Review by Choice Review
This work focuses on the history of the phenomenology of time, and the way temporality shows up in human lives (lived time versus clock time). In what proves not only an illuminating, but also a provocative analysis, Hoy (Univ. of California, Santa Cruz) explicates, with depth of perspective and historical vision, key insights of major phenomenological philosophers (Husserl, early Heidegger, Deleuze, Zizek, and others) as they unlock what they determine to be the source of time and plumb not only time's passing, but the human effort to "recover" time (not regain the lost time itself, but come to grips with the time one has remaining). Thus these philosophers attempt reconciliation between loss, the sting of time gone by, and the enjoyment of lived time. One of Hoy's accomplishments here is that he applies the method of genealogy to temporality, thus showing appreciation of the crucial difference between the history of philosophy as competing fixed ideologies and that of a critique that involves a process of ongoing conceptual experimentation and self-transformation. The book concludes with a helpful postscript clarifying the philosophical allegiances implicit in the genealogical method versus phenomenology and critical theory. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. J. M. Boyle Dowling College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
