This book explores the problem of time and immanence for phenomenology in the work of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jacques Derrida. Detailed readings of immanence in light of the more familiar problems of time-consciousness and temporality provide the framework for evaluating both Husserl's efforts to break free of modern philosophy's notions of immanence, and the influence Heidegger's criticism of Husserl exercised over Merleau-Ponty's and Derrida's alternatives to Husserl's phenomenology. Ultimately exploring various notions of intentionality, these in-depth analyses of immanence and temporality suggest a new perspective on themes central to phenomenology's development as a movement and raise for debate the question of where phenomenology begins and ends.
"Michael Kelly offers a reconstruction of the concepts of immanence and time within the framework of Husserl's phenomenology, followed by a critical evaluation of the reception of these concepts by three of Husserl's most influential successors and critics: Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Derrida. ... this book is of potential interest to a general philosophical audience interested in the question of Husserl's problematic relationship to modern epistemological idealism (mainly Descartes and Kant)." (Emilio Vicuña, Husserl Studies, August, 2017)