This volume is a Festschrift in honor of Jacques Taminiaux and examines the primacy of the political within phenomenology. These objectives support each other, in that Taminiaux's own intellectual itinerary brought him increasingly to an affirmation of the importance of the political. Divided into four sections, the essays contained in this volume engage with different aspects of the political dimension of phenomenology: its dialogue with classic texts of political philosophy, the political facets of phenomenological praxis, phenomenologys contribution to actual political debates, and the impact of Taminiauxs work in the shaping of phenomenologys notion of politics.

The phrase the primacy of the political echoes the primacy of perception as it was famously defined by Merleau-Ponty. This book emphasizes, however, the inescapability of the political rather than its foundational character, i.e. the fact that various itineraries of thought, explored in different fields ofphenomenological research, give rise to politically relevant reflections. It points out and elucidates political connotations that haunt phenomenological concepts, such as world, self, nature, intersubjectivity, or language, and traces them to a broad range of approaches, concepts, and methods. In its explorations, the book discusses a broad range of thinkers, including, but not limited to, Aristotle and Kant, Bergson, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer, Ricoeur, and Arendt.

Véronique Fótiis Professor of PhilosophyEmerita at Pennsylvania State University. She is the author of Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty: Aesthetics, Philosophy of Biology, and Ontology (Northwestern UP: Evanston, Illinois, 2013), Epochal Discordance: Hölderlin's Philosophy of Tragedy (SUNY: Albany, 2007),Vision's Invisibles: Philosophical Investigations (SUNY: Albany, 2003),Heidegger and the Poets: Poiêsis, Sophia, Technê (Humanities Press: New York, 1992).She is currently working on a new book, tentatively titledMerleau-Ponty at the Gallery: Phenomenological Aesthetics and Practices of Visual Art.

Pavlos Kontos is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Patras. His publications include: (ed.)Evil in Aristotle (Cambridge UP: Cambridge, 2017), (ed.)Phenomenology and The Metaphysics of Sight (with A. Cimino. Brill: Leiden, 2015), Aristotles Moral Realism Reconsidered. Phenomenological Ethics (Routledge: New York, 2013), (ed.)Gadamer et les Grecs (with J.C. Gens& P. Rodrigo. Vrin: Paris, 2005),Laction morale chez Aristote (Presses Universitaires de France: Paris, 2002),Dune phénoménologie de la perception chez Heidegger (Kluwer: Dordrecht, 1996). 

Chapter 1. The struggle for Recognition and the Return of Primary Intersubjectivity (Shaun Gallagher).- Chapter 2. Intuition and Unanimity (Fabio Ciaramelli).- Chapter 3. Phronêsis and the Ideal of Beauty (Danielle Lories).- Chapter 4. The Ethical Dimension of Transcendental Reduction (Rosemary R.P. Lerner).- Chapter 5. Becoming transparent to myself: Individuation and Heidegger's Ontological Intuitionism (Mark Wrathall).- Chapter 6. Gadamer's Historicizing of the Mind (Pol Vandevelde).- Chapter 7. On The Metamorphoses of Transcendental Reduction (Stephen Watson).- Chapter 8. Merleau-Pontys Lamellae: Phenomenologys Crystal, Perceptions Overlapping, Science, Anger, and Politics (Babette Babich).- Chapter 9. Coercion by Necessity or Comprehensive Responsibility? Hannah Arendt on Vulnerability, Freedom and Education (Sharon Rider).- Chapter 10. Edmund Husserl, Hannah Arendt, and a Phenomenology of Nature (Janet Donohoe).- Chapter 11. Symbols and Politics (Paul Bruno).- Chapter 12. Poetics and Politics (Françoise Dastur).- Chapter 13. Nature, Art, and the Primacy of the Political: Reading Taminiaux with Merleau-Ponty (Véronique M. Fóti).- Chapter 14. The Myth of Performativity: from Aristotle to Arendt and Taminiaux (Pavlos Kontos).