What Is Transcendental Phenomenology?: Foundations of a Phenomenological Speculative Idealism

Offering a systematic introduction to a vital discipline

Phenomenology is a now century-old school of philosophy, to which Alexander Schnell offers here a threefold introduction that explores its diversity of approaches. In What Is Transcendental Phenomenology?, Schnell provides an in-depth overview of the Husserlian phenomenological method and its fundamental concepts (epoché and reduction, eidetic variation, phenomenological description, and phenomenological construction). He then examines that method’s limits, stressing the necessity of overcoming them in order to achieve a constructive approach while staying true to its fundamental disciplinary frameworks. Finally, he outlines a theory of understanding that expands the phenomenological method and highlights its speculative grounding before turning to speculative realists’ criticisms of the field. Schnell’s work shows that phenomenology can face the challenge of speculative thinking from an idealist standpoint, making a vital contribution to current debates about new, or speculative, realism. This important volume not only answers its titular question but, in its mode of discussing its subject, is itself phenomenology.