Phenomenology or Deconstruction?: The Question of Ontology in Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Paul Ricoeur, and Jean-Luc Nancy

Phenomenology or Deconstruction? contains new readings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Paul Ricœur, and Jean-Luc Nancy. Jacques Derrida's engagement with phenomenological themes generates a new understanding of "being" and "presence" that exposes significant blindspots in traditional readings of both phenomenology and deconstruction. In reproducing neither a stock phenomenological reaction to deconstruction nor the routine deconstructive reading of phenomenology, Christopher Watkin provides a fresh assessment of the future of phenomenology along with a new reading of the deconstructive legacy. Through careful studies of the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, Ricœur, and Nancy, Watkin shows how a phenomenological tradition much wider and richer than Husserl or Heidegger takes into account Derrida's critique of ontology while maintaining a commitment to the ontological. This new reading fundamentally recasts the relation between deconstruction and phenomenology and marks the first sustained discussion of the possibilities and problems for future "deconstructive phenomenology."