The Wider Scene

Abstract

The preceding chapter has brought the history of the Phenomenological Movement down to the present in at least one part of the world: France. In no other country is phenomenology as much a thing of the present as it is there. But this does not mean that phenomenology has become an exclusively French affair. The present chapter must give at least a bird’s-eye survey of the state and place of phenomenology in other parts of the philosophical world, Old and New. In several cases this will involve also a brief sketch of the antecedents of the present phenomenological situation in the preceding decades. This chapter also includes an appraisal of the general condition of the Phenomenological Movement and its prospects. It ends with a statement of certain agenda which seem to me important if phenomenology is to make the kind of contribution to contemporary philosophy for which it seems to be particularly qualified.