I spent the first semester of 2012 studying the philosophy of subjectivity, which brought me into contact with many philosophical schools from Cartesianism to Feminism. One of my favourite “discoveries” was the phenomenological school of philosophy, specifically that of Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (and, yes, I am aware that Heidegger probably would not have considered himself a phenomenologist). I had to do an assignment discussing Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty’s views of the self, which brought Richard Kearney’s book to my attention, among others. As the title makes clear, Kearney discusses various strands of modern European (or Continental) philosophy. He presents the works of nineteen philosophers under the broad headings of Phenomenology, Critical Theory, and Structuralism. A slight complaint would be that Kearney sometimes shoehorns certain philosophers into the respective categories, even when they themselves denied that they practised philosophy of that school (the above example of Heidegger is one; Foucault’s presence under the Structuralists is another). Kearney does, however, always indicate these instances, and cogently argues for their inclusion under the specific categories. Perhaps he could have done without the broad categories – perhaps he thought the broad categories would help to structure his book. In any case, it is only a minor quibble.

Of the three categories, I am constitutionally most drawn to the phenomenological philosophers, and consequently found Kearney’s explication of their theories the most congenial. Here it is Merleau-Ponty’s arguments concerning embodied subjectivity that I find most interesting and cogent. On the other hand, I also find Edmund Husserl’s ground-breaking phenomenological work interesting – he was, after all, the father of such studies – and Heidegger is always intriguing. Jean-Paul Sartre and Paul Ricoeur are also great French philosophers in this tradition, with Sartre providing both philosophical and literary works to support his standpoint. To be honest, the only phenomenologist (though he would also deny this categorisation) that Kearney considers whom I actively dislike, is Jacques Derrida. Like heady wine, Derrida is an acquired taste that I never managed to, well, acquire. It is not that I completely disagree with deconstructionism, however you might want to define deconstructionism (would you want to define it?) Rather, I dislike Derrida’s arrogance. His claims about literature are too complex to go into here. Let us just say that I think a lot of his writing is pure hokum. Maybe my inbuilt sh*t-detector is overactive when it comes to his textual strategies. Maybe I just feel threatened by his decentring of the literary canon. Maybe… well, enough of that. I would rather be reading Merleau-Ponty, in any case.

Critical Theory was a whole new field to me. It is, basically, a Marxist school of philosophy. On the whole, I do not have a high regard for Marxism, especially its positivist adherents, but some of the Critical Theorists seem like interesting and convincing thinkers. I do not have the required knowledge to really write anything coherent about their philosophies, but I would like to read some of their works, especially those of Walter Benjamin and Herbert Marcuse.

I am a bit more acquainted with Structuralist theories, though not so much that I can really write intelligibly about most of the Structuralist thinkers. I studied Ferdinand de Saussure, who introduced Structuralism into linguistics, for a bit during a course in English grammar, but that was a few years ago. He seems like a very original thinker, even though his writings are mostly very technical. Similarly, I studied Claude Lévi-Strauss in a course on Ancient Cultural History. He introduced Structuralist thinking into anthropology, but all I can really remember about his work is how unconvincing I found most of his explanations of myths. Of the other Structuralists, I know the most about Foucault, who, though an interesting and controversial thinker, I do not particularly like. His work on madness and sexual deviancy interests me, even though I doubt I would agree with most of his conclusions. Then we have Lacan, Althusser, Barthes, and Kristeva. I am aware of Barthes’s claims concerning the ‘death of the author’, thanks to a Poetics and Literary Theory course I took. Kristeva also seems interesting, especially her “post-feminist” ideology, if ideology is the right word.

This is a great introduction to some of the most important philosophers of the previous century. Even though I doubt I will be reading more of some of them, I found it a mind-expanding prolegomena to modern European philosophy. I recommend it for its clarity and inherent interestingness.

A note: I feel that this is, in some ways, a sorry, bedraggled excuse for a review, as I have mostly relied on value-judgements, instead of focussing on the content of Kearney’s book. My problem was how to condense Kearney’s complex explications of the philosophers’ theories into a readable, and not overlong, review. Being intimidated by this problem, I took the coward’s way out and relied on the aforesaid personal judgements. I am sure that a better review of the book is possible, but it would involve more effort than I am willing to expend at the moment. ( )