External links
- YouTube channel
- Official website
- John Russon's homepage at the University of Guelph.
- Review of Russon's Reading Hegel's Phenomenology at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
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John Russon (born 1960) is a Canadian philosopher, working primarily in the tradition of Continental Philosophy. In 2006, he was named Presidential Distinguished Professor at the University of Guelph, and in 2011 he was the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute's Canadian Lecturer to India.
Russon received his Ph.D. in 1990 from the University of Toronto. His dissertation was entitled Hegel on the Body.
Russon is known for his original philosophical contributions, and also for his scholarly interpretations of G.W.F. Hegel, Contemporary Continental Philosophy and Ancient Philosophy.
Russon is known as an original philosopher, primarily through his books Human Experience, Bearing Witness to Epiphany, Sites of Exposure, and Adult Life. Leonard Lawlor describes Russon as "one of the few original voices working in Continental Philosophy today." [1] Human Experience, which won the 2005 Broadview Press/Canadian Philosophical Association Book Prize, brought together themes from Hegel, Contemporary Continental Philosophy and Ancient Philosophy, and produced an original interpretation of the development of personal identity. [2] In this work Russon argues that the experiences through which we are inaugurated into any distinctive domain of meaning necessarily leave the stamp of their specific (and contingent) character on our subsequent experiences in that domain. He uses this notion to interpret the significance of family experience in the formation of personal identity, and he finds this aspect of our experience to be the key to understanding mental health (and mental illness). [3] Russon's approach to mental health—in particular his interpretation of neurosis—is specially striking for its bringing together of the theme of embodiment that has been prominent in existential phenomenology with the theme of dialectical self-transformation that is prominent in the philosophy of Hegel [4] and with the theme of the "system" of family life that is prominent in the work of such psychologists and family theorists as Salvador Minuchin, R.D. Laing and D.W. Winnicott. [5] This work is also important for its use of these ideas to criticize the "individualist" premises of much political and economic theory, [6] and to develop of a political theory of multiculturalism. [7] His interpretation of the dynamic and transformative role of sexuality (eros) provides an important link between his work and the philosophy of Plato. The importance of sexuality to personal development, and especially its relationship to ethical life and to artistic creativity is further explored in Bearing Witness to Epiphany. Like Human Experience, this work stands out for its emphasis on the way that the important dimensions of our experience are embodied in the most basic material dimensions of our lives—everyday "things" and basic bodily practices—and this work thus offers a new metaphysics of "the thing" and of reality in general, arguing that issues of metaphysics cannot be separated from issues of ethics. His 2017 book, Sites of Exposure, broadens the perspective of these earlier books to address issues of politics and history. Russon analyzes the dynamic process by which we make ourselves at home in a culture, and at the same time come into conflict with other cultures. Investigating this process throughout history, with a special emphasis on ancient Athenian democracy, the history of Islam, and the history of British Empire in Asia, Russon argues for a pluralist multiculturalism as the only viable political direction. He concludes the book with a study of art, which is relevant because it is art that can transform our perspective in a way that opens us to the new possibilities of social and cultural life that are necessary if we are to get beyond simple situations of cultural conflict. He offers original studies of Thomas Cole, Rachel Whiteread, Anselm Kiefer, and Gerhard Richter, among others. His most recent book, Adult Life, continues the study of human development begun in Human Experience and Bearing Witness to Epiphany, and develops an original philosophical account of adulthood. In particular, Russon offers a phenomenological account of the experience of aging and develops an original account of economics and politics as dimensions of intersubjective life that go beyond the sphere of intimate relations studied in detail in his earlier books.
In addition to his original philosophical contributions, Russon has also published substantial scholarly work in the history of philosophy.
Though his doctoral supervisor was the Heidegger scholar Graeme Nicholson, his interpretation of Hegel's philosophy is more often thought of as continuing the tradition of his teacher H.S. Harris (1926–2007), [8] the pre-eminent Hegel scholar in the English-speaking world. Russon's Hegel-interpretation is also distinctive because of its attempt to show the continuity of Hegel's philosophy with the philosophical traditions of phenomenology, existentialism and deconstruction. This interpretation has been developed through many scholarly articles, and especially through three books: The Self and Its Body in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, [9] Reading Hegel's Phenomenology, [10] and Infinite Phenomenology: The Lessons of Hegel's Science of Experience. [11]
Russon's philosophical orientation is largely derived from existential phenomenology, and he has published a number of scholarly articles in this area, especially focusing on the work of Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jacques Derrida. His most recent works include, "Phenomenology as the Critical Disclosure of the Realities in our Experience," and "Being Present: The Existential Challenges of Remembering and Forgetting." A collection of papers focusing on his original phenomenological work, entitled "John Russon's Phenomenological Encounters," edited by Peter Gratton, was the subject of a recent volume of the journal Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy (Volume 27, number 2, Fall 2023).
Russon is also known as a scholar of ancient philosophy, especially for his use of the methods of 20th Century European philosophy (phenomenology, hermeneutics and deconstruction) to interpret the texts of Plato and Aristotle. Along with John Sallis, he organized an influential conference at the Pennsylvania State University in 1997 entitled "Retracing the Platonic Text," (the papers from which were published as Retracing the Platonic Text by Northwestern University Press in 2000). [12] This conference helped to inaugurate the growing North American movement to interpret the texts of Greek Philosophy through the lens of Contemporary Continental Philosophy, a movement especially associated with the Ancient Philosophy Society. From 2011-2021, he was the editor of a book series from Northwestern University Press entitled Rereading Ancient Philosophy, which featured books on ancient philosophy that are informed by the insights of continental philosophy. In 2021 he published Politics, Money, and Persuasion: Democracy and Opinion in Plato's Republic, an original interpretation of the Republic focusing on the relation between politics and psychology.
Russon has supervised the dissertations of many current professors of philosophy across North America on topics in Plato, Aristotle, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, John Dewey and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Russon has held academic appointments at Harvard University, the University of Toronto, Acadia University, the Pennsylvania State University, Stony Brook University, and the University of Guelph. He is also the founder and main organizer of the Toronto Summer Seminar in Philosophy, an annual private seminar for the study of philosophy, held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
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Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of phenomenology.
Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interest and he wrote on perception, art, politics, religion, biology, psychology, psychoanalysis, language, nature, and history. He was the lead editor of Les Temps modernes, the leftist magazine he established with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in 1945.
Phenomenology is a philosophical study and movement largely associated with the early 20th century that seeks to objectively investigate the nature of subjective, conscious experience. It attempts to describe the universal features of consciousness while avoiding assumptions about the external world, aiming to describe phenomena as they appear to the subject, and to explore the meaning and significance of the lived experiences.
Continental philosophy is an umbrella term for philosophies prominent in continental Europe. Michael E. Rosen has ventured to identify common themes that typically characterize continental philosophy. These themes proposed by Rosen derive from a broadly Kantian thesis that knowledge, experience, and reality are bound and shaped by conditions best understood through philosophical reflection rather than exclusively empirical inquiry.
Jan Patočka was a Czech philosopher. Having studied in Prague, Paris, Berlin, and Freiburg, he was one of the last pupils of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. In Freiburg he also developed a lifelong philosophical friendship with Husserl's assistant Eugen Fink. Patočka worked in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic for almost his entire career, but never joined the Communist Party and was affected by persecution, which ended in his death as a dissident spokesperson of Charter 77.
Existential phenomenology encompasses a wide range of thinkers who take up the view that philosophy must begin from experience like phenomenology, but argues for the temporality of personal existence as the framework for analysis of the human condition.
Phenomenology of Perception is a 1945 book about perception by the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, in which the author expounds his thesis of "the primacy of perception". The work established Merleau-Ponty as the pre-eminent philosopher of the body, and is considered a major statement of French existentialism.
Philosophical anthropology, sometimes called anthropological philosophy, is a discipline dealing with questions of metaphysics and phenomenology of the human person.
Charles Edwin Winquist was the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion at Syracuse University, and is known for his writings on theology, contemporary continental philosophy and postmodern religion. Before he assumed his position at Syracuse University, he taught religious studies at California State University, Chico, from 1969 to 1986.
Phenomenology or phenomenological psychology, a sub-discipline of psychology, is the scientific study of subjective experiences. It is an approach to psychological subject matter that attempts to explain experiences from the point of view of the subject via the analysis of their written or spoken words. The approach has its roots in the phenomenological philosophical work of Edmund Husserl.
John Sallis is an American philosopher well known for his work in the tradition of phenomenology. Since 2005, he has been the Frederick J. Adelmann Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. He has previously taught at Pennsylvania State University (1996–2005), Vanderbilt University (1990–1995), Loyola University of Chicago (1983–1990), Duquesne University (1966–1983) and the University of the South (1964–1966).
Robert L. Bernasconi is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. He is known as a reader of Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas, and for his work on the concept of race. He has also written on the history of philosophy.
20th-century French philosophy is a strand of contemporary philosophy generally associated with post-World War II French thinkers, although it is directly influenced by previous philosophical movements.
Hugh J. Silverman was an American philosopher and cultural theorist whose writing, lecturing, teaching, editing, and international conferencing participated in the development of a postmodern network. He was executive director of the International Association for Philosophy and Literature and professor of philosophy and comparative literary and cultural studies at Stony Brook University, where he was also affiliated with the Department of Art and the Department of European Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. He was program director for the Stony Brook Advanced Graduate Certificate in Art and Philosophy. He was also co-founder and co-director of the annual International Philosophical Seminar since 1991 in South Tyrol, Italy. From 1980 to 1986, he served as executive co-director of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. His work draws upon deconstruction, hermeneutics, semiotics, phenomenology, aesthetics, art theory, film theory, and the archeology of knowledge.
The World Phenomenology Institute is an academic organization founded in 1976 to promote scholarship in the area of phenomenology. The organisation was founded by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka.
The Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP) is a philosophical society whose initial purpose was to promote the study of phenomenology and existentialism but has since expanded to a wide array of contemporary philosophical pursuits, including critical theory, feminist philosophy, poststructuralism, critical race theory, and increasingly non-Eurocentric philosophies. SPEP was created in 1962 by American philosophers who were interested in Continental philosophy and were dissatisfied with the analytic dominance of the American Philosophical Association. It has since emerged as the second most important philosophical society in the United States. Antonio Calcagno and Shannon Mussett are the current Executive Co-Directors of SPEP.
John Llewelyn was a Welsh-born British philosopher whose extensive body of work, published over a period of more than forty years, spans the divide between Analytical and Continental schools of contemporary thought. He has conjoined the rigorous approach to matters of meaning and logic typical of the former and the depth and range of reference typical of the latter in a constructive and critical engagement with the work of Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas.
Edward S. Casey is an American philosopher and university professor. He has published several volumes on phenomenology, philosophical psychology, and the philosophy of space and place. His work is widely cited in contemporary continental philosophy. He is currently distinguished professor emeritus of philosophy at Stony Brook University in New York and distinguished visiting faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute.
Yvanka B. Raynova is a Bulgarian philosopher, feminist, editor, translator, and publisher. She is full professor of contemporary philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and director of the Institute for Axiological Research in Vienna. She elaborated a post-personalist hermeneutic phenomenology based on some gnostic ideas. Her works include studies on continental philosophy, phenomenology, hermeneutics, axiology, feminist philosophy, intercultural philosophy, religious studies, and translation studies.
John O'Neill was a Canadian sociologist, phenomenologist, and social theorist known for his writings on critical social theory, philosophy, political economy, literary theory, psychoanalysis, and mass culture. O’Neill was the author, editor, and translator of over 30 books and hundreds of articles, many of which have been translated into French, German, Japanese, and Mandarin. O’Neill's work focuses on the notion of corporeal knowledge and embodiment as mediated by familial relationships and social welfare. O’Neill was Distinguished Professor of Sociology at York University (Emeritus), where he also co-founded the Programme in Social and Political Thought in 1972.
