Continental philosophy, as it has emerged in the twentieth century, is less a seamless fabric than a patchwork quilt of diverse strands. Phenomenology, hermeneutics, existentialism, structuralism, critical theory, deconstruction--these are some of the salient movements which have developed in continental Europe between 1900 and the 1990s, though their influence is by no means confined to geographical location. Continental thought has proved highly exportable, circulating far beyond the frontiers of Europe to provoke strong responses in the intellectual world at large.

The fifteen articles in this volume outline and assess some of the issues and experiments of continental philosophy. The first five span the twin movements of phenomenology and existentialism, running from Husserl and Heidegger to Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Levinas. Subsequent essays deal with specific currents of continental thought in such areas as science, Marxism, linguistics, politics, aesthetics, feminism an hermeneutics. A final chapter on postmodernism highlights the manner in which so many concerns of continental thought culminate in a radical anti-foundationalism.

This volume provides a broad, scholarly introduction to this period for students of philosophy and related disciplines, as well as some original interpretation of these authors. It includes a glossary of technical terms and a chronological table of philosophical, scientific and other cultural events.