The Things Themselves: Phenomenology and the Return to the Everyday by H. Peter Steeves: Book Reviews

The Things Themselves: Phenomenology and the Return to the Everyday H. Peter Steeves. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. For more than fifty years, significant doctrinal differences among American academic philosophers have turned on commitments either to the analytic or to the Continental traditions: the former focus on language, mathematical logic, and scientific method while Continental adherents (related movements include existentialism and phenomenology) emphasize personal experience, especially its affects. In polemic moments the Continentals accuse the analytically attuned of triviality and mimicking the quantitative disciplines. From their side, analytic philosophers have denigrated what they allege to be the antirationalism and willful obscurity of the Continentally committed. H. Peter Steeves, associate professor at DePaul University, stands sympathetically with the phenomenological tradition (Husserl, Merleau Ponty, Levinas, Heidegger) while stepping back from this intramural strife. The result is enlightening for the study of the social self and culture. Unlike most books written by academic philosophers, The Things Themselves takes a popular direction in both topics and expository language. One of Sleeve's jacket blurbists ranks him-fairly in my estimate-with Roland Barthes and Jean Baudrillard. Steeves shows a Barthian flare for selecting and unfolding the odd but culturally symptomatic arena. And like Baudrillard, Steeves can explore subtly some of the new commercially sponsored illusions that contribute to American hyperreality. The chapters, which include some previously published essays, evoke a wide range of cultural experiences: communicating with animals; visiting Disneyland and Las Vegas; watching Kiana Tom's porn-aerobic exercises on ESPN TV. For readers who have no previous immersion in phenomenological description, Steeves renders intuitively accessible applications of the method. The final chapter narrates his own adventures as a Fulbright professor to Venezuela, where he navigates shopping, politics, and his own near-death encounter with diarrhea. The tale breathtakingly illustrates the truism that we deepen the grasp of our own culture by encountering one that differs from it significantly. The phenomenological orientation is distinguished by systematic attention to feeling qualities, intentions, ascribed identities, and presuppositions about objects. Although Steeves often references other cultural interpreters, he helps us maintain a steady gaze upon experience. The first section of the book deals engagingly with broad subjects rooted in all cultures. Chapter 1, "Monkey see" examines whether animals can speak symbolic language or simply emit signals. As in other chapters dealing with animals, he articulates more kinship to human language than difference. Chapter 2, "Illicit Crossings" deals with attitudes toward feral children and Bigfoot creatures, using these phenomena to demonstrate the elasticity and defensiveness of our concept of the human species, hence its remoteness from the scientific precision often ascribed to it. Chapter 3, "Lost Dog" deals with the social status of dog packs in Venezuela, a topic that leads into animal psyche generally and the rarely posed question of whether dogs can have faces. …