Abstract

Richard Kearney's Dialogues attempts to speak across the divide between Anglo-American philosophy and recent Continental thought. The book does not sound any fashionable fanfares regarding rapprochement between these two traditions. More soberly, it tries to introduce to Anglo-American philosophers certain European thinkers who have recently exerted significant influence. Unlike a more conventional approach that would anthologize some representative writings of these thinkers, Richard Kearney here takes a different, more direct approach. He tries to let these thinkers introduce themselves through dialogue. The result is a very interesting introduction that preserves something of the human voice of the conversational occasion. In some cases also, given the directness of the questions put by Richard Kearney, we are offered a revelation of the authors not always vouchsafed by their written, hence more controllable, works. A further benefit to those already initiated into the written works of these thinkers is an additional perspective on the written works themselves. Hence the work will be of interest to those familiar with the thinkers interviewed and to those coming to recent European thought for the first time.