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SOKOLOWSKi, Robert. Introduction to Phenomenology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. ix + 238 pp. Hardcover, $49.99; paper, $18.95-Robert Sokolowski's concise and accessible new book introduces phenomenology not as a historical movement, but as an approach to philosophy that still has much to offer. It discusses central topics in Husserlian phenomenology, but without quoting Husserl and for the most part without mentioning him by name. Instead of examining the contributions of individual phenomenologists, the book extracts and synthesizes the insights of various figures, formulating them in new ways and showing why they are important in the context of contemporary intellectual life.
The book begins, not surprisingly, with the concept of intentionality, the fundamental phenomenological doctrine that all acts of consciousness are directed toward objects. Sokolowski discusses in some detail the way intentionality works in perception: how the perceived object appears as an identity in a manifold of appearances, as something distinct from but nonetheless given through a series of sides, aspects, and profiles. He goes on to explore the different intentional structures involved in memory and imagination and in our experience of words, pictures, and symbols. Subsequent chapters are devoted to such higher-order forms of intentionality as the "categorial" and the "eidetic," and to the distinctive understanding of truth and evidence that emerges in phenomenology. Other topics examined include the self, temporality, the life world, and intersubjectivity. The book concludes with an appendix that briefly surveys the historical development of phenomenology from Husserl and Heidegger...