To Renew the Impulse Leonard Lawlor. Early Twentieth-Century Continental Philosophy

Research in Phenomenology Research in Phenomenology 43 (2013) 297–307 brill.com/rp

To Renew the Impulse Leonard Lawlor. Early Twentieth-Century Continental Philosophy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012. xviii + 275 pp.

With Early Twentieth-Century Continental Philosophy, Leonard Lawlor has given us, first of all, a timely book. With the passing of the generation of Euro- pean continental philosophers who brought us “the great French philosophy of the Sixties,” it is surely in order to ask after a direction, and this is a purpose here for taking stock of philosophy from Henri Bergson’s 1903 Introduction to Metaphysics to Michel Foucault’s 1966 “The Thought of the Outside,” which is how Lawlor identifies “early twentieth-century” here. By 1966, he observes, the philosophical generation of the ’60s has surfaced. Although one may get an impression at times that this ’60s generation came from nowhere, they did not. Lawlor explicitly makes the point that the dominant movement in twentieth- century continental philosophy is phenomenology, well represented in these pages by Husserl, by Heidegger, and by Merleau-Ponty. Lawlor observes that today there is a lot of talk about phenomenology in analytic philosophical cir- cles and he provides a timely reminder that without the prerequisite of the phenomenological epoché, it is not possible to understand what the leading phenomenologists were actually saying. At the same time, Lawlor observes, today there are oppositional calls to take cover under either “naturalism” or “a return to Plato.” The former involves a form of naïveté clearly pointed out, to take an important example, by Husserl in his 1911 Philosophy As Rigorous Science, and the latter too often involves a form of naïveté pointed out, to take an important example, by no less of a Plato scholar than Hans-Georg Gadamer in the addendum on “historicism” in his text Truth and Method. Such current obfuscations point up, again, the timeliness of Lawlor’s book. This timely book is a particularly knowledgeable book. It comprises close and insightful analyses of the following texts: “Introduction to Metaphysics” by Henri Bergson; “The Unconscious” by Sigmund Freud; “Phenomenology” (the 1929 Encyclopedia Britannica article) by Edmund Husserl; “What Is Metaphys- ics?” by Martin Heidegger; “Language” by Martin Heidegger; “Eye and Mind” by Maurice Merleau-Ponty; and “The Thought of the Outside” by Michel Foucault. Each text is addressed individually in one of the seven chapters, and each chapter comprises a brief Introduction followed by a “Summary-Commentary,”

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/15691640-12341260 298 Review Articles / Research in Phenomenology 43 (2013) 297–307 an “Interpretation,” and a “Transition.” These chapters are preceded by a Preface and an Introduction that is entitled “Structure and Genesis of Early Twentieth-Century Continental Philosophy.” The seven chapters are followed by a Conclusion entitled “Further Questions.” There are two Appendices, “A Note on the Idea of Immanence” comes first, and “What Is a Trait?” comes second. In the Preface, entitled “The Four Conceptual Features,” Lawlor spells out what he specifies as the four conceptual features that animate “the great French philosophy of the Sixties.” It is worthwhile to cite them here:

(1) the starting point in immanence (where immanence is understood first as internal, subjective experience, but then, due to the universality of the epoché, immanence is understood as ungrounded experience); (2) difference (where difference gives way to multiplicity, itself emancipated from an absolute origin and an absolute purpose); (3) thought (where thought is understood as language liberated from the constraints of logic, and language is understood solely in terms of its own being, as continuous variation); and (4) the overcoming of metaphysics (where metaphysics is understood as a mode of thinking based in presence, and overcoming is understood as the passage to a new mode of thought, a new people, and a new land) (p. viii).

While clearly it is not possible within the confines of this review to specify how all of the points Lawlor culls from the above-named array of texts contribute to the animation of “the great French philosophy of the Sixties,” a fair sampling is nevertheless in order. In regard to Bergson, Lawlor’s understanding of the import and the charac- ter of intuition marks a starting point for the sense of immanence, and Berg- son’s assessment to the effect that what is needed are “fluid concepts” puts us on the track of multiplicity, which Lawlor identifies as the core idea of twentieth-century continental philosophy. In regard to Freud, while manifestly at odds with phenomenology’s early understanding of “consciousness,” Freud’s understanding of “the unconscious” is indicative of the limits of the early sense of immanence as internal subjective experience. In particular, the intimation of a type of “unconscious experience” points in the direction of transcendental conditions as experienced. That turns out to be a particularly important ani- mating point where “the great French philosophy of the Sixties” is concerned. Further, Freud’s understanding of the conflict between the “preconscious” system and the “conscious system” is indicative of an element of violence that pertains to immanence and that will surface later in this volume. Finally, the possibility suggested by Freud that a schizophrenic might be nearer a cure than a hysterical neurotic, specifically by virtue of verbalization, hints at how language will come to be understood in terms of “its own being.”