical style that you have to reread them many times to try and guess the idea that Merleau Ponty was driving at but which got lost in translation, copywriting or proofreading, I don't know which? This is the phenomenology of my perception! I understand that the magnitude of this work means that there will alway be issues, but stupid obvious errors in the text has caused me to completely lose faith in this work so early on (page 28 of 521). It simply is not diligent enough to warrant respect. I will be going back to the original, and doubt that I will bother with this edition. Let's put all this in perspective, there are 10 pages of Foreword by Taylor Carmen, that I found irrelevent, 13 pages of Eulogy from Claude Lefort, which contained interesting insights into Merleau-Ponty and his philosophy and 22 pages of Translators Notes, which frankly are tedious because I bought the book to re-learn Merleau-Ponty's idea of Phenomenology, not the translator's version. To cap it all there is a bilingual table of contents. I'm sorry but what is the point of that? I suppose as my partner speaks fluent french I could ask her to test the validity of the translation by cross referencing the French and English headings, in order to restore my faith in this work. The bilingual table of contents may therefore have a function after all! By page 30 of the actual book the grammatical errors and syntactical unsmoothness start piling up and the translation began to lose its verve and validity and I, my faith in it.
