The phenomenological method of Husserl and the hermeneutics of Heidegger paved the way for what became known as reception theory. One of the foremost figures of reception theory, Hans Robert Jauss (1921-1997), studied at the University of Heidelberg with the… Read More ›
Much reader-response theory had its philosophical origins in the doctrine known as phenomenology, whose foundations were laid by the German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938). The Greek word phainomenon means “appearance.” Hence, as a philosophical attitude, phenomenology shifts our emphasis of… Read More ›
French philosopher, novelist and playwright, who was in many respects the model of a politically engaged intellectual, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was offered, but refused, the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964 . An indication of the esteem in which he was… Read More ›
Two different traditions in the study of language and philosophy come together magisterially in Paul Ricoeur’s (1913–2005) study The Rule of Metaphor (1975; trans. 1977), with Anglo-American and ‘French’ approaches thereby brought into dialogue. While there is much talk of transdisciplinary… Read More ›
Unlike structuralism that derived from linguistics, poststructuralism owes its origin to philosophy, which as a discipline, always tends to emphasise the difficulty in achieving complete and secure knowledge about things. This point is encapsulated in Nietzsche’s famous remark: “There are… Read More ›