Four Phenomenological Philosophers is the first book to examine the major texts of the leading figures of phenomenology in one volume. In separate chapters, the book explores the ideas of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty with detailed readings of their most important texts. A knowledge of these key thinkers and their major texts is essential to an understanding of many of the major themes of contemporary philosophy, from hermeneutics and existentialism to postmodernism and deconstructivism.