Article/Publication Details
Views: 5702

HORIZON AND VISION.
THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL IDEA OF EXPERIENCE VERSUS THE METAPHYSICS OF SIGHT

Abstract
Can the nature of «vision» be captured by a metaphysics of sight or only by a phenomenological description of «seeing»? Furthermore, the relation between a metaphysics of sight and a Phenomenology of «seeing» can be presented in two different ways: a relation of continuity as well as of opposition. The first one takes necessarily the Phenomenology of «seeing» as only preparatory for the Metaphysics of sight as such. The second one affirms that we have to do with two opposite ways of questioning the nature of the prominent approach of mankind to the world, the theôrein. The aim of this paper is to show how this second way is possible if and only if we affirm that the Phenomenology of «seeing» is a method to keep away the problems and the paradoxes of the first way and of an a-critical acceptation of the metaphysics of sight. What provides to give to Phenomenology of «seeing» an anti-metaphysical commitment is the idea of horizon as transcendental structure of «seeing». Seeing as «experiencing» as well as «theorizing» became a contextual seeing, essentially related to a contextual situation. More generally, each appearance (phainomenon) consists of a whole system of appearances that are contentless but are also potential manifestations of the same type. The structure of possibility of horizon is a modal (not substantial) structure, denying any possible statement concerning the metaphysical nature of seeing or the possibility of a «metaphysical» seeing as such.

Key words
Theôria, vision, Augustine, inner Space, Husserl, transcendental phenomenology, horizon, mathesis universalis.

References

• Aristotle, (1831–1870). Complete works. Berlin: Prussian Academy of Sciences.
• Aristotle, (1951). Eudemian Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Aristotle, (1962). Nicomachean Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Augustine, (1955). Confessions. Washington: Catholic University of America Press.
• Augustine, (2002). On the Trinity (Books 8–15). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Augustinus, (1845) Enarrationes in Psalmos. In Patrologia Latina (Vol. 36). Paris : Apud Garnier Fratres, Migne.
• Augustinus, (1861). De vera Religione. Liber Unus. In Patrologia Latina (Vol. 34. Col. 0121–0172) (121–173). Paris : Apud Garnier Fratres, Migne.
• Augustinus, (1877). Confessionum Libri Tredecim. In Patrologia Latina (Vol. 32. Col. 0657–0868) (659–868). Paris : Apud Garnier Fratres, Migne.
• Augustinus, (1886). De trinitate libri quindecim. In Patrologia Latina (Vol. 42. Col. 0819–1098) (819–1101). Paris : Apud Garnier Fratres, Migne.
• Augustinus, (1998). Über Schau und Gegenwart des unsichtbaren Gottes. Texte mit Einführung und Übersetzung von Erich Naab. Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt: Frommann-holzboog.
• Barbaras, R. (2008). Introduction à une phénoménologie de la vie. Paris: Vrin.
• Brachtendorf, J. (2000). Die Struktur des menschlichen Geistes nach Augustinus : Selbstreflexion und Erkenntnis Gottes in De trinitate. Hamburg: Meiner.
• Canullo, C. (2004). La fenomenologia rovesciata: percorsi tentati in J.-L. Marion, M. Henry e J.-L. Chrétien. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier.
• Descartes, R. (1996). Oeuvres Complètes. Vol. 10. Paris: Vrin.
• Fraisopi, F. (2009a). L'ouverture de la vision. Kant et la «phénoménologie implicite» de la Darstellung. Hildesheim — Zürich — New York: Olm.
• Fraisopi, F. (2009b). Expérience et horizon chez Husserl. Contextualité et synthèse à partir concept de «représentation vide». Studia Phaenomenologica, 9, 455–476.
• Fraisopi, F. (2010). Questions de co-intentionnalité. Expérience et structure d'horizon. Bulletin d'analyses phénoménologiques, 8, 46–63.
• Fraisopi, F. (2012). La complexité et les phénomènes. Nouvelles ouvertures entre science et philosophie. Paris: Hermann.
• Frontisi-Ducroux, F., & Vernant, J. P. (1997). Dans l'oeil du miroir. Paris: Odile Jacob.
• Gilson, E. (1988). La philosophie au Moyen Âge. Paris: Payot.
• Heidegger, M. (1990). Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz. (GA 26). Frankfurt a. M: Klostermman.
• Henry, M. (1991). Quatres principes de la phenomenology. Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, 96 (1), 3–26.
• Henry, M. (2000). Incarnation. Pour une phénoménologie de la chair. Paris: Seuil.
• Herodotus, (1988). The History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Husserl, E. (1969). Formal and transcendental Logic. Den Haag: Nijoff.
• Husserl, E. (1973). Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge (Hua I). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Husserl, E. (1975). Logische Untersuchungen. Erster Teil. Prolegomena zur reinen Logik (Hua XVIII). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Husserl, E. (2002). Logische Untersuchungen. Ergänzungsband, Erster Teil, Entwürfe zum Umarbeitung der VI. Untersuchung und zur Vorrede für die Neuauflage der Logischen Untersuchungen, (Sommer 1913) (Hua XX/1). Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer.
• Husserl, E. (2012). Ideas. General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. London: Routledge.
• Jaeger, W. (1939). Paideia: the Ideals of Greek Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Marion, J.-L. (1997). Etant donné. Essai d'une phénomenologie de la donation. Paris: PUF.
• Marion, J.-L. (2004). Réduction et donation. Recherches sur Husserl, Heidegger et la phénoménologie. Paris: PUF.
• Marrou, H.-I. (1958). Saint-Augustin et la fin de la culture antique. Paris: de Boccard.
• Nightingale, A. W. (2004). Spectacles of Truth: Theoria in its Cultural Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Plato, (1900). Platonis Opera. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Rausch, H. (1982). Theoria: Von ihrer sakralen zur philosophischen Bedeutung. München: W. Fink.
• Roochnik, D. (2009). What is Theoria? Nicomachean Ethics Book 10.7–8. Classical Philology, 104 (1), 69–82.
• The Holy Bible, (2006). Toronto: Nelson.
• Vernant, J.-P. (1989). L'individu, la Mort, l'Amour. Paris: Gallimard.
• Zahavi, D. (2002). Metaphysical Neutrality in Logical Inverstigations. In D. Zahavi & F. Stiernfelt (Eds.), One Undred Years of Phenomenology (93–108). Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer.

Article/Publication Details
Views: 5351

BODY BECOMING IMAGE: THE THEATRICAL WINDOW

Abstract
This paper aims to analyze the question of how to define the essence of the theater, building on a conference Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset held in Lisbon in April 1946, where he radically raised the question of the «strange» relationship between reality and unreality that the «world of the stage» makes possible for us to experience. On the one hand, Ortega states that theater is essentially vision, while, on the other hand, it seems that such a seeing, in itself, leads to a problematic relationship with a not-seeing. In particular, Ortega seems to claim that in theater spectators experience a vision both «paradoxical» and «magic», insofar as it entails an essential not-seeing that gives rise to a play between opacity and transparency. A play that is also to be found in a masterwork many phenomenologists admired, Proust's Recherche, in which, in order for Marcel to see the image of Phaedra, the ordinary body of the actress Berma has to vanish. Here the body becomes transparent and one no longer sees the performer himself: he/she is simply a window opening upon a great work of art. This way, the spectator can experience «this new order of creatures» that reminds us of the «êtres d'une nouvelle nature» of which Du Bos wrote in the Eighteenth Century. However, regarding the topics of the «image-window», Eugen Fink and his teacher Edmund Husserl had already paved the way, and an intertwined reading of some important texts of both authors can in turn shed new light on this question. With regard to Husserl, special attention will be paid to a very interesting text from the Husserliana XXIII (probably dating to 1918) in which he, taking theatrical image into profound consideration, paradoxical and powerful notion of perceptual phantasy.

Key words
Aesthetics, image, theater, transparency, opacity, window, perceptual phantasy, feelings.

References

• Bruzina, R. (2004). Edmund Husserl & Eugen Fink: Beginnings and Ends in Phenomenology, 1928–1938. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.
• Deleuze, G. (1990). The Logic of Sense. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Deleuze, G. (2000). Proust & Signs. The Complete Text. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Du Bos, J.-B. (1770). Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture. Paris: Pissot.
• Fink, E. (1966). Vergegenwärtigung und Bild. Beiträge zur Phänomenologie der Unwirklichkeit. In Studien zur Phänomenologie, 1930–1939 (1–18). Den Haag: Nijhoff.
• Fink, E. (1971). Maske und Kothurn. In Epiloge zur Dichtung (1–18). Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann.
• Husserl, E. (1959). Erste Philosophie (1923/1924). Zweiter Teil: Theorie der phänomenologischen Reduktion (Hua VIII). Den Haag: Nijhoff.
• Husserl, E. (1968). Briefe an Roman Ingarden. Mit Erläuterungen und Erinnerungen an Husserl. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
• Husserl, E. (2005). Phantasy, Image Consciousness and Memory (1898–1925). Dordrecht: Springer.
• Husserl, E., & Husserl, M. (1994). E. und M. Husserl an Heidegger, 26. V. 1927. In E. Husserl, Husserliana Dokumente, Band III. Briefwechsel, Teil IV. Die Freiburger Schüler. Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Molder, M. F. (2010). Cries, False Substitutes and Expressions of Life. In A. Marques & N. Venturinha (Eds.), Wittgenstein on Forms of Life and the Nature of Experience (39–64). Bern: Peter Lang.
• Ortega y Gasset, J. (1975). The Idea of Theater. An Abbreviated View. In Phenomenology and Art (163–195). New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
• Proust, M. (1983a). Swann's Way. Remembrance of Things Past (Vol. 1). London: Penguin Books.
• Proust, M. (1983b). The Guermantes Way. Remembrance of Things Past (Vol. 2). London: Penguin Books.
• Proust, M. (1983c). Time Regained. Remembrance of Things Past (Vol. 3). London: Penguin Books.
• Vezin, F. (2000). Du côté de Husserl et Heidegger. Le Magazine littéraire, 2 (4), 104–107. Hors-Série.

Article/Publication Details
Views: 5197

THE TEMPORALIZATION OF LISTENING IN THE INTERSUBJECTIVE RELATION

Abstract
The paper explores the ethical significance of listening in intersubjective relations with another person. Rooted in Levinas's account of intersubjective temporality this research discusses listening as a vision of responsibility, as a welcome of the other and as a possibility to realize responsibility as being for the other. The main focus is to analyze listening as a disturbance of ethical subjectivity and as a traumatic experience, and to understanding how an expression of the face of the other requires an ethical response in the form of attentiveness and listening. Referring to Levinas's ethics I show that listening grows from the function of auto-affection and affection. First, I bring into discussion a description of prereflective subjectivity, which has not yet encounter the appeal of the other. I analyze subjectivity in its displacement and the sense of pain. Then I turn my attention to the work of affection in temporalizing consciousness and how it results into a temporal gap, dephasing, into a non-intentional consciousness and passivity. All these create an important context to locate the meaning of the ethical listening as a formation of the present. I will also give a special account of sensibility and corporeity, which arise from the notion of affection and non-intentional consciousness, and which, gradually, form driving principles of synchrony and diachrony. Thus, the main goal of this paper is to illuminate the principle why listening is seen as a specific mode of temopralization for subjectivity and of reasoning responsibility, and how listening is initiated by diachronical movement and how it is found at the basis of the face-to-face situation.

Key words
Intersubjectivity, affection, dephasing, diachrony, the other, temporality, non-intentional consciousness, welcome.

References

• Bernet, R. (2002). Levinas's Critique of Husserl. In S. Critchley, R. Bernasconi (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Levinas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Depraz, N. (1994). Temporalité et affection dans les manuscripts tardifs sur la temporalité (1929–1935) de Husserl. ALTER: Revue de phenomenologie, (2), 63–86.
• Duncan, R. (2000). Living Levinas: Non-intetnional Consciousness in Levinas and Karol Wojtyla. In Phenomenological Inquiry, Levinas in a Humanistic Context: a Tribute to a Thinker and Friend (189–204). Belmont: The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning.
• Duncan, R. (2006). Emmanuel Levinas: Non-intentional Consciousness and the Status of Representational Thinking. Analecta Husserliana, (90), 271–282.
• Glendinning, S. (2007). In the name of phenomenology. London-New York: Routledge.
• Henry, M. (2000). Incarnation, Une philosophie de la chair. Paris: Seuil.
• Henry, M. (2008). Material Phenomenology. New York: Fordham University Press.
• Husserl, E. (1966). Cartesian Meditation. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
• Husserl, E. (1991). On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publisher.
• Levinas, E. (1974). En découvrant l'existence avec Husserl et Heidegger. Paris: Vrin.
• Levinas, E. (1978). Existence and Existents. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Levinas, E. (1985a). Ethics and Infinity. Pittsburgh: Dusquesne University Press.
• Levinas, E. (1985b). Time and the Other. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
• Levinas, E. (1998a). Discovering Existence with Husserl. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
• Levinas, E. (1998b). Entre nous: On Thinking-of-the-Other. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Levinas, E. (2000). Alterity and Transcendence. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Levinas, E. (2004). Totality and Infinity. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
• Levinas, E. (2001). Is it Righteous to be? Interviews with Emmanuel Levinas. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• Levinas, E. (2006). Otherwise than Being or Beyond the Essence. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
• Montavont, A. (1994). Le phénomène de l'affection dans les analysen zur passiven synthesis. ALTER: Revue de phenomenologie, (2), 119–139.
• Murawska, M. (2012). La transcendence et l'immanence. In Recherches Levinassienes (369–388). Louvain — Paris: Peeters.
• Rodemeyer, L. (2006). Intersubjective Temporality. It's about Time. Dordrecht: Springer.
• Welton, D. (2000). The Other Husserl. The Horizon of Transcendental Phenomenology. Bloomington : Indiana University Press.

Article/Publication Details
Views: 5549

MERLEAU-PONTY BETWEEN MACHIAVELLI AND MARX:
NEW ANALOGY OF POLITICAL BODY

Abstract
This article is the second part of our phenomenological study on the analogy between the body and the political body. Its aim is to confront the previous analysis of Claude Lefort's critique of the ontologies of the Political Body with the Merleau-Pontian thought of history, institution, and corporeality. Indeed, this Merleau-Pontian thought, specifically developed in the courses of the 1950's, allows for a renewal of the analogy itself, via another reading of the Lefortian major inheritance: Machiavelli and Marx. By parallelly following Merleau-Ponty's evolutive reading of these two authors, and the essential changes in his phenomenology of perception, this article thus proposes to disclose the main entry points into a Merleau-Pontian reform of the analogy; an analogy that has to be thought against the ambiguity of the flesh that Claude Lefort inherits precisely from Merleau-Ponty. By discussing this ambiguity that «The Visible and the Invisible» is often charged with via a reading of Merleau-Ponty's courses at the Collège de France — specifically Institution, Passivity, and Nature — this article intends to disclose the political meaning of the concept of intercorporeity, with which the human body will no longer be understood as «one's own body», but rather interpreted in a radically a-subjective way. Moreover, this very concept of intercorporeity specifically opens a novel way to understand the meaning of the central concept of the analogy of the political body itself, namely the concept of incorporation. Indeed, by following Merleau-Ponty's lesser known thought of the 1950's, one can think incorporation against the classical schema of fusion, that is to say, on the opposite, as an encounter of dispossessions, and thus as a path into a new analogy.

Key words
Body, flesh, Gestalt, history, institution, Machiavelli, Marx, Merleau-Ponty.

References

• Abensour, M. (2009). Pour une philosophie politique critique. Paris: Sens & Tonka.
• Arendt, H. (1968). Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises of Political Thought. New York: Viking Press.
• Arendt, H. (1983). Condition de l'homme modern. Paris: Calmann-Lévy.
• Gleonec, A. (2012). Corps animal et corps humain: l'«effacement» de la propriété. À la naissance de l'institution chez Merleau-Ponty. Studia Phaenomenologica — Possibilities of Embodiment (XII), 109–132.
• Gléonec, A. (2014). Gestalt et incorporation: un chemin dans l'esthétique merleau-pontienne. Chiasmi International, 16, 77–96.
• Gléonec, A. (2014) Ontologies et phenomenologies du corps politique: les voies de l'analogie. En chemin avec Claude Lefort. Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology, 3 (2), 35–54.
• Lefort, C. (1978). Les formes de l'Histoire. Paris: Gallimard.
• Lefort, C. (1986). Essais sur le politique. Paris: Seuil.
• Lefort, C. (2007). Le Temps présent. Paris: Belin.
• Machiavel. (1978). Œuvres complètes. Paris: Gallimard.
• Manent, P. (2010). Les métamorphoses de la cité. Paris: Flammarion.
• Marx, K. (1994). Œuvres complètes. Paris: Gallimard.
• Merleau-Ponty, M. (1947). Humanisme et Terreur. Paris: Gallimard.
• Merleau-Ponty, M. (1960). Signes. Paris: Gallimard.
• Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968). Résumés de cours. Paris: Gallimard.
• Merleau-Ponty, M. (1979). Le visible et l'invisible. Paris: Gallimard.
• Merleau-Ponty, M. (2003). L'Institution-La Passivité. Paris: Belin.
• Patočka, J. (1999). Essais hérétiques sur la philosophie de l'histoire. Lagrasse: Editions Verdier.
• Richir, M. (1987). Quelques réflexions épistémologiques préliminaires sur le concept de sociétés contre l'Etat. In M. Abensour (Ed.), L'esprit des lois sauvages — Pierre Clastres ou une nouvelle anthropologie politique (61–71). Paris: Seuil.
• Richir, M. (1991). Du sublime en politique. Paris: Editions Payot.
• Richir, M. (1992). Communauté, société et Histoire chez le dernier Merleau-Ponty. In M. Richir, E. Tassin (Eds.), Merleau-Ponty. Phénoménologie et expériences (7–26). Grenoble: Millon.
• Ricœur, P. (1990). Soi-même comme un autre. Paris: Seuil.
• Ricœur, P. (1997). La métaphore vive. Paris: Points Seuil.

Article/Publication Details
Views: 4406

SOME HISTORICAL SOURCES OF THE APPARENT INTUITIVE TRUTH OF INDIVIDUALISM

Abstract
The article is an attempt to retrace some sources of individualism, first of all in the philosophy of mind. Individualism here constitutes an endeavor to separate human mind from the world. The necessity of tracking the genesis of individualism is due to the fact that individualism appears to many as intuitively obvious. However, this apparent evidence results from our historical tradition or, rather, from some of its components. This individualistic component of the western tradition stems to a great extent from the Calvinist ideology. The idea of predestination in Calvin's theology was far from belonging to the pure order of thought: in fact it indelibly marked the whole of social practices in Calvinist and in particular puritan societies. This idea, according to Max Weber, Louis Dumont and Charles Taylor, largely contributed to the making of modern individualism. This range of individualist ideas and practices received much impetus in the philosophy of John Locke. On the one hand, Locke's philosophy as well as that of Descartes contains some potentiality different from the individualist one. On the other hand, Descartes and Locke lay the foundations of the representational view on mind, which severs the ties and bonds that exist between man and the world. The subject becomes an individual, enclosed in the micro-world of its own representations. This individualization in philosophy goes in pair with social individualization. The latter form of individualization is reflected in a literary form in the famous «Robinson Crusoe» by Defoe. In its turn, Leibniz's Monadology is a manifesto of philosophical individualism. On the whole, this individualist tendency of Modernity still continues to guide our understanding and selfunderstanding, often without our knowing it. If one wants to formulate a different, non-individualist metaphysics, one needs to seek inspiration in the non-individualist part of the tradition of Modernity.

Key words
Subject, individual, causality, intentionality, ideas, practices, representation, Modernity, Calvinism.

References

• Ayers, M. (1991). Locke. Epistemology and Ontology. London — New York: Routledge.
• Balibar, E. (2002). Possessive Individualism Reversed. Constellations, 9 (3), 299–317.
• Balibar, E. (2013). Identity and Difference. London — New York: Verso.
• Descombes, V. (2001). Mind's Provisions. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
• Dekart, R. (1989). Strasti dushi [The Soul's Passions]. Moscow: Mysl'. (in Russian).
• Dumont, L. (1983). Essai sur l'individualisme. Une perspective anthropologique sur l'idéologie moderne. Paris: Le Seuil.
• Fodor, J. (1981). Representations. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Kenny, A. (2003). Action, Emotion and Will. London — New York: Routledge.
• de Libera, A. (2007). Archéologie du sujet. v. I. Naissance du sujet. Paris: Vrin.
• Lokk, D. (1985). Opyt o chelovecheskom razumenii [Essay Concerning Human Understanding]. Moscow: Mysl'. (in Russian).
• MacPherson, C. B. (1962). The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Renaut, A. (1989). L'ère de l'individu. Contribution à une histoire de la subjectivité. Paris: Gallimard.
• Rogers, G. (2010). The Influence of Locke's Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century: Epistemology and Politics. In S.-J. Savonius-Wroth, P. Schuurman, J. Walmsley (Eds.), The Continuum Companion to Locke. London: Bloomsbury.
• Searle, J. (1983). Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Strawson, G. (2011). Locke on Personal Identity. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
• Thiel, U. (2011). The Early Modern Subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Watt, I. (1957). The Rise of the Novel. London: Chatto and Windus.
• Weber, M. (2006). Protestantskaya etika i dukh kapitalizma [The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism]. Moscow: Russian Political Encyclopedia. (in Russian).
• Zimmel', G. (1996). Sozertsaniye zhizni [Contemplation of Life]. Moscow: Yurist. (in Russian).