Dialogues in Phenomenology

Phenomenology in the United States is in a state of ferment and change. Not all the changes are happy ones, however, for some of the most prominent philosophers of the first generation of phenomenologists have died: in 1959 Alfred Schutz, and within the past two years John Vild, Dorion Cairns, and Aron Gur- witsch. These thinkers, though often confronting a hostile intel- lectual climate, were nevertheless persistent and profoundly influential-through their own works, and through their students. The two sources associated with their names, The Graduate Faculty of The New School for Social Research, and the circle around John Wild first at Harvard and later at Northwestern and Yale, produced a sizable portion of the now second gener- ation American phenomenological philosophers. In a way, it was the very hostility of the American philo- sophical milieu which became an important factor in the ferment now taking place. Although the older, first generation phenome- nologists were deeply conversant with other philosophical move- ments here and abroad, their efforts at meaningful dialogue were largely ignored. Determined not to remain isolated from the dominant currents of Anglo-American philosophy in par- ticular, the second generation opened the way to a dialogue with analytic philosophers, especially through the efforts of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, led by 2 INTRODUCTION such men as James M. Edie and Hubert Dreyfus and, in other respects, Herbert Spiegelberg and Maurice Natanson.