Home and Beyond ─ Generative Phenomenology After Husserl

At a time in which many philosophers have concluded that Husserl's philosophy is exhausted, but when the alternatives to Husserl appear to be exhausted as well, Anthony J. Steinbock presents an innovative approach to Husserlian phenomenology. Steinbock implicitly attacks the most fundamental criticism aimed at Husserl: that his philosophy is intrinsically formalistic, unable in principle to deal with concrete matters of life and how to live it. The "generation" which Steinbock traces through Husserl's writings - from static through genetic and finally to generative phenomena - is in part the generation of the lifeworld in and through various kinds of domesticity and alienness. Steinbock's systematic study of the problems and themes of a generative phenomenology, normality and abnormality, and the sociohistorical concepts of homeworld and alienworld, and the steps he takes toward developing such a generative phenomenology, open new doors for a phenomenology of the social world while casting new light on work done by Husserl himself and by many philosophers working more or less in a Husserlian vein. Both critique and an appropriation of a large and diverse body of work, Home and Beyond: Generative Phenomenology after Husserl is a major contribution to contemporary Husserl scholarship.

Anthony J. Steinbock is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.