Husserl's Criticism of Reason: With Ethnomethodological Specifications

Husserl's Criticism of Reason, With Ethnomethodological Specifications marshals some of the central ideas of phenomenology for use in empirical studies of naturally occurring ordinary interaction. At the same time, Liberman outlines ways that concrete ethnomethodological studies of philosophical thinking and philosophers' work can extend Edmund Husserl's criticism of reasoning by providing specificities that Husserl never furnished. Liberman develops and applies such phenomenological ideas as the limits of apophantic reasoning and logocentrism, the benefits of aporias and negative dialectics, and theLebenswelt origins of meaning. For phenomenologists, he offers clear summaries of the most vital notions that ethnomethodologists use to locate and describe the implicit intricacies of the thinking philosophical practitioners who are actively and collaboratively engaged in formal reflections. Liberman not only engages in a dialogue and debate with the major thinkers of the phenomenological and post-phenomenological tradition, including Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, and Derrida, he poses some ethnomethodological challenges to contemporary phenomenological thought. These notions are not only developed theoretically, but also illustrated practically with abundant demonstrations and detailed analyses.Husserl's Criticism of Reason is situated within a philosophical anthropological vision of how human beings have been learning how to use the tools of formal analytic reasoning to serve their thinking without suffocating it.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Foreword by George Psathas Chapter 2 Preface Part 3 Part One - Phenomenological Investigations Chapter 4 Chapter 1. Husserl's "Criticism of Reason" Chapter 5 Chapter 2. Thinking with Categorical Forms Chapter 6 Chapter 3. Levinas's Critique of Apophantic Reason Chapter 7 Chapter 4. Heidegger's Respecification of Thinking Chapter 8 Chapter 5. Garfinkel's Uncompromising Intellectual Rigor Part 9 Part Two - Ethnomethodological Specifications Chapter 10 Chapter 6. Brief Introduction to the Tibetan's Criticism of Reason Chapter 11 Chapter 7. Recognizing the Limits of Apophansis Chapter 12 Chapter 8. Philosophy as Its Lived Work Chapter 13 Conclusion: Philosophers' Work

About the Author :
Kenneth Liberman is professor in the department of sociology, University of Oregon.

Review :
Liberman provides many detailed examples....[He]keeps his promise of showing how thinking reason lives with, and actively uses, sophistry and formal tools of reasoning....Liberman's well-planned foray into the borderlands between phenomenology and ethnomethodology may have re-awakened a slumbering giant....Bringing together two methodologically different disciplines is itself an impressive achievement....Liberman succeeds in attaining his stated goal....He displays the fluidity of thinking reason, and, even more important, shows that it must remain dynamic instead of getting trapped in its own logical aporias and contradictions....Liberman has created an exciting fusion that has the potential to reinvigorate thinking reason. 'To reason,' Ken Liberman proposes at the start of this book, 'is to work with other humans in applying some discipline to our thinking.' He goes on to show us, with great patience, persistence, and insight (and by using Garfinkel's ethnomethodology) just how 'people achieve sense in their mundane lives,' as exhibited in 'occasions where thinking reason' is at work in re-connecting our logic with our lifeworld experience–whether those occasions are enacted by Tibetan Buddhist monks or Australian Aboriginal people.