Customer Reviews

Time, Narrative, and History (Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy)

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I read this book when it first appeared years ago just after I had finished my dissertation on Heidegger. I'm glad that I did not read it earlier, because it made me rethink my understanding of the entire phenomenological tradition, and I would have had to start my dissertation all over! Carr is much more than an interpreter of Husserl, et al (he is that too); he is an original thinker who has a great gift for placing the reader at the center of the inquiry.
I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism, and to anyone who understands that history is not a collection of facts but the context in which we exist.

This book is an outstanding achievement as a clear, well-thought out explication of Husserl, Heidegger, and Hegel, and their ideas about time and human reality. As I read it, my own ideas of what these philosophers write about became very concrete in the light of my own work and thoughts, on a very personal and creative level. I'm just finishing a short novel that deals with our lived experience of time, and David Carr really helped me get a grasp on my own work's theme and basic principles. If only I had a guy like this as a teacher, I would have really gotten something out of the philosophy classes I took in school! My only negative comment is that some of the bibliographical references could have been more explicit, such as to which translation of Hegel the exact page references were coming from. The Ricoeur book on Time and Narrative contains some very explicit references to Husserl and Heidegger's translations into English. Other than that, I was amazed at the lucid development and explanations in this book. I look forward to reading more by David Carr. Bravo!

Clear, wide ranging,synthetic, erudite, but never pedantic. A great read. A lucid mind.