External links
- Official website
- John Russon's homepage at the University of Guelph.
- Review of Russon's Reading Hegel's Phenomenology' at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
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John Russon (born 1960) is a Canadian philosopher, working primarily in the tradition of Continental Philosophy. In 2006, he was named Presidential Distinguished Professor at the University of Guelph, and in 2011 he was the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute's Canadian Lecturer to India.
Russon received his Ph.D. in 1990 from the University of Toronto. His dissertation was entitled Hegel on the Body.
Russon is known for his original philosophical contributions, and also for his scholarly interpretations of G.W.F. Hegel, Contemporary Continental Philosophy and Ancient Philosophy.
Russon is known as an original philosopher, primarily through his books Human Experience, Bearing Witness to Epiphany, and Sites of Exposure. Leonard Lawlor describes Russon as "one of the few original voices working in Continental Philosophy today." [1] Human Experience, which won the 2005 Broadview Press/Canadian Philosophical Association Book Prize, brought together themes from Hegel, Contemporary Continental Philosophy and Ancient Philosophy, and produced an original interpretation of the development of personal identity. [2] In this work Russon argues that the experiences through which we are inaugurated into any distinctive domain of meaning necessarily leave the stamp of their specific (and contingent) character on our subsequent experiences in that domain. He uses this notion to interpret the significance of family experience in the formation of personal identity, and he finds this aspect of our experience to be the key to understanding mental health (and mental illness). [3] Russon's approach to mental health—in particular his interpretation of neurosis—is specially striking for its bringing together of the theme of embodiment that has been prominent in existential phenomenology with the theme of dialectical self-transformation that is prominent in the philosophy of Hegel [4] and with the theme of the "system" of family life that is prominent in the work of such psychologists and family theorists as Salvador Minuchin, R.D. Laing and D.W. Winnicott. [5] This work is also important for its use of these ideas to criticize the "individualist" premises of much political and economic theory, [6] and to develop of a political theory of multiculturalism. [7] His interpretation of the dynamic and transformative role of sexuality (eros) provides an important link between his work and the philosophy of Plato. The importance of sexuality to personal development, and especially its relationship to ethical life and to artistic creativity is further explored in Bearing Witness to Epiphany. Like Human Experience, this work stands out for its emphasis on the way that the important dimensions of our experience are embodied in the most basic material dimensions of our lives—everyday "things" and basic bodily practices—and this work thus offers a new metaphysics of "the thing" and of reality in general, arguing that issues of metaphysics cannot be separated from issues of ethics. His most recent book, Sites of Exposure, broadens the perspective of these earlier books to address issues of politics and history. Russon analyzes the dynamic process by which we make ourselves at home in a culture, and at the same time come into conflict with other cultures. Investigating this process throughout history, with a special emphasis on ancient Athenian democracy, the history of Islam, and the history of British Empire in Asia, Russon argues for a pluralist multiculturalism as the only viable political direction. He concludes the book with a study of art, which is relevant because it is art that can transform our perspective in a way that opens us to the new possibilities of social and cultural life that are necessary if we are to get beyond simple situations of cultural conflict. He offers original studies of Thomas Cole, Rachel Whiteread, Anselm Kiefer, and Gerhard Richter, among others.
In addition to his original philosophical contributions, Russon has also published substantial scholarly work in the history of philosophy.
Though his doctoral supervisor was the Heidegger scholar Graeme Nicholson, his interpretation of Hegel's philosophy is more often thought of as continuing the tradition of his teacher H.S. Harris (1926–2007), [8] the pre-eminent Hegel scholar in the English-speaking world. Russon's Hegel-interpretation is also distinctive because of its attempt to show the continuity of Hegel's philosophy with the philosophical traditions of phenomenology, existentialism and deconstruction. This interpretation has been developed through many scholarly articles, and especially through three books: The Self and Its Body in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, [9] Reading Hegel's Phenomenology, [10] and Infinite Phenomenology: The Lessons of Hegel's Science of Experience. [11]
Russon's philosophical orientation is largely derived from existential phenomenology, and he has published a number of scholarly articles in this area, especially focusing on the work of Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jacques Derrida. His most recent works include, "The Self as Resolution: Heidegger, Derrida and the Intimacy of the Question of the Meaning of Being," and "The Spatiality of Self-Consciousness: Originary Passivity in Kant, Merleau-Ponty and Derrida."
Russon is also known as a scholar of ancient philosophy, especially for his use of the methods of 20th Century European philosophy (phenomenology, hermeneutics and deconstruction) to interpret the texts of Plato and Aristotle. Along with John Sallis, he organized an influential conference at the Pennsylvania State University in 1997 entitled "Retracing the Platonic Text," (the papers from which were published as Retracing the Platonic Text by Northwestern University Press in 2000). [12] This conference helped to inaugurate the growing North American movement to interpret the texts of Greek Philosophy through the lens of Contemporary Continental Philosophy, a movement especially associated with the Ancient Philosophy Society. He is currently the editor of a book series from Northwestern University Press entitled Rereading Ancient Philosophy, a series that publishes books on ancient philosophy that are informed by the insights of continental philosophy.
Russon has supervised the dissertations of many current professors of philosophy across North America on topics in Plato, Aristotle, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, John Dewey and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Russon has held academic appointments at Harvard University, the University of Toronto, Acadia University, the Pennsylvania State University, Stony Brook University, and the University of Guelph. He is also the founder and main organizer of the Toronto Seminar, an annual private seminar for the study of philosophy, held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
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Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interest and he wrote on perception, art, politics, religion, biology, psychology, psychoanalysis, language, nature, and history. He was the lead editor of Les Temps modernes, the leftist magazine he established with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in 1945.
Phenomenology is the philosophical study of objectivity and reality as subjectively lived and experienced. It seeks to investigate the universal features of consciousness while avoiding assumptions about the external world, aiming to describe phenomena as they appear to the subject, and to explore the meaning and significance of the lived experiences.
Continental philosophy is a term used to describe some philosophers and philosophical traditions that do not fall under the umbrella of analytic philosophy. However, there is no academic consensus on the definition of continental philosophy. Prior to the twentieth century, the term "continental" was used broadly to refer to philosophy from continental Europe. A different use of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and traditions outside the analytic movement. Continental philosophy includes German idealism, phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, French feminism, psychoanalytic theory, and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School as well as branches of Freudian, Hegelian and Western Marxist views. There is widespread influence and debate between the analytic and continental traditions; some philosophers see the differences between the two traditions as being based on institutions, relationships, and ideology rather than anything of significant philosophical substance.
In the fields of philosophy, the terms obscurantism and obscurationism identify and describe the anti-intellectual practices of deliberately presenting information in an abstruse and imprecise manner that limits further inquiry and understanding of a subject. The two historical and intellectual denotations of obscurantism are: (1) the deliberate restriction of knowledge — opposition to the dissemination of knowledge; and (2) deliberate obscurity — a recondite style of writing characterized by deliberate vagueness.
Jan Patočka was a Czech philosopher. Having studied in Prague, Paris, Berlin, and Freiburg, he was one of the last pupils of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. In Freiburg he also developed a lifelong philosophical friendship with Husserl's assistant Eugen Fink. Patočka worked in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic for almost his entire career, but never joined the Communist Party and was affected by persecution, which ended in his death as a dissident spokesperson of Charter 77.
Existential phenomenology encompasses a wide range of thinkers who take up the view that philosophy must begin from experience like phenomenology, but argues for the temporality of personal existence as the framework for analysis of the human condition.
Simon Critchley is an English philosopher and the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, USA.
Philosophical anthropology, sometimes called anthropological philosophy, is a discipline dealing with questions of metaphysics and phenomenology of the human person.
Charles Edwin Winquist was the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion at Syracuse University, and is known for his writings on theology, contemporary continental philosophy and postmodern religion. Before he assumed his position at Syracuse University, he taught religious studies at California State University, Chico, from 1969 to 1986.
John Sallis is an American philosopher well known for his work in the tradition of phenomenology. Since 2005, he has been the Frederick J. Adelmann Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. He has previously taught at Pennsylvania State University (1996–2005), Vanderbilt University (1990–1995), Loyola University of Chicago (1983–1990), Duquesne University (1966–1983) and the University of the South (1964–1966).
Robert L. Bernasconi is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. He is known as a reader of Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas, and for his work on the concept of race. He has also written on the history of philosophy.
20th-century French philosophy is a strand of contemporary philosophy generally associated with post-World War II French thinkers, although it is directly influenced by previous philosophical movements.
Western philosophy refers to the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics. The word philosophy itself originated from the Ancient Greek philosophía (φιλοσοφία), literally, "the love of wisdom" Ancient Greek: φιλεῖν phileîn, "to love" and σοφία sophía, "wisdom").
Dermot Moran is an Irish philosopher specialising in phenomenology and in medieval philosophy, and he is also active in the dialogue between analytic and continental philosophy. He is currently the inaugural holder of the Joseph Chair in Catholic Philosophy at Boston College. He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and a founding editor of the International Journal of Philosophical Studies.
The following is a bibliography of John D. Caputo's works. Caputo is an American philosopher closely associated with postmodern Christianity.
Leonard "Len" Lawlor is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. He specializes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Continental philosophy.
John Llewelyn was a Welsh-born British philosopher whose extensive body of work, published over a period of more than forty years, spans the divide between Analytical and Continental schools of contemporary thought. He has conjoined the rigorous approach to matters of meaning and logic typical of the former and the depth and range of reference typical of the latter in a constructive and critical engagement with the work of Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas.
Edward S. Casey is an American philosopher and university professor. He has published several volumes on phenomenology, philosophical psychology, and the philosophy of space and place. His work is widely cited in contemporary continental philosophy. He is currently Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Stony Brook University in New York and distinguished visiting faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute.
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John O'Neill was a Canadian sociologist, phenomenologist, and social theorist known for his writings on critical social theory, philosophy, political economy, literary theory, psychoanalysis, and mass culture. O’Neill was the author, editor, and translator of over 30 books and hundreds of articles, many of which have been translated into French, German, Japanese, and Mandarin. O’Neill's work focuses on the notion of corporeal knowledge and embodiment as mediated by familial relationships and social welfare. O’Neill was Distinguished Professor of Sociology at York University (Emeritus), where he also co-founded the Programme in Social and Political Thought in 1972.
