Inventing Philosophy's Other

The history of phenomenology, and its absence, in American philosophy. Phenomenology and so-called continental philosophy receive scant attention in most American philosophy departments, despite their foundational influence on intellectual movements such as existentialism, post-structuralism, and deconstruction. In Inventing Philosophys Other, Jonathan Strassfeld explores this absence, revealing how everyday institutional practices played a determinative role in the development of twentieth-century academic discourse. Conventional wisdom holds that phenomenologys absence from the philosophical mainstream in the United States reflects its obscurity or even irrelevance to Americas philosophical traditions. Strassfeld refutes this story as he traces phenomenologys reception in America, delivering the first systematic historical study of the movement in the United States. He examines the lives and works of Marjorie Grene, Alfred Schtz, Hubert Dreyfus, and Iris Marion Young, among others, while also providing a fresh introduction to phenomenological philosophy.