Tout parcours est "semé d'embûches" - chacun le sait, ou à tout le moins le sent. Ce livre en est à nouveau la preuve. Non pas qu'on nous tende des pièges, mais en cela que les courses de 'sauts d'obstacles' sont toujours les plus prestigieuses, mais aussi les plus périlleuses. En réponse à Une analytique du passage (Claude-Brunier Coulin, éd.), ce volume de la plume de l'auteur reprend ainsi point par point les 'interrogations et objections' soulevées lors du colloque de (...) Chevilly-Larue (5-7 Juillet 2014), tout en proposant un véritable 'itinéraire' retraçant sa propre trajectoire. La source franciscaine, l'humanité commune, le sens de la catholicité, la racine ignacienne, l'héritage péguyste, le rapport à la finitude, le problème du surnaturel, le statut de l'apologétique, la relation au corps, le sens de la voix, la traversée du chaos, la question de la limite, le statut de l'Ecriture, le sens du style..., sont autant de thèmes et de questions abordées dans le présent essai. Faisant de la lutte de Jacob avec l'ange la figure de proue de cette grande traversée - "Je ne te lâcherai pas que tu m'aies béni" (Gn 32, 27) -, cet ouvrage accomplit le 'cycle méthodologique' initié par Passer le Rubicon (Lessius, 2013), relayé par Le combat amoureux (Hermann, 2014), et achevé par le Parcours d'embûches (Editions franciscaines, 2016). (shrink)

In By Way of Obstacles, Emmanuel Falque revisits the major themes of his work--finitude, the body, and the call for philosophers and theologians to "cross the Rubicon" by entering into dialogue--in light of objections that have been offered. In so doing, he offers a pathway through a work that will offer valuable insights both to newcomers to his thought and to those who are already familiar with it. For it is only after one has carved out one's pathway (...) that one may see more clearly where one has been and where one might be going. Here readers will discover the profound relation between Falque's emphasis on the human experience of the world and his desire for philosophy and Christian theology to enter into conversation. For only by speaking within the human horizon of finitude can Christianity be credible for human beings, and it is because Christian theology teaches that God entered into our finitude that it can also teach us something of what it is to be human. Contemporary phenomenology, Falque warns, over-privileges an encounter with the infinite that cannot be originary. Calling us back to finitude, he calls us to a deeper understanding of our humanity. (shrink)

Un - combat amoureux - (Heidegger) ou une - lutte entre les penseurs - (Husserl) determine le destin de l'histoire de la philosophie. Au coeur du debat avec la phenomenologie francaise, cet ouvrage engage une veritable disputatio philosophique ancree sur ledit -tournant theologique de la phenomenologie francaise-. Assure que l'heure n'est plus au simple choc frontal, mais a un veritable dialogue et confrontation entre les disciplines, ce livre tente de montrer en quoi une -phenomenologie de la limite- peut aussi servir (...) de contrepoint a la -phenomenologie de la revelation-, et la tourner davantage vers une pensee de l'-i ncarnation- ou de l'-e xperience-. Jacques Derrida, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion, Michel Henry, Jean-Louis Chretien, Jean-Yves Lacoste, Claude Romano et Jean Greisch, marquent les differents etapes de cette -traversee- point par point articulee, et en quete d'un respondeo a meme d'autrement decider.". (shrink)

La philosophie, et en particulier la phénoménologie, se trouve aujourd'hui en France dans une situation pour le moins paradoxale dans son vis-à-vis avec la théologie. Alors que les uns e - accusent les phénoménologues d'un prétendu tournant théologique et que les autres s'en défendent comme si toute théologisation devait entacher leur intégrité, nul ne tente délibérément la traversée en prenant en charge les deux disciplines comme telles. En osant " passer le Rubicon " avec cette conviction que " plus on (...) théologise, mieux on philosophe ", cet ouvrage tente donc de mettre fin à la trop fréquente position de " chiens de faïence " et propose un " choc en retour " de la théologie sur la phénoménologie. Loin des philosophies du " seuil " ou du " saut ", une véritable rencontre des disciplines est ici revendiquée, dans l'assurance qu'elles seront mieux distinguées si elles acceptent d'être davantage assumées. Alea jacta est : " le sort en est jeté ", avec audace et peut-être témérité mais en sachant que nul ne pense s'il ne vient à s'exposer. (shrink)

This paper was originally presented at a colloquium on Michel Henry’s book Incarnation at the Institut Catholique Paris. Michel Henry’s response to the present study can be found in “À Emmanuel Falque,” in Ph énoménologie et christianisme chez Michel Henry, ed. Ph. Capelle : 168-182. This response was reprinted recently in Michel Henry, La Ph énoménologie de la vie, vol. 5.

Everything is phenomenon, everything is gift, or everything is given. This presupposition of phenomenology, which makes giveness the starting point for phenomenality, is not altogether self-evident. It is not sufficient to look merely at the reverse of the gift, but it is a matter of questioning the impossibility of even giving. Questioning the strategies of the contemporary reappropriations of Kant—radicalization, disproportion, and inversion —this text works under a fourth possibility, seldom examined and yet still envisaged by Kant: the “Extra-Phenomenal”, or (...) in other words, the “Chaos”, the “pell-mell”, the “Cinnabar”, or the “melee of sensations”. (shrink)

In marked contrast to Husserlian “unities of sense” that structure consciousness around _egoic_ ideal-meaning intention, contemporary phenomenology orders sense according to an excess of givenness – a surfeit of presence – that surpasses this intentional relation. But Emmanuel Falque argues that there is a resistance that _precedes_ the phenomenological order of givenness and sense. Before the saturated phenomena (Marion), the _pathos_ of the flesh (Henry), and the irruption of the Other (Levinas), there is a resistance of presence that (...) is not _sensu stricto_ given at all. Falque turns to the early writings of Emmanuel Levinas on trauma and insomnia and the hum and buzz of the _il y a_ (the “there is …”) that precedes the order of givenness and sense, including the Levinasian Other, in order to make sense of this _a priori_ resistance. There is a presence of the body, experienced in some sense via trauma, insomnia, and Falque’s own notion of the “spread body” that is not given yet constitutes an integral part of embodied experience. The way Falque engages with these bodily experiences reformulates the phenomenological limit, not in terms of excess and givenness, but in terms of resistance and the “extra-phenomenon.” Phenomenological engagement with resistance thus becomes a wager on meaning and sense, the outcome of which cannot be known in advance, that is, cannot be always and already ordered to phenomenological givenness. (shrink)

The texts in this book offer new observations on incarnation in light of the developments of the past twenty years in both philosophy and theology, as well as current debates in anthropology and ethics.

Emmanuel Falque Il y a la mort de Dieu, mais vient aussi la mort de l’homme. L’une et l’autre sont foncièrement liées, au moins chez Nietzsche. Le christianisme devra lui aussi y trouver sa place. Non pas pour déplorer la radicalité du nihilisme contemporain, mais pour le comprendre de l’intérieur et en assurer aussi la relève. Etsi homo non daretur — et si l’homme n’était pas donné? Avec cette interrogation doit surgir un Dieu de la force et de (...) la résurrection, sorte de « sur-Dieu » capable de rivaliser avec le surhomme de Nietzsche. Penser « au fil conducteur du corps » n’est pas seulement renverser le rapport de l’âme et du corps, mais autrement envisager l’incarnation, aussi avec tout ce qu’il y a en nous de passions et de pulsions. Le « Soi » prend alors le pas sur le « Ça », car il ne suffit pas au moi de se tenir comme « un cavalier » sur son cheval, encore faut-il reconnaître à tout sujet pluriel d’être pour lui-même et en lui-même « comme sur le dos d’un tigre ». C’est à ce prix, et à ce prix seulement, que notre humanité sera pleinement assumée pour nouvellement créer. (shrink)

Emmanuel Falque’s The Wedding Feast of the Lamb represents a turning point in his thought. Here, Falque links philosophy and theology in an original fashion that allows us to see the full effect of theology’s “backlash” against philosophy. By attending closely to the incarnation and the eucharist, Falque develops a new concept of the body and of love: By avoiding the common mistake of “angelism”—consciousness without body—Falque considers the depths to which our humanity reflects animality, (...) or body without consciousness. He shows the continued relevance of the question “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”, especially to philosophy. We need to question the meaning of “this is my body” in “a way that responds to the needs of our time”. Because of the ways that “Hoc est corpus meum” has shaped our culture and our modernity, this is a problem both for religious belief and for culture. (shrink)

This book provides a critical introduction to twentieth-century French phenomenology and philosophy of religion. Emmanuel Falque, the most important voice in contemporary French philosophy of religion, offers a novel and creative philosophy of the body at the intersection of philosophy and theology.

In this article E. Falque offers an original reading of the Augustinian epithet “I am a weight to myself” (oneri mihi sum, conf. 10.28). The question for Falque is not to determine whether Augustine belongs to the history of metaphysics (as is J.-L. Marión’s interest), but to determine what Augustine’s “weight of life” does to phenomenology in the backlash (‘le choc en retour’), or the after theafter, of metaphysics. Specifically, foliowing M. Heidegger, Falque finds the “weight of (...) life” particularly relevant to frame the post-metaphysical experience of memory and the question of pain. Overall, the infamous Augustinian “restless heart” finquietum, conf. 1.1) ineludes, through the “weight of life”, an unquenchable dynamic which is the divine action in human beings. The “weight of life” is such in the finitude of human existence that there always remains restlessness in rest. Thus, Falque recovers the restlessness of rest through an analysis of the backlash of the “weight of life” in the after the after of metaphysics. (shrink)

This book starts off from a philosophical premise: nobody can be in the world unless they are born into the world.

On interprète souvent l’argument d’ Anselme comme s’il venait de nulle part. La quête minutieuse de ses sources (Cicéron, Sénèque, Plotin, Augustin, Boèce...) et de l’expérience dans laquelle il s’enracine (l’enfant du Val d’Aoste) fait voir en saint Anselme, non pas le dernier des Pères, ni le premier des scolastiques, mais une figure originale, capable de faire de la raison elle-même le lieu d’une expérience mystique.

There is an actuality of medieval philosophy. The “phenomenological practice of medieval philosophy” put into practice by the author in his work “God, the flesh and the other” finds its full justification here. One does not demonstrate the fertility of a method by his theory, but by its application in practice. The crossing of authors as diverse as St. Augustine, John Scotus Erigena and Master Eckhart, Irenaeus, Tertullian and Bonaventura, and Origen, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scot, deploys for today the (...) actuality of medieval philosophy – not first understood as “up-to-date” but as implementation of their “potentialities”. (shrink)

There is the death of God, but comes also the death of man. Both are fundamentally linked, at least in Nietzsche’s thought. Christianity will also have to find its place there. Not in order to deplore the radicalism of contemporary nihilism, but to understand it from the inside and also to ensure its succession. Etsi homo non daretur — what if man (and not only God) were not given? With this questioning must arise a God of strength and resurrection, a (...) sort of “over-God” capable of rivaling Nietzsche’s superman. To think through “the main thread of the body” is not only to reverse the relationship between the soul and the body, but to consider incarnation in a different way, also with all that there is in us of passions and impulses. The “Self” (das Selbst) then takes precedence over the “It” (das Es), because it is not enough for the ego to stand like “a rider” on his horse (Freud) ; it is also necessary to recognize to any plural subject the power to be for itself and in itself “like on the back of a tiger” (Nietzsche). It is at this price, and at this price alone, that our humanity will be fully assumed so that it can create again. (shrink)

This paper states that as there is the “death of God” (Nietzsche), there is also the "death of man" (Foucault). The first will be interpreted either as the truth of the God who dies (theologies of the death of God), or as the death of the principle (Heidegger), or as the death of the living God and of his resurrection power (Nietzsche's true interpretation). The second one can certainly consecrate the human as an “fabricated problem” (Foucault), but even more this (...) way can open up the new power relationship of the Übermensch. Therefore, after the fold of the "forces of finitude" comes the fold of the "new creative infinity" (Deleuze). It is in this way, and only by thinking about “the thread of the body”, that we will perhaps move away from the death of man (Foucault) and the death of God (Nietzsche). Going down to Freud’s “es”, but also reaching Nietzsche’s “Self” will be the condition to echo the power of the Übermensch and of the " Über God". Man does not only stand on the “back of the es” like the rider on his horse (Freud), but also on the “back of the Self” like the “back of the tiger” that cannot be tamed (Nietzsche). (shrink)

“A Tempest in a Skull”. The expression comes from Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, but it says just as much about Freud's life as it does about ours. No one is probably more 'disturbed', or descends to the depths of chaos, than when he or she takes on the trappings of a 'tidy' being, or is caught up in a cosmetic life apparently made of order and beauty. Of course, “everything is fine” does not always hide “everything is bad”. But we (...) must also recognize that there is often a 'tempest' in a skull, and that it is precisely at this moment that everything changes, and everything is modified within us. Based on this phenomenon, the leitmotiv "so much exception, so much modification" thus becomes the new imperative of phenomenology - not out of attachment to the tragic or the pathetic, but on the contrary to reach that part of us which is inexpressible and which is the strongest part of our existentiality. Garcia Lorca's Duende, as the “spirit of aching Spain”, will express in its own way this force “that burns the blood”, the only one capable of touching our own depths, magnified and exorcised by the rhythm of Andalusian singers. (shrink)

El presente trabajo aborda la recepción del pensamiento de Agustín de Hipona a lo largo de la historia de la fenomenología en el siglo XX. Para ello, divide esta recepción en diversos temas o enfoques con sus respectivos autores. En primer lugar, trata los “orígenes fenomenológicos” (Husserl, Heidegger y Arendt), mostrando allí la matriz alemana de interpretación de Agustín. En segundo lugar, el autor analiza, ya en el marco de las lecturas francesas de Agustín, lo que denomina el “giro hermenéutico” (...) (Gadamer y Ricoeur). Finalmente, en tercer lugar, examina lo que define como “Descripciones fenomenológicas” (Marion y Chrétien). (shrink)

Il arrive parfois que la danse rejoigne la philosophie, car l’une et l’autre sont des mouvements et des pensées du corps. Et elles ont en commun de ne se déployer que dans et par la limite. Vivre « aux confins », c’est atteindre les limites et ne jamais les dépasser. Et quiconque voudrait s’envoler s’écrasera d’une pesanteur qu’il aura eu le tort de refuser. Ce texte, mise en scène par les élèves du conservatoire de danse contemporaine de Tours (sous la (...) direction de Valerie de Mortillet, professeur de danse) figure ce que la pensée depuis si longtemps voulait montrer. On associera ainsi l’image à la réflexion, pour voir précisément ce qu’il en est du poids de notre humanité : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8NIvz24YBU. (shrink)

Originally published: Brussels: Editions Lessius, 2013.

Spontaneous creations often exist in nature but rarely in philosophy. Yet, theemergence of the International Network of Philosophy of Religion was such an instance. France and the United States have long been linked, not just in friendship, but in thought. Paul Ricoeur, Jacques Derrida, and, more recently, Jean-Luc Marion have been among some of the French pioneers bridging this divide. More than a matter of an affiliation to a particular school of thought, a true“bridge of friendship” has been constructed across (...) the ocean, as if these waters were not enough to separate us. (shrink)

Se interroga el fundamento de la hermenéutica del texto y lo que significa retomarla a la letra en filosofía y en teología. Una hermenéutica es fundamental si se afinca en un modo de existencia adecuado a su propósito, de modo que se diferencie mejor y sea identificada claramente. La hermenéutica protestante del sentido del texto y la hermenéutica judía del cuerpo de la letra serán sustituidas aquí por una hermenéutica católica del texto del cuerpo, en una tentativa al menos programática.

What does God do with the “holes” or “troumatisms” that comprise the limits of our existence, that “original solitude” whereby we are confronted with the impending annihilation of all sense? Are we left enclosed in it or does God accompany us there? This essay considers to what extent Christ’s descent on Holy Saturday takes part in the extra-phenomenal “impossibility of possibility” of this original solitude. Such a consideration requires distinguishing between that “underworld” Christ descends to on the Second Day from (...) the sin that is the proper domain of “hell.” Christ descending to the underworld marks God entering our finitude so it may be transformed (Holy Saturday) rather than our faults so that we may be resurrected (Last Judgment). Philosophically, Holy Saturday, as the ab-sense and non-sense residing between Crucifixion (Good Friday) and Resurrection (Easter Sunday), exemplifies the extra-phenomenal in which nothing is manifested (phenomenology) nor signified (hermeneutics). This intermediate realm is then one in which God comes to meet us at the limit of our own finitude. (shrink)

Fons signatus: the sealed source -- Part One. God: chapter 1. Metaphysics and theology in tension ; chapter 2. God phenomenon ; chapter 3. Reduction and conversion -- Part Two. The Flesh: chapter 4. The visibility of the flesh ; chapter 5. The solidity of the flesh ; chapter 6.- The conversion of the flesh -- Part Three. The Other: chapter 7. Community and intersubjectivity ; chapter 8. Angelic alterity ; chapter 9. The singular other -- By way of conclusion: (...) toward an act of return. (shrink)

Un essai sur les moments de crise que chacun peut rencontrer dans sa vie. Se fondant sur les leçons de la phénoménologie, l'auteur propose de penser la crise hors catégorie, pour réussir à affronter les moments de difficulté en les intégrant dans une autre perspective, celle d'un chemin de vie, chaque étape participant à la transformation de l'être.

Everyone can agree that the mystery of the Incarnation is difficult to believe and to understand, and yet it is precisely what Christians do not cease to profess. The most innocent questions concerning the “carnal consistency” of the Resurrected One today are omitted for want of a suitable and contemporary anthropology for us to ask them. But that a body made of “flesh and bones” can indeed now claim to appear and reappear in what we ordinarily call a horizon of (...) reality or objectivity goes against our faculties of thought and even imagination. Philosophy must aim to render comprehensible this mystery of a God made body. (shrink)

RESUMEN Se interroga el fundamento de la hermenéutica del texto y lo que significa retomarla a la letra en filosofía y en teología. Una hermenéutica es fundamental si se afinca en un modo de existencia adecuado a su propósito, de modo que se diferencie mejor y sea identificada claramente. La hermenéutica protestante del sentido del texto y la hermenéutica judía del cuerpo de la letra serán sustituidas aquí por una hermenéutica católica del texto del cuerpo, en una tentativa al menos (...) programática. ABSTRACT The article inquires into the basis of textual hermeneutics and what it means to apply it literally in philosophy and theology. Hermeneutics is fundamental if it is grounded in a mode of existence that is adequate to its purpose, so that it is better differentiated and clearly identified. The Protestant hermeneutics of the meaning of the text and the Jewish hermeneutics of the body of the letter are here replaced by a Catholic hermeneutics of the text of the body, in an attempt that is at least programmatic. (shrink)

Au lieu de soi marque un Haut Lieu du soi. Dans cette perspective, la hauteur du sujet s’acquiert par la verticalité (transcendance), et non pas uniquement par l’horizontalité (immanence). Interrogeant l’ambition d’une approche de saint Augustin du point de vue de saint Augustin lui-même, on montrera d’abord le mérite d’un tel renouvellement dans le cadre de la philosophie comme telle : la question de l’homme, le poids du soi, et le statut de l’éros. Une noble « disputatio théologique et phénoménologique (...) » cependant naîtra dans la confrontation avec d’autres ouvrages (en particulier Dieu, la chair et l’autre. D’Irénée à Duns Scot [PUF, « Épiméthée », 2008]) : doit-on nécessairement « dépasser » la métaphysique dans un tiers ordre, ou ne convient-il pas plutôt de la « transformer de l’intérieur » dans le geste que semble avoir accompli le Docteur d’Hippone lui-même? Il en va ici du statut de la philosophie dans son rapport à la métaphysique et à la théologie, mais aussi de la possibilité d’une « nouvelle pratique phénoménologique de la philosophie médiévale », pour aujourd’hui comme pour demain. (shrink)