Page 243 - Contribution To Phenomenology

236 STANFORD M. LYMAN & LESTER EMBREE

Paul Sartre's (1905-1980) Anti-Semite and Jew,^ Then there is much in
the way of approaches and concepts in the other basic literature of
Phenomenology. With the rise of the multi-discipline, new reflections are
called for.
I think I should start out with some remarks about what my
orientation is in general, not because it is still a novelty but rather
because many people currently seem to consider Phenomenology merely
a body of literature or a set of texts by Husserl, Scheler, Heidegger,
Gurwitsch, Schutz, Berger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, de Beauvoir, etc., in
which one can just read around to get ideas. We all do this, of course,
in work outside our own discipline or orientation. But it is a mistake to
consider any account we develop from such sources ipso facto phenomen-
ological. Would one's position become Marxist if one adopted a few
Marxist ideas?
For work to be considered phenomenological, an approach needs to
be taken not only in the examination of what classical authors of the
movement advocate but also in attempting to explore new areas. There
are, to be sure, methodological squabbles and several towers of Babel
within Phenomenology, for it is a century-old school of thought represent-
ed by hundreds of active participants in a variety of disciplines who
pubUsh in English, French, German, ItaUan, Japanese, Spanish, and other
languages. TTiis sounds to me like a ''civilizationaV phenomenon, I hope
so! Also, since we believe we are on the right track, we are not surprised
to find work before and, so to speak, "beside" self-conscious Phenomenol-
ogy that we can consider phenomenological. Are you saying that there is
work which is said to be phenomenological but is not and work which is
not said, at least by its author, to be phenomenological, but still is? Exactly.
In principle—I cannot think of a case, but it is possible—an author could
even explicitly deny that her work is phenomenological, and yet it might
be.

^ Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew, translated by George J. Becker (New
York: Schocken Books, 1948) [originally published as Reflexions sur la question juive.
Copyright 1946 by Paul Morihien, Paris]. See also Maurice Merleau-Ponty, "From
Mauss to Levi-Strauss" and "The Philosopher and Sociology," Signs, translated by
Richard C. McCleary (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 98-113; and
Laurie Spurling, Phenomenology and the Social World: The Philosophy of Merleau-
Ponty and its Relation to the Social Sciences (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1977), 76-109, 191-182.