JANICE FLOERSCH AND STAFF /* to publish may come tothe et that in his books Derrida i the ques ho i being questioned. We must be ‘Kearney’ direct questioning which Jc self-conscious oraeaiae tone of vertings ‘then, this book provides x interesting pictures of im- ended to angone seeking, ‘well ax to the seasoned ful, Each conversation is prefaced by an informative biography of yp thinker in question, and followed by a useful bisiography.—Willam Desmond, Loyola Loeview of Halal yy Kumy,S. The Culture of Time ans Space: 1880-1018 Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 198312 pp. $2500—History, Kern remarks in Isintrodetion, ould be written by looking at paeiaments, families, ‘or bourgeoisesorfor that mater lines and prisons, asin Foorault). Kern chooses eather to foray on Use broadest common denominators of historical experience: time and space. Speiie understandings of time and space ean be dented in any pia, artiste, tcehnolae ‘or philsephieal practices ons may choose to suds This is parte Tacly evident inthe period of European history between 1880 an 1918, the age of the airplane, the elephone, and the wireless, of Cubic ‘inoma, an simultaneous postr, of Bergson, Binsin, andl Jose of ‘twar whose dimensions and methods were made posible only throdsh Fhdically new anaes of tha nabrn of fm nape ‘Simply expressed, hetseon 1880 and 1918 time brcomes understood in terms of simultaneity hetrogenelty, reversibility, relativity, and cin terms of multiple coextension, shortened form, an the poiiity enol altogether diferent from what has been deduced about the treatment of time and #7806 inthis period by literary criti, art historians, philosophers, and theoretieins of ssienee.| What siflers in Kern's analyse i the range othis cultural investigation, te varity of socal and intellectual phe- ‘pomena whieh he identifies ss teatifying to auch new senses of time land space. The bicycl, to take an example, was "a ‘great leveler” Which succeeded in bridging socal space, ‘The stress and the si- plane “collapsed the vault of heaven,” making the skies “a place of ptsage for human commurieation and for human bodies in man- ‘made machines.” Telephones made “all places equidistant from the Sat of power and hence of equal value.” Their payehotogieal effect eas to make it possible for elles “to contol the immotate foture ‘of anyone they wished” (pp. S16-17). Such Imaginative analysis of {nventione and theories, which we often take for granted a= simply being our contemporary patrmeny, culminates Inthe final to chap ters on World War I in whieh, Keen claims, a historically unre dented fallre of diplomary vas precipitated by irresponsible yes of telegeapile messages, and in which simbltaneous military deploy eee ane tne Lani af Paton tata altel ene SUMMARIES AND COMMENTS 163 ‘The merit of Kern's book, then, Fas much todo withthe extent of hig researeh. "Technology, srt, musi, selene, philosophy, iterate, psychology, and polities (hough no: economies: Kern analyzes these expressions of eulture with the astuteness, scholarship, and interpre= tive acuity proper tos specialist He covets jst about all the ground that a student of any ofthe above felds would expect to find Kern's compendium ie ongenived according ta conceptual rubries rather than areas of activity the pst, the present, the future, form, "peel dstanee, and so on. This makes for erose-reterentil work sccording to what Kern calls "a principe of conceptual distance And an expository technique of justapsition” (p81). The juctapo: Sitiona technique does sometimes make fora mechanical sucession ‘of analogical instances. Tt also brings to the fore that "conceptual ‘iotance separating auch instances instead of comparing works of Sct to works of ar, oF inventions te Inventions, Kern places Pack to thack Niewsehe's concep of the et-nal recurrence athe simulta. neous reeption of the Tianict weless SO. hy boats throughout the AUantie. Yet Kern doos not fllprey to fanciful analogies betwen tveo such dlasimilar events; both simply attest to temporally and spatially expanded experience ofthe present moment. Infact the care Kern takes no! to speculate to» deeply aboot other possible re lations between the sinking itanieend the eternal recurrence is what takes his work pre ar pro~philosphieal” The Culture of Tie avd Space is a Cubiat display of the very’ vast cultural history which a [philosopher needs in order to understand what time and space involve forusin our own century.—Thomastarvison, The University af Cah, Mekeaa, W. RH tation and Critique smenologes 8.250 in its simplicity: to Su henomenslogy and so to ‘soumed about his enterps Ie adequately in any one af beraulted that, ike others bel the introdetion from the Idee Cartesian Metitations and Cvs central and most systematic. Ihe because like others before him, he ‘een ele bat largely ignores the crv ‘logizche Studion sur Konsitution tous ‘The author sets out by positing, both an the golden rule of his inquiry, that the dri Histor’ work-—ite"motieating problem’ —is Teal knowledge, i, haw to xn Me world of, me precisely, How i vevdical cognition of transeendent abject psbiDQ\. Rese a3 ana "wer to that question, Husser's phenomenolegy thi centers onthe Claim that knowledge af transcendert objects i possible beenaee cn Sciouttese conten the worn eet x Kantian aneser toa Human Problem. ‘The author interprets coeatitution in a stron vente: con- “Intratuctions to Phenomenol Interne Hague: Nartinus Nijhl 1982. Phacno- 9. 95.00-The idea af the ook is brilliant pose Hasson several introductions to et acomposite image of what Husser] though Re may not have articulated uetlons The author should not m, he actualy ends up following ci, with references to those in ftcoduction in faen fis leaely pe faulted at allt would be on the introdetion inthe cond volume, Phanomen: ore of that anon ‘starting point and as force behind all of problem of empire