Phainomenon: Journal of Phenomenological Philosophy is supported by the Center of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon.
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Towards a Phenomenological Analysis of Fictional Emotions
What are fictional emotions and what has phenomenology to say about them? This paper argues that the experience of fictional emotions entails a splitting of the subject between a real and a phantasy ego. The real ego is the ego that imagines something; the phantasy ego is the ego that is necessarily co-posited by any experience of imagining something. Fictional emotions are phantasy emotions of the phantasy ego. The intentional structure of fictional emotions, the nature of their fictional object, as well as the process of constituting the phantasy ego in representificational acts of consciousness are further elaborated to provide the groundwork for a phenomenological analysis of fictional emotions.
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Arte e imagem na Estética de Henri Maldiney
No âmbito do debate que problematiza as estruturas ontológicas do existente como ser-no-mundo, o filósofo francês Henri Maldiney centra os seus desenvolvimentos teóricos no plano ante-predicativo e inintencional da experiência, no qual se radica o sentir e a partir do qual se explicitam, no horizonte da transpassibilidade e da transpossibilidade, os existenciais do encontro, surpresa e ritmo, fundamentais na compreensão da experiência estética-artística. Constituindo aquele plano o campo privilegiado do encontro com a arte, será questionado, no nosso texto, o nexo da articulação entre arte e imagem, desenvolvendo-se esta questão no confronto entre forma e imagem, realidade da imagem e imagem da realidade, visão estética e visão imagificante [imageante]. A concepção heideggeriana de Existência [Existenz] assim como alguma da pesquisa do neuro-psiquiatra Erwin Straus e da de Husserl sobre o plano passivo da experiência serão convocadas na análise, com o intuito de mostrar o modo como Maldiney a partir daquelas contribui de forma singular e significativa no aprofundamento desse plano inintencional da experiência que designa por «dimensão pática da existência». ABSTRACT Art and Image in Henri Maldiney’s Aesthetics In the debate over the ontological structures of the entity that exists as being-in-the-world, the French philosopher Henri Maldiney focuses his theoretical developments on the unintentional and pre-predicative dimension of experience, where sensing (sentir) takes its origin, and based on which the Existentials of “encounter”, “surprise” and “rhythm”, that are key to understanding the aesthetic-artistic experience, are explained in the horizon of transpassibility and transpossibility. Given that that dimension is the privileged field of encounter with art, this paper will raise the question of the nexus of the articulation between art and image. This question will be developed through the opposition of form and image, of the reality of image and the image of reality, and the aesthetic vision and imaginative vision. In this analysis, we will rely upon the Heideggerian conception of Existence, as well as some of Husserl’s and the neuro-psychiatrist Erwin Straus’s researches into the passive dimension of experience, with the purpose of showing how Maldiney, starting from them, contributed in a singular and significant way to the deepening of that unintentional dimension of existence which he calls “pathic”.
Art Attention and The Subject of Depiction
This study aims at exposing the phenomenological description of attention as presented by Husserl in his 1904-05 Göttingen-lecture Principal Parts of the Phenomenology and Theory of Knowledge, in its relevance for the study of so-called “intuitive re-presentations”, that is, phantasy and image-consciousness. Starting with the exposition of the fundamental traits of the intentional theory of attention, this study discusses the definition of attention in the terms of meaning [Meinen] and interest, which allows it to become an encompassing modification of all kinds of lived experiences that does not imply an alteration of their act-character (Husserl, 2004: 73). We refer to this character of attention as “plasticity”. In what follows, the study underlines these two definitions of attention and their importance for the understanding of phantasy and image-consciousness. Both kinds of re-presentations will be described stressing the role of attention in the “structuring” of the intentional act and in its affective basis. Finally, the study deals more specifically with the complex description of image consciousness from the viewpoint of the attentional meaning of the image subject.
Sobre a elaboração progressiva dos pensamentos de Husserl acerca da fantasia e da consciência de imagem através da escrita
Este artigo é um estudo sobre a evolução do pensamento de Husserl a respeito das noções de fantasia e consciência de imagem. Mostra-se como, a partir de uma primeira fase em que ainda identificava a fantasia como uma consciência de imagem, Husserl passou gradualmente a distingui-las e a definir cada vez melhor o que é próprio de cada uma. No que diz respeito à fantasia pura, o artigo mostra como Husserl chegou à ideia de que esta é uma modificação da percepção.. No que diz respeito à consciência de imagem, apresenta-se a evolução do estatuto do objecto-imagem (que não é uma ilusão) e da natureza da referência da imagem ao tema da imagem no pensamento de Husserl. São ainda discutidos alguns exemplos que tornam problemática a referência da imagem ao seu tema, em particular o caso da representação teatral. Por fim, mostra-se como a evolução destes conceitos no pensamento de Husserl implica também uma transformação da noção de “fantasma”, transformação essa que está ligada à rejeição do esquema “conteúdo da apreensão-apreensão”. ABSTRACT This paper consists in a study of the development of Husserl’s thought on the notions of phantasy and image consciousness. It shows how, following a first phase in which he still identified phantasy with image consciousness, Husserl gradually began to distinguish the two and define what is proper to each in an increasingly precise manner. The paper then shows how Husserl came to view pure phantasy as a modification of perception. Concerning image consciousness, it shows how the status of the image-object and the nature of its reference to the image subject evolved throughout Husserl’s thought. The problems raised by this model are also discussed, in particular when it comes to cases where there is no image subject, e.g. in theatre. Finally, the paper shows how the development of these concepts in Husserl’s work involves a new conception of the notion of “phantasm” – one that goes hand in hand with rejection of the 'content of apprehension-apprehension' scheme.
I offer an outline of an integrated phenomenological analysis of free fantasy and of fictional worlds. My main con­cern amounts to stress the scissions entailed in free fantasy and in the con­sciousness of fictional objects: a scission of the I, and a scission of the experience. Firstly, I offer a somewhat new characterization of the presence of the objects of free fantasy, which discon­nects any possible relationship of those objects with a real perception as the leading form of an originally giving consciousness. My leading example is daydream. Secondly, I take the Husserlian analysis of neutralization as a conceptual tool to explain the consciousness of fictional worlds, against a new ten­dency for in­terpreting these worlds in light of the concept of “possible world”. The two approaches converge to a twofold char­acterization of the mode of being of fictions and of the modality of presence of the objects of fantasy.
Blanc, Mafalda de Faria (2018). Estudos sobre Heidegger
Blanc, Mafalda de Faria (2018) Estudos sobre Heidegger Lisboa: Guerra e Paz, 342 pp.
A Husserlian Approach to Aesthetic Experience: Existential Disinterest and Axiological Interest
As early as 1905, Husserl made clear that, when it comes to the aesthetic consideration, our “interest” is not directed toward the existence of the object as such, but rather toward the object’s way of appearance. Husserl’s famous letter to Hofmannsthal (1907) goes as far as to suggest that any existential concerns are potentially even a menace to the purity of aesthetic experience. This position clearly echoes Kant’s account of the aesthetic judgment presented in the third Critique, notably as regards the notion of disinterestedness. However, this is not tantamount to claiming that aesthetic attitude implies the suspension of all interest: this paper aims to show that it would be more appropriate to discuss it in terms of a change of interest: from an existential interest to an axiological one.
Presentation: "Phantasy-Ego, Image Consciousness and Aesthetic Experience: Phenomenological Approaches"
Sartre, la médecine et le procès d’infanticide de Liège: de la vie à l’Histoire
Le rapport de Sartre à la médecine a échappé à la critique. Son désintérêt pour les sciences justifierait l’absence dans son œuvre d’une réflexion détaillée sur la médecine ou sur la maladie. La publication d’inédits sur la morale écrits entre 1961 et 1965, lorsque s’achève la Guerre d’Algérie, demande de considérer cette question à nouveaux frais. Dans ces inédits, notamment dans Les racines de l’éthique, la question des attitudes devant la vie et devant la mort reçoit une attention décisive. On s’intéressera ici à la réaction de Sartre au procès célèbre d’infanticide qui s’est tenu à Liège en 1962, aussi connu comme le Procès du Softénon. Prenant position contre les commentaires des revues de gauche de l’époque, Sartre y déploie une attention scrupuleuse aux transformations biopolitiques que connaissent alors les sociétés occidentales. Cette attention s’inscrit, sur le fond de son histoire familiale, dans un dialogue passé inaperçu avec l’École des Annales, avec l’histoire des attitudes devant la vie et devant la mort de Philippe Ariès, mais aussi avec l’histoire des sensibilités de Lucien Febvre. Abstract: “Sartre, Medicine and the Infanticide Trial in Liège: From Life towards History” Sartre’s attitude toward medicine has been neglected by researchers, insofar as his disinterest in sciences would justify the absence in his work of a thorough reflection on medicine or disease. The publication of some unpublished works on morals written between 1961 and 1965, when the war of Algeria was coming to an end, asks to reassess this issue. In these unpublished works, especially in Les racines de l’éthique, the issue of attitudes toward life and death draws significant attention. In this article, we dwell upon Sartre’s reaction to the famous infanticide trial held in Liège in 1962, also known as the Softenon Trial. Taking a stand against the accusatory comments of leftist journals, Sartre pays scrupulous attention to the biopolitical transformations that Western societies are then experiencing. This attention should be understood in the background of Sartre’s family history as well as in an unnoticed dialogue with the School of Annales, with the history of attitudes towards life and death delineated by Philippe Ariès and also with the history of sensibilities outlined by Lucien Febvre. Keywords: Sartre, Softénon Trial, School of Annales, Ariès, War of Algeria
Evénement et sens de l’événement : Ludwig Binswanger versus Erwin Straus
Dans quelle mesure le sens d’un événement dépend-il de celui qui le vit ? Pour Erwin Straus, certains phénomènes imposent leur sens, et un incendie dans un théâtre, par exemple, exerce sur toutes les personnes présentes une contrainte (Zwang) telle que l’événement est perçu par tous et de manière concordante comme un danger et suscite une même réaction de fuite. De son côté, Binswanger refuse une telle conception au nom de la liberté et de l’histoire du sujet. Nous tentons de montrer dans ce texte, en replaçant la question dans l’histoire de la phénoménologie, qu’il faut donner tort et raison à Straus comme à Binswanger. Abstract: Event and the Sense of the Event: Ludwig Binswanger versus Erwin Straus How much the sense of an event depends on the one who lives it? According to Erwin Straus, there are some phenomena, which impose their sense, and no one in the audience of a performance, for example, can see a wildfire without being afraid of and escaping from it. Binswanger criticizes such a conception and claims that the sense of the event depends on the freedom and the biography of the subject. In this paper we would like to replace the issue in its phenomenological context and to establish that Straus as well as Binswanger are right and wrong but not of course in the same way.
De l’état-limite aux situations-limites : Contribution à la compréhension écologique et phénoménologique de la personne borderline
The aim of this work is to contribute to the ecological and phenomenological understanding of people with borderline personality disorder by analyzing the relation to the “limit situations”, a concept that was formulated one century ago by Karl Jaspers. This study makes it possible to go beyond the nosographic debate in which the pathological entity is often confined, by defining it as a disorder “situated” between neurosis and psychosis. The five limit-situations (which have been described by Gabriel Marcel in his introduction to Jaspers’ proposals) – namely, (1) historical situation, (2) love conflict, (3) suffering, (4) guilt, (5) and death – turn out to be crucial situations in which the limit-existence manifests itself in a specific way. In particular, we observe that the peculiarities of the experience characterizing the borderline individual’s limit situations rely on a temporality grounded on instantaneity and immediacy, and imply a specific relationship to others. Finally, the limit state seems to call into question this primordial tendency by suggesting that every man is bound to be part of time, to love, to feel guilty, to suffer and to flee this suffering, to die and to organize his life by considering such a condition of finitude.
« À quel point dépend je de moi-même ? » Anxiété et corps selon Maine de Biran
Dans cet article, nous souhaitons méditer sur la modernité de Maine de Biran en ce qui concerne la philosophie de l’anxiété. Biran note d’abord un lien entre l’anxiété et la motilité ; deuxièmement, Biran nous invite à penser que l’intersubjectivité n’est pas étrangère à la sensation d’anxiété. Troisièmement, Biran se sent « surpris à plusieurs reprises », comme si sa propre anxiété, bien qu’intérieure, semblait provenir de l’extérieur. Ce sont les axes du travail que nous présentons ici.
La mémoire corporelle de la douleur et du traumatisme
At first sight, pain seems to be an unhistorical phenomenon: in its intrusive nagging presence, nothing refers to the past, and to remember one’s pain is only possible in an abstract sense. However, one’s individual sensitivity as well as one’s relation to pain are shaped biographically, even though we usually are not aware of this: pains are inscribed into body memory and thus unfold a lasting impact. The memory of the subject may thus also be conceived as a history of painful confrontations with the world, in the course of which the borders of self and non-self are constituted and accentuated. These interrelations are the topic of the paper.
Délire et hallucination dans la schizophrénie : une perspective phénoménologique
The present paper reflects on hallucination and delusion in schizophrenia from a phenomenological perspective. The paper’s aim is to understand the relationship of hallucination and delusion within the theoretical paradigm of schizophrenia as a self-disorder. Drawing on fundamental insights from contemporary phenomenological research by Louis A. Sass, Josef Parnas and Thomas Fuchs, I try to understand in which way delusion and hallucination are understandable from the backdrop of their account. The argument begins with current definitions of hallucination and schizophrenia in the DSM-5. I will critically illuminate these definitions by key thinkers of phenomenological psychopathology (or close to it), such as Karl Jaspers, Eugène Minkowski, Henri Ey and Merleau-Ponty. The paper’s main challenge is to understand hallucination and delusion beyond their respective alignment with perception (as though hallucination would simply be a perception without an object to perceptive) or false belief (as if delusion would simply be an absurd conviction). In opposition to such these accounts, I will try to analyze the concrete experience of both symptoms. This will lead me to put forth a fundamental affective dimension in both delusion and hallucination.
La confiance, entre assurance tacite et opacité à soi : questions pour une clinique phénoménologique
Dans le champ actuel de la santé mentale, la confiance se trouve aujourd’hui discutée à la fois comme une dimension dont l’atteinte pourrait être commune aux divers troubles psychopathologiques, et comme un facteur essentiel de l’alliance thérapeutique, sous-jacent aux diverses méthodes de psychothérapie. Ces recherches invitent à une analyse plus fine de cette notion, pour laquelle les points de vue clinique et phénoménologique peuvent s’éclairer et s’interroger mutuellement. Cette discussion sera articulée autour de trois questions : celle d’un registre préréflexif de la confiance, qui serait spécifiquement défini par une méthode phénoménologique ; celle d’une fondation empathique de la confiance, qui renvoie aux débats de la psychopathologie phénoménologique sur la notion d’empathie ; et celle de l’opacité structurale à soi-même et à autrui, incarnée par les paradoxes de la confiance, et que nous proposerons de considérer à partir des notions d’attestation et d’identité narrative. Abstract: “Trust, Between Tacit Self-Confidence and Self-Opacity: Some Clinical Phenomenology Issues” A large amount of research in mental health care relates to the notion of trust, as a possible common factor in psychopathology, and as a common dimension of psychotherapeutic alliance, underlying the various therapeutic methods. Such hypotheses call for a more detailed analysis of this notion of trust. The paper seeks to shed light on this issue by confronting the clinical and phenomenological approaches. We propose to focus on three issues at stake: 1/ the issue of the existence of a tacit or pre-reflective trust, which can be defined by a phenomenological method. 2/ the issue of a foundation of trust in empathy, which questions the debates about empathy in phenomenological works. 3/ the issue of a structural self-opacity, brought to light through the paradoxical structure of trust, and that we propose to tackle with the notions of attestation and narrative identity. Keywords: trust, clinical phenomenology, empathy, therapeutic alliance, narrative identity
Sossego e desassossego: o paradoxo do tempo vivido
Sossego e desassossego são termos que expressam formas de fazer a experiência do tempo, para além de poderem ser descritas psicologicamente como estados emocionais. Partindo da abordagem de três situações existenciais – de stress, de tédio e de gozo do momento presente – procura-se, neste trabalho, evidenciar fenomenologicamente os elementos estruturais característicos do encontro existencial com o tempo, tanto no exercício de ser-no-mundo, como no ser ou não ser senhor de si nesse exercício e na sua potencial patologia. Neste contexto, que encontra o seu principal apoio na análise heideggeriana do ser-em, sossego e desassossego revelam o seu carácter paradoxal, na sua mútua pertença e na tensão que supõem, em cada caso. Ao mesmo tempo, com essa base, abre-se a possibilidade de compreender a serenidade em correlação com o tempo enquanto duração. Abstract Quiet and Disquiet: The Paradox of Lived Time ‘Quiet’ and ‘Disquiet’ are terms which express ways of accounting for time-experience, besides being equally open for a rendering as emotional states. Starting from three existential moods – stress, boredom, and the joy of the present moment – this inquiry aims to put into evidence the structuring features of our existential experience of time itself, both in the daily exercise of our being-in-the-world, and at the level of our being or not being in possession of oneself in such exercise and in its potentially pathological derivates. In this context, which finds its theoretical roots in the Heideggerian analysis of the being-in, quiet and disquiet reveal their paradoxical character in terms of the mutual belonging and tension each of them, respectively, presupposes. At the same time, and with such a basis, we will find the way of understanding ‘quiet’ as a correlate of time as a ‘duration’.
Presentation: "Philosophy and Psychopathology: Phenomenological Perspectives"
Le problème de la chose même en phénoménologie psychiatrique et analyse existentielle
La phénoménologie psychiatrique est en partie née de la volonté d’appliquer au domaine de la psychiatrie le programme husserlien d’un retour aux choses elles-mêmes. Cependant, le devenir ultérieur de ce programme au sein de la phénoménologie psychiatrique n’a jamais été réellement étudié. Nous montrons que si cette volonté de retourner aux choses elles-mêmes a contribué à rapprocher la phénoménologie et la psychiatrie (en particulier chez Ludwig Binswanger), la chose à laquelle il faut faire retour a eu tendance à évoluer au cours du temps : s’il s’agissait dans un premier temps de faire retour à l’expérience vécue par les malades psychiatriques, il a été dans un second temps question de se rapprocher du trouble psychiatrique lui-même. Nous montrons que ces deux tentatives sont problématiques. Notre thèse est que la phénoménologie psychiatrique gagne à être conçue comme étant d’ordre essentiellement herméneutique, au sens de Ricoeur et de Gadamer. Nous montrons le bénéfice de cette hypothèse à l’endroit de la compréhension que nous avons de la phénoménologie psychiatrique et du statut de son discours. Abstract. "The Issue of the ‘Thing Itself’ in Psychiatric Phenomenology and Existential Analysis" Psychiatric phenomenology emerged from the willingness to spread Husserl’s program of going back to the things themselves into the psychiatric field. However, what this initial will then became is not very clear. We show that if this will to go back to the things themselves really enabled to bring phenomenology and psychiatry together (especially by the Swiss psychiatrist L. Binswanger), the thing to whom we have to go back changed over time: first conceived as the experience lived by people with a psychiatric disorder, it was then conceived as the psychiatric disorder itself. We show that both of these ideas are inadequate. Our thesis is that psychiatric phenomenology has to be considered as belonging to the hermeneutical field (as defined by Ricoeur and Gadamer). We show that this hypothesis leads to a more insightful understanding of what is psychiatric phenomenology and what status we should concede to it. Keywords: Daseinsanalyse, existential analysis, psychiatric phenomenology, Ludwig Binswanger
‘There is a Crack in Everything’. Fragile Normality: Husserl’s Account of Normality Re-visited
There is paradox that lies at the heart of every investigation of normality, namely, its dependence on its other (e.g., deviation, break, difference). In this paper, I want to show that this paradox is the reason for the dynamism as well as fragility of normality. In this regard, I will not only argue that every normality is fragile, but also that normality can only be established because it is fragile. In the first part of this paper, I will present and re-visit Husserl’s account of normality as concordant and optimal with regard to its dynamic or fragile aspects. In the second part of this paper, I will apply this account to recent findings in phenomenological pathology regarding schizophrenia and depression to show how Husserl’s account could be helpful for differentiating between different aspects (such as concordance and optimality) as well as genetic levels of (disturbances of) normality.
The Transcendental Foundations of Science
It is a philosophical naiveté to believe that the object of science is some ready-made world out there that the scientist, free of any preconceptions, simply stumbles upon. Of course, there is a world out there, given to us through the senses, but that must be intentionally elaborated to become a world for us and a possible object of scientific inquiry. The intentional constitution of the world of science supports and “justifies” a priori conceptions about the empirical world, even those of a logical nature, that are, then, properly transcendental rather than metaphysical. My goal here is to investigate what these presuppositions are and on what they are based.
Le problème que pose ce travail est le suivant : si la condition de l’histoire de l’être chez Heidegger est le refoulement de la source transcendantale de cette historicité, alors la perspective heideggérienne confine-t-elle à un relativisme ou historicisme époqual ? Mais s’il y a bien tout compte fait, par-delà la suite réglée des époques de l’histoire de l’être, un plan ultime transcendantal ou du moins trans-époqual, Heidegger retrouve-t-il un absolu anhistorique par-delà l’historicité ? Cette question justifiera que nous périodiserions la pensée de Heidegger en trois parties, et non pas deux comme le veut une longue tradition de la réception de Heidegger remontant à Richardson ainsi qu’aux indications de Heidegger lui-même quant au sens du tournant (Kehre) de sa pensée. Il apparaît en effet dans les années 30 que la machination (Machenschaft) confère à l’historicité une fonction prépondérante (ou hégémonique) dans le déploiement en présence de l’être, qui n’est que l’intensification du programme de la technique depuis les Grecs jusqu’à l’ère planétaire. Le Dasein est dès lors abandonné par l’être, tandis que dans sa pensée d’après-guerre consacrée à une approche proprement destinale de l’histoire de l’être, Heidegger ne croit plus que la vérité de l’être soit entièrement transie par l’historicité, mais qu’il y a bien, par-delà les époques, un foyer transépoqual qui constitue l’affaire suprême pour la pensée méditative. Abstract: Transcendental Philosophy and Epochality : Truth and Historicity in Heidegger This article aims at answering the following problem: since for Heidegger the historicity of Being presupposes the withdrawal of the transcendental source of such a historicity, then does Heidegger’s perspective lead to a form of relativism of the kind of an epochal historicism? If on the contrary one judges that for Heidegger there is after all, beyond the ordered unfolding of epochs in the history of Being, an ultimate transcendental or at least trans-epochal dimension, does Heidegger’s thinking lead back to an ahistorical Absolute beyond historicity? In order to answer these questions, I propose to divide Heidegger’s philosophy in three stages, rather than the two stages that have usually been retained by commentators ever since the works of Richardson, in conformity with Heidegger’s own indications regarding the Turning (Kehre) of his philosophy. Indeed, Heidegger in the 1930’s develops the notion of machination (Machenschaft) and thus gives historicity a hegemonic function in Being’s essential occurrence (Wesung), itself understood as the intensification of the program of machination starting in the Greek inceptual thinking and developing itself until today’s planetary technological era. However, after 1945 Heidegger does not think anymore that the truth of Being is entirely determined by historicity and that Being essentially abandons Dasein to machination and to its gradual historical unfolding, because there is now according to him, beyond the epochs that are destined to Dasein, a trans-epochal giving (and perhaps generous) origin of presence that constitutes the supreme cause for thinking (Sache des Denkens).
Ver y no creer: Imaginación, fantasía y conciencia de 'como si' en la fenomenología de Husserl
El presente artículo se propone explorar la relación entre neutralización y conciencia del ‘como si’ en la fenomenología de Husserl, en particular, a partir de su convergencia en las intuiciones de fantasía. Partiendo de una crítica a una línea de interpretación que, en su intento de aproximarse fenomenológicamente a una «conciencia estética», homologa la modificación de neutralidad con la epojé, el artículo busca exponer la función metodológica que cumplen la modalización de la creencia en el proyecto de Ideas I, así como también resaltar la importancia creciente que la fantasía y la conciencia del ‘como si’ irán adquiriendo en el desarrollo posterior de la fenomenología de Husserl. This article aims to explore the relationship between neutralization and “as if” consciousness in Husserl’s phenomenology, in particular, from its convergence in intuitions concerning phantasy. Starting from a critique of a line of interpretation that, in its attempt to approach phenomenologically to an “aesthetic consciousness”, homologates the neutrality modification with the Epoché, the article seeks to expose the methodological function that the modalization of belief fulfills in the project of Ideas I, as well as highlighting the growing importance that phantasy and the “as if” consciousness will acquire in the subsequent development of Husserl's phenomenology.
The Veil of Appearance. Phenomenological Inquiries on Husserlian Methodology
This paper explores the role of appearance in Husserl’s theory of knowledge, stressing its importance and its necessity. Far from being an accident that clarity, evidence or reality can evacuate, appearance is constitutive of our experience and of our approach of its grounding principles. In the light of this idea of appearance, the contingent aspects of our lived experience become an expression of the sense-formation process supporting and transforming it. This paper is a contribution to a larger discussion – including, among others, Eugen Fink, Michel Henry and Jean-Paul Sartre – about the relationship between phenomenology and ontology, about the nature of our knowledge and our experience of freedom.
The article follows Husserl’s theses on the “objective spirit”, taking as a guide the conception of social normativity (based on a linguistic model) proposed by V. Descombes. The aim is to show that in his analyses of social ontology Husserl reveals as a basis of sociality the structures of reciprocity to which individual acts must be subjected. These structures function in diferente levels of complexity: communicative relations, practical familiar relations and impessoal relations inside a people.
Perception and Passivity. Can the Passive Pregiveness Be Phenomenalized?
In what follows, I intend to address an issue which is at the boundaries of the phenomenological method of reflective explication, ant that, in this sense, points to some limitations of the phenomenolog­ical approach to consciousness and mind. I am referring to an aporetic situation that is at the heart of the phenomenological analysis of passivity. On the one hand, phenomenology shows, at least indirectly, a passive life that is beyond the first steps of the ac­tivity of the ego in the receptive, affective life. This is something that is beyond the rising of an ego, and from which a phenomenology of the ego-form of sub­jective life could be addressed. On the other end, the analytic and conceptual tools of the phenomeno­logical method have no grips on this basic realm of subjective life. As a result, Husserl’s analysis of passivity starts with the evidence of a pre-affective, pre-egoic realm, from which a phenomenology of the ego could be developed. However, Husserl’s analyses end up with the denegation of this dimension, as if it was invisible for the phenomenological method. As a consequence, the starting point of the analysis is not passivity proper, but rather the primitive forms of receptivity, which is already a first layer of the activity of the ego. Instead of an analysis of the ego-polarization (the “birth” of the ego), the egoic layer of con­scious life is simply presupposed. A phenomenology of the ego-form is, thus, at the same time promised and denied. This aporetic situation is visible in the alteration of the concept of a passive pregiveness in Husserl’s Analysis Concerning Passive Synthesis.
Husserl’s early concept of metaphysics as the ultimate science of reality
This article reconstructs the development of Husserl’s definition of metaphysics as the ultimate science of reality in the courses and lectures written up the year 1905. The analysis of these texts casts light on Husserl’s philosophical self-understanding in the wider context of late Nineteenth Century German philosophy as well as on the fundamental role that metaphysical interests played in the development of his thought from its earliest stage. A particular attention is devoted to Husserl’s early views of the relations between theory of knowledge and metaphysics, whose analysis is a necessary preliminary step to address the theoretical issue of the relation between transcendental phenomenology and metaphysics.
Avec ou sans phénomènes? La phénoménologie entre Stumpf et Husserl
Cet article se propose de reconstruire les enjeux de la fin de non-recevoir que Stumpf adresse à la phénoménologie transcendantale husserlienne en lui reprochant d’être une "phénoménologie sans phénomènes". Après avoir reconstruit les principaux arguments à travers lesquels ces deux conceptions de la phénoménologie se font valoir l’une contre l’autre, on montre que l’enjeu de la polémique réside dans la valeur qui est accordée à la thèse de l’intentionnalité dans la définition du programme phénoménologique, et par conséquent dans la définition de ce qu’il faut entendre par "phénomène". En définitive, c’est la question des rapports entre la phénoménologie et l’entreprise philosophique elle-même qui est posée, selon que la phénoménologie est conçue comme science propédeutique (Stumpf) ou comme science fondamentale (Husserl).
God Without God: A divine limit to the "phenomenon”
The background concern of this paper is the well-rehearsed debate on the ‘theological turn’ (or «veerings») in French Phenomenology that was ignited by Dominique Janicaud some 25 years ago in his vociferous critique of several leading French thinkers. It also responds to subsequent contestations against Janicaud by numerous scholars defending these thinkers radicalising of phenomenology in their attempts to account for what Emanuel Levinas had «stirred up in the phenomenological field» by re-posing the question of the philosophical status of the idea of God. What is pivotal to Janicaud in his exclusionary critique and drawing of phenomenological boundaries is to hold dearly to the method as Edmund Husserl intended. In doing so, only describable phenomena that appear (or are logically subtended to appear) provide the litmus for a bona fide phenomenology. In opening and broadening the method to include experiences of a transcendent, religious nature as the French thinkers do, orthodox Husserlian thinking places these projects into question. The purpose of this paper is to question these post-Husserlian thinkers with a more faithful reading of Husserl. I analyse three key areas to suggest a ‘divine limit’ to phenomena: first, the concept of “the phenomenon” as developed in Husserl’s project; second, the ‘status of the idea of God’ in Husserl’s writings; and third, the relevant philosophical discourse on God that emerges from the Janicaud-led debate through critical commentary on the phenomenology of “the inapparent”. As a consequence, God is argued to be a divine limit to Husserlian phenomenology, but not religious belief itself.
L’événement et le (non-)phénomène: Marion/Derrida
La question de l’événement et de son rapport avec le concept de phénomène a connu une large diffusion dans la phénoménologie française des dernières décennies. Dans cet article nous rappelons d’abord quelques traits généraux du rôle de l’événement dans ce qu’on a pu appeler la « Nouvelle phénoménologie en France » et nous soulevons la question d’une distinction entre différents usages de ce concept. Nous analysons ensuite en deux moments la présence de ce thème dans la phénoménologie de Marion. Il s’agit en premier lieu de montrer que le concept d’événement occupe un rôle de plus en plus essentiel dans la pensée de Marion, puisqu’il parvient à caractériser la donation et la phénoménalité comme telles. En second lieu, nous essaierons de problématiser la position de Marion, dans la mesure où elle conduit à une donation intégrale et se déploie sur la base d’une superposition ambiguë des thèmes de la donation et de l’intuition. Dans la dernière partie de notre texte nous opposons aux analyses de Marion celles de Derrida, qui permettent de penser l’événement comme l’avoir lieu d’un impossible, comme une non-donation constitutive et partant comme une limite de principe pour la phénoménologie.
Cartography of the Phenomenon and the Phenomenon as Cartography
This paper discusses Gilbert Ryle’s image of philosophy as cartography in an attempt to explore the idea of a cartography of the phenomenon, confronting it with the sense it takes in Edmund Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. Ryle tries to grasp the particularity of philosophical tasks as being about specific sorts of problems, not about specific sorts of objects. What is required both of a cartographer and of a philosopher is, according to him, to look at familiar spaces in wholly unusual terms. Husserlian phenomenology then, with its rediscovery of consciousness as an absolute, unbounded field, meets quite well this demand. The uncovered field of the phenomena is not a new region, opposing that of the objects as faced in the natural attitude. It is rather a completely different attitude, just as a map is not a share of the world, but a distinct orientation towards it. The phenomenon, therefore, would not be something that is there to be cartographed as much as a kind of cartography itself. A phenomenological cartography, however, is one that has its specific marks, different from those of the Rylean conception.