Abstract

In Introduction to a Phenomenology of Life, renowned French philosopher Renaud Barbaras aims to construct the basis for a phenomenology of life. Called an introduction because it has to deal with philosophical limits and presuppositions, it is much more, as Barbaras investigates life in its phenomenological senses, approached through the duality of its intransitive and transitive senses. Originally published in French (Introduction à une phénoménologie de la vie) Introduction to a Phenomenology of Life first defines the problem of life phenomenologically, then studies the failures of the phenomenological movement to adequately think about life, and finally elaborates a new, original, and productive approach to the problem. He engages "object-oriented" philosophies with this approach and concludes that they are far more phenomenological than previously believed. Combining original interpretations and expert readings of philosophers such as Kant and Husserl and contemporary thinkers such as Bergson, Badiou, and Deleuze, Barbaras offers here a powerful and important contribution to phenomenology and continental thought.