This short communication explores the idea of “stream of consciousness” and considers some of the ways in which scientific writing relies – even or perhaps especially insofar as it does not signal this fact – on the resources of literary language and literary thinking. Particular attention is given to notions of literal and figurative or metaphorical language, including “hydrological” and “ontic” metaphor. A crucial figure is simile (the “like”), discussed here in relation to the Thomas Nagel’s “What is it Like (...) to Be a Bat?”, Todd Feinberg and Jon Mallatt’s Consciousness Demystified, and Anil Seth’s Being You: A New Science of Consciousness. Neuroethics cannot restrict itself to the domain of technology and the human. The deconstruction of anthropocentrism, already underway in literary modernism, calls for responsibility in relation to non-human as well as human life-forms. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway provides rich and multifarious resources for exploring these issues. Woolf’s novel is considered as a kind of literary water music, in which sense and feeling is not limited to the human, and distinctions between consciousness and the environment are susceptible to dissolution. Woolf’s work is concerned with a conception of stream of consciousness as telepathic fluidity, as “merging minds” but without restitution of the individual or collective. (shrink)

I argue that we find the articulation of a problem concerning bodily agency in the early works of the Merleau-Ponty which he explicates as analogous to what he explicitly calls the problem of perception. The problem of perception is the problem of seeing how we can have the object given in person through it perspectival appearances. The problem concerning bodily agency is the problem of seeing how our bodily movements can be the direct manifestation of a person’s intentions in the (...) world. In both cases what, according to Merleau-Ponty, obscures a recognition of the phenomenon in question is a conception of our bodily capacities, i.e. our sensibility and our motility, which reduces these to the workings of mechanisms that are blind to meaning. I argue that both the problem concerning perception and the problem concerning bodily agency can be properly called transcendental. The problem of perception is transcendental because it concerns the very intelligibility of appearances and judgements with empirical content. The problem of bodily agency is transcendental in the sense that it concerns the very intelligibility of our bodily capacity to carry out intentions and by implication the intelligibility of our intentions as such. (shrink)

The article is devoted to historico-philosophical investigation of the grounds of universalism of spe-cial type. This universalism, inherent in transcendental thinking, was radicalized in quasi-transcendental discourse of Jacques Derrida. It is established that explicit critique of universalism in deconstructive phi-losophy is aimed at “logo-centric” paradigm of universality which is questioned by transcendental philosophy. Constitutive function of difference and otherness in establishment of transcendental and especially quasi-transcendental universality was brought to light. It was shown that in transcendental dis-course singularity is involved (...) into the sphere of universal, whereas “dogmatic” universalism brought singularity and/or particularity outside, thus questioning its own claims. Tracing transcendentalist ten-dency to balance status and significance of universal and particular, the author concludes that relation between them makes possible constituting hyper-universality of special type. Universal implications of the Derrida’s notion “quasi-transcendental” are defined. It was determined that one of the main factors constituting universalism of quasi-transcendental type is the deconstruction of binary thinking, accomplished first of all with the help of principles: differance, insolvability and trace. Among them insolvability implies universality revealing the overlap and mutual conditioning of alternative elements. Instead, the trace conditions superiority of logo-centric alternatives “primary-secondary” and “presence-absence”. (shrink)

_Explores the continuities and discontinuities in the work of Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze._.

Explores the continuities and discontinuities in the work of Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze.

Manfred Frank has in recent publications criticized a number of prevailing views concerning the nature of self-awareness,1 and it is the so-called reflection theory of self-awareness which has been particularly under fire. That is, the theory which claims that self-awareness only comes about when consciousness directs its 'gaze' at itself, thereby taking itself as its own object. But in his elaboration of a position originally developed by Dieter Henrich (and, to a lesser extent, by Cramer and Pothast) Frank has also (...) more generally criticized every attempt to conceive original self-awareness as a relation, be it a relation between two acts or a relation between the act and itself.2 Every relation entails a distinction between two (or more) relata and, according to Frank, it would be impossible to account for the immediacy and infallibility of selfawareness (particularly its so-called immunity to the error of misidentification), if it were in any way a mediated process. Thus, self-awareness cannot come about as the result of a self-identification, a reflection, an inner vision or introspection, nor should it be conceived as a type of intentionality or as a conceptually mediated propositional attitude, all of which entails the distinction between two or more relata. The pre-reflective self-awareness of an experience is not mediated by foreign elements such as concepts and classificatory criteria, nor by any internal difference or distance. It is an immediate and direct self- acquaintance which is characterized by being completely and absolutely irrelational (and consequently best described as a purely immanent self-presence).3 Frank's approach is unusually broad, since he draws on the resources of several different philosophical traditions, including German Idealism, analytical philosophy of mind, and phenomenology. When it comes to the latter, it is particularly in Sartre that Frank has found important insights, whereas he has criticized Husserl's position persistently in most of his writings on self-awareness.. (shrink)

In this article, I will explore the archeology of the concept of attestation in Ricoeur’s work. In a brief discussion of his early reflections on Husserl’s concept of the ego (as an example of reflexive philosophy), I show how the dialectic of trust and suspicion enters Ricoeur’s hermeneutic concerns. I argue that this dialectics remains present in his account of attestation. By a brief confrontation with Heidegger’s notion of attestation as developed in Being and Time, I show that the uniqueness (...) of Ricoeur’s account of attestation is to be found in this dialectic of trust and suspicion that he reinterprets in his later work in light of the concept of attestation. (shrink)

Straipsnyje analizuojama viena naujausių vizualinio mąstymo teorijų – Emmanuelio Alloa (at)vaizdų simptomatologija. Susitelkiant į (at)vaizdo statuso autonomiškumo problemą, kurią įvairiais būdais sprendžia vizualinio ir ikoninio posūkių atstovai, klausiama, koks yra (at)vaizdo statusas kalbos atžvilgiu. Straipsnyje yra grįžtama prie (at)vaizdų simptomatologijos ištakų, konkrečiai – Nelsono Goodmano bendrosios simbolių teorijos. Tai leidžia išryškinti Alloa siūlomo simptomo modelio naujumą ir reabilituoti simptomatologinio tyrimo statusą. Straipsnyje teigiama, kad (at)vaizdams priskiriamas ikoniškumo statusas kalbos atžvilgiu gali būti performuluojamas, iškeliant simptomo tapatybės klausimą. Šia prasme ikoniškumo simptomai (...) yra (at)vaizdų analizei pritaikomi įrankiai, leidžiantys aprašyti skirtingus (at)vaizdų ikoniškumo raiškos lygmenis. (shrink)

This paper will deal with the relationship between 'life' (Leben) and the 'life-world' (Lebenswelt) 1 as we find these concepts in the writings of Husserl's last years. The emphasis will be upon elucidating this relation- ship from the transcendental point of view. It is well known that Husserl initially introduced the concept of the life-world into his philosophy in connection with the problem of founding the sciences: accordingly, most studies up to date have dealt with the concept within this context (...) - that is, as part of the program for founding the sciences. However, it is important to remember that the life-world is also, for Husserl, a 'way to the transcendental reduction', and as such, can be ultimately clari- fied only by following this way to its end, and by comprehending it in its relationship to transcendental subjectivity. In his later years, Husserl came to think of the 'way of being' (Seinsweise) of transcendental sub- jectivity as 'world-experiencing-life' (welterfahrendes Leben). Thus it is my view that the problem of the 'life-world' is intimately related to that of 'life', and must necessarily be treated in the context of that rela- tionship. (shrink)

This article examines the double account of the human in Friedrich Nietzsche's writings. Genealogically, Nietzsche insists that humanity is a tamed herd that attacks its own animality. Philologically, this human – through anthropomorphism – sunders itself from those aspects of language that are not representational. Read in relation to this double critique, the article argues that Thus Spoke Zarathustra is an attempt to imagine an entirely different relation between politics and language, one that enables a thinking of a future without (...) dominion and responds to the crisis of human rights and the humanities today. (shrink)

This paper builds a three-part argument in favour of a more transcendentally focused form of ‘postphenomenology’ than is currently practised in philosophy of technology. It does so by problematising two key terms, ‘constitution’ and ‘postphenomenology’, then by arguing in favour of a ‘transcendental empiricist’ approach that draws on the work of Foucault, Derrida, and, in particular, Deleuze. Part one examines ‘constitution’, as it moves from the context of Husserl’s phenomenology to Ihde and Verbeek’s ‘postphenomenology’. I argue that the term tends (...) towards different senses in these contexts, and that this renders its sense more problematic than the work of Ihde and Verbeek makes it appear. Part two examines ‘postphenomenology’. I argue that putatively ‘poststructuralist’ thinkers such as Derrida, Foucault, and Deleuze may be better characterised as ‘postphenomenologists’, and that approaching them in this way may allow better access to their work from a philosophy of technology perspective. Part three argues for a ‘transcendental empiricist’ approach to philosophy of technology. In doing so, it argues for a rewriting of contemporary philosophy of technology’s political constitution: since an ‘empirical turn’ in the 1990s, I argue, philosophy of technology has been too narrowly focused on ‘empirical’ issues of fact, and not focused enough on ‘transcendental’ issues concerning conditions for these facts. (shrink)

This essay argues that important critical and political perspective can be gained on Deleuze's famous essay, ‘Bartleby; or, The Formula’ by viewing it as an attempt to move beyond the Sartrean framework of ‘bad faith’. The argument comprises four sections. In section one, I contextualise Deleuze's essay in terms of contrasting readings of Bartleby, from a prior account by Georges Perec, to contemporary accounts indebted to Deleuze, from Hardt and Negri's Empire to Gisèle Berkman's recent L'Effet Bartleby. The argument of (...) this section is that a problematically reductive image of Bartleby has emerged in the wake of Deleuze's essay, but that this can be challenged in favour of a more nuanced and politically significant reading by contextualising the essay as an attempt to overcome bad faith. In section two, I develop this by drawing out the nature and relevance of the threat posed by bad faith through a focus on Sartrean, Deleuzian and Badioucan critiques of Bartleby, before arguing, in section three, that attention to the concept of a ‘logic of presuppositions’ developed in Deleuze's essay shows how bad faith can be overcome. These sections all build towards the fourth and longest section, which draws out the wider political significance of what it means to overcome bad faith. To do so, I pay attention to how logics of presupposition function in Bartleby's story, and consider Deleuze's essay in relation to his work on ‘control societies’ and ‘collective assemblages of enunciation’. (shrink)

Volume 11, Issue 1, March 2019, Page 34-47.

The purpose of this paper is to show how the interaction between Kantian ethics and some aspects of Heideggerian philosophy can lead to the model of a subject in immediate relationship with others and with his or her community. The positions of Jean-Luc Nancy and Jacques Derrida on this question are presented in contrast with those of Alain Renaut and Emmanuel Lévinas to elucidate their differing ways of interpreting the relationship between Kant and Heidegger with regard to ethics, apriorism, and (...) subjectivity. (shrink)

This paper begins by presenting Lawlor's Derrida and Husserl: The Basic Problems of Philosophy, an account of how deconstruction emerges as Derrida discusses Husserl's phenomenology (I.). It then determines the genre of Lawlor's intellectual history. Lawlor writes a continuist narrative history of ideas and concepts (II.). In the subsequent main section the paper uses Lawlor's material to take a position in the debate between Husserl and Derrida (III.). This is done in three parts. The first part reconstructs Derrida's version of (...) Husserlian time consciousness (III. 1). The second part proposes an alternative and revisionist reading of Husserl's theory of internal temporality. On this reading Husserl is a process theoretician of consciousness (III. 2). The third part juxtaposes Husserl and Derrida's critical views (III. 3), arguing that Husserl's fluxive theory of time consciousness does not suffer from the problems Derrida finds in his Husserl. The final section (IV.) points to relativizing consequences for deconstruction and identifies programmatic consequences for phenomenology. (shrink)

The link between force, violence and events in the philosophy of Jacques Derrida is explored, arguing that this relationship is at the very heart of the problem of meaning and its performativity. This thesis is based on the analysis of Derrida’s reading of both Benjamin’s Critique of Violence, as well as Austin’s linguistic performative theory, which allows, at first, to link the question of signification with that of force or violence. Subsequently, we use the analysis of W. Hamacher about Benjamin (...) in order to strengthen that connection and propose a new reading of the question of the event in Derrida. We obtain a philosophy of the event that moves between ethics, politics and linguistics that allows new approaches to the “critique” of violence. (shrink)

I argue that Husserl’s transcendental account of the role of the lived body in sense-making is a precursor to Alva Noë’s recent work on the enactive, embodied mind, specifically his notion of “sensorimotor knowledge” as a form of embodied sense-making that avoids representationalism and intellectualism. Derrida’s deconstructive account of meaning—developed largely through a critique of Husserl—relies on the claim that meaning is structured through the complication of the “interiority” of consciousness by an “outside,” and thus might be thought to lend (...) itself to theories of mind such as Noë’s that emphasize the ways in which sense-making occurs outside the head. But while Derrida’s notion of “contamination” rightly points to an indeterminateness of meaning in an outside, extended, concrete lived world, he ultimately reduces meaning to a structure of signification. This casts indeterminateness in terms of absence, ignoring the presence of non-linguistic phenomena of embodied sense-making central to both the contemporary enactivist program and to the later Husserl, who is able to account for the indeterminateness of meaning in lived experience through his distinction between sense and more exact linguistic meaning. Husserl’s transcendental theory of meaning also allows for a substantive contribution to sense-making from the side of the perceived object—an aspect missing from Noë’s account. Thus, in contrast to Derrida and to Noë, Husserl accounts for sense-making in terms of both the lived body and the lived world. (shrink)

The article seeks to challenge the standard accounts of how to view the difference between Husserl and Frege on the nature of ideal objects and meanings. It does so partly by using Derrida’s deconstructive reading of Husserl to open up a critical space where the two approaches can be confronted in a new way. Frege’s criticism of Husserl’s philosophy of mathematics (that it was essentially psychologistic) was partly overcome by the program of transcendental phenomenology. But the original challenge to the (...) prospect of a fulfilled intuition of idealities remained and was in fact encountered again from within the transcendental analysis by Husserl himself in his last writings on geometry and language. According to the two standard and conflicting accounts, Husserl either changed his earlier psychologistic program as a result of Frege’s criticism, or he was in fact never challenged by it in the first place. The article shows instead how Husserl continued to struggle with the problem of the constitution of ideal objects, and how his quest led him to a point where his analyses anticipate a more dialectical and deconstructive conclusion, eventually made explicit by Derrida. It also shows not only how this development constitutes a philosophical continuity from the original dispute with Frege, but also how Frege’s critique in a certain respect could be read as an anticipation of Derrida’s deconstructive elaboration of Husserl’s phenomenology. (shrink)

Beginnings can be empirically described, philosophically debated, fictionally recounted or theatrically staged – each kind of discourse approaches beginnings via an examination of representation as an impossible return to source. The work of French philosopher Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe articulates the problem of beginnings by considering them as a form of subjective collapse, loss of integrity and aggravation of emotion resulting from the paradoxical logic of representation. While Lacoue-Labarthe’s position has been largely developed in his philosophical writings, this study focuses more specifically (...) on his literary production, namely his collection of short stories, L’ “Allégorie”, and his staged debate with Jean-Luc Nancy in Scène: suivi de Dialogue sur le dialogue, in which the two writers present opposing views on the theatre. The analysis of the above texts centres on the two key “locations” for beginnings, namely narrative voice and the theatrical stage. (shrink)

RésuméLa sémiotique a inventé ou utilisé plusieurs modèles logiques pour représenter la structure élémentaire de la signification. Le carré sémiotique est sans doute l’un des plus célèbres de ces modèles. Il faut se demander, devant l’importance des phénomènes triadiques, si les modèles dyadiques sont (toujours) adaptés à leur description ou s’il ne faudrait pas se tourner (aussi) vers des modèles triadiques. Or, les modèles triadiques de la structure élémentaire de la signification nous apparaissent bien moins nombreux. À notre connaissance, seule (...) la sémiotique de Peirce et le templum de Boudon occupent cet espace autrement laissé vacant. Nous voulons ici à la fois présenter et exemplifier le templum et le compléter, en nous inspirant du carré sémiotique, pour le faire évoluer vers un « prisme sémiotique ». Nous proposerons également d’autres modèles logiques, comme le pentalemme et le cube sémiotiques. Au passage, nous étudierons plusieurs questions et problèmes – dont la décidabilité – entourant les modèles logiques. Nous ferons quelques applications sommaires de certains modèles, sur le temps, l’espace et la transcendance principalement. (shrink)

It is difficult to imagine that a Royal Institute of Physics would organize an annual lecture series on the theme ‘conceptions of physics’. Similarly, it is quite improbable that a Royal Institute of Astronomy would even contemplate inviting speakers for a lecture series called ‘conceptions of astronomy’. What, then, is so special about philosophy that the theme of this lecture series does not appear to be altogether outlandish? Is it, perhaps, that philosophy is the reflective discipline par excellence, so that (...) the very nature of philosophy is a topic that belongs to its domain of investigations? Or is there something more serious at issue? Let me first tell you how the question concerning the nature of philosophy arose for me as a young student, and how I tried to answer it, quite naively, by endorsing Edmund Husserl's programme of turning philosophy into a rigorous science. In a second section, I shall offer three diagnoses of the fact that all such attempts seem to have failed. Finally, I'd like to say a few words on my own research agenda in philosophy and on a public function of philosophers. (shrink)

Derrida uses ideas and claims of Husserl to formulate his philosophy of deconstruction. I show that he provides a garbled account of Husserl and suggest that his misunderstandings explain many features of the philosophy of deconstruction.

La presente nota crítica tiene como finalidad exponer y comentar las ideas fundamentales de la edición española del primer escrito de Jacques Derrida, El problema de la génesis en la filosofía de Husserl. Asimismo, hacemos algunas aclaraciones sobre el origen y significado de este escrito. Al concluir, añadimos algunas observaciones sobre la traducción y sobre el estudio final del editor y traductor Javier Bassas Vila sobre la filosofía del joven Derrida.

(2011). ‘What Is, Is More than It Is’: Adorno and Heidegger on the Priority of Possibility. International Journal of Philosophical Studies: Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 31-57. doi: 10.1080/09672559.2011.539357.

This paper addresses the notion of communicative action on the basis of Alfred Schutz’ writings. In Schutz’ work, communication is of particular significance and its importance is often neglected by phenomenologists. Communication plays a crucial role in his first major work, the Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt from 1932, yet communication is also a major feature in his unfinished works which were later completed posthumously by Thomas Luckmann: The Structures of the Life World (1973, 1989). In these texts, Schutz (...) sometimes refers to “communicative action,” and he comes to ascribe a crucial role to communication within the domain of the life world he calls everyday life. Based on Schutz’ texts, I shall first attempt to critically reconstruct the defining features of his notion of communication and communicative action. As a result, it emerges that Schutz’ notion of communication, particularly in its early incarnation, seems to be, at first glance, characterized by a dichotomy between virtual communication, that is communicative action in a narrow sense, and non-virtual communication. As I want to show with respect to the seemingly established dichotomous distinction between “mediated” and “immediate social action,” Schutz himself started to overcome this dichotomy. Based on this thesis, I will try to sketch a basic outline of a theory of communicative action, a theory less formulated by Schutz’ than built on Schutz’ writings. As the idea of communicative action, and particularly the transgression of the distinction between mediated and immediate action, affects the very structures of the life-world described by Schutz and Luckmann, I will ultimately demonstrate that any mundane phenomenology of the life-world requires a triangulatory method. (shrink)

Whether or not Merleau-Ponty’s version of phenomenology should be considered a form of ‘transcendental’ philosophy is open to debate. Although the Phenomenology of Perception presents his position as a transcendental one, many of its features—such as its exploitation of empirical science—might lead to doubt that it can be. This paper considers whether Merleau-Ponty meets what I call the ‘transcendentalist challenge’ of defining and grounding claims of a distinctive transcendental kind. It begins by highlighting three features—the absolute ego, the pure phenomenal (...) field, and the reduction—that Husserl had used to justify claims of a specifically transcendental kind within a phenomenological framework. It then examines how Merleau-Ponty modifies each of these features to focus on the lived body and a factically conditioned phenomenal field, while remaining ambivalent about the reduction. Finally, it assesses whether Merleau-Ponty’s modified position can still legitimately be considered transcendental. I argue that—despite his own rhetoric—this modified position shapes the modality of Merleau-Ponty’s claims in such a way that his phenomenology cannot meet the transcendentalist challenge and therefore should not be considered ‘transcendental.’. (shrink)

Whether or not Merleau-Ponty’s version of phenomenology should be considered a form of ‘transcendental’ philosophy is open to debate. Although the Phenomenology of Perception presents his position as a transcendental one, many of its features—such as its exploitation of empirical science—might lead to doubt that it can be. This paper considers whether Merleau-Ponty meets what I call the ‘transcendentalist challenge’ of defining and grounding claims of a distinctive transcendental kind. It begins by highlighting three features—the absolute ego, the pure phenomenal (...) field, and the reduction—that Husserl had used to justify claims of a specifically transcendental kind within a phenomenological framework. It then examines how Merleau-Ponty modifies each of these features to focus on the lived body and a factically conditioned phenomenal field, while remaining ambivalent about the reduction. Finally, it assesses whether Merleau-Ponty’s modified position can still legitimately be considered transcendental. I argue that—despite his own rhetoric—this modified position shapes the modality of Merleau-Ponty’s claims in such a way that his phenomenology cannot meet the transcendentalist challenge and therefore should not be considered ‘transcendental.’. (shrink)

The paper addresses the problem of the place of deconstruction in the history of transcendental philosophy. J. Derrida’s project is considered as one of the most representative and consistent realizations of theoretical foundations of transcendentalism along with prominent conceptions such as Kant’s critique and Husserl’s phenomenology. The author suggests a number of attributes of transcendental thinking that allow historical reconstruction of the transcendental paradigm. Derridian approach is considered as a turn towards this tradition, conceived as a transcendental tradition par exellence, (...) guided by the attitude of «turning. Historical legacy of deconstructive «turning» is analyzed with respect to Husserlian Rückfrage: return-inquiry as method, idea and attitude, reproducing in deconstructive strategy of interpretative critique. A concept of hyperbolic transcendentalism is introduced in order to (1) define a deconstructive version of transcendental philosophy and (2) indicate an immanent tendency in the transcendental thought, constitutive for both Kantian critical project and Husserlian strive towards intellectual radicalism extending from methodological hyperboles (reduction and epoche) to radicalization of «transcendental motive». The author relies upon the concept of quasi-transcendental (thematized by Derrida himself), which defines a mode of de-dogmatization, critical purifying and preservation of proper transcendental foundations of philosophical thinking. (shrink)

The article is devoted to historico-philosophical investigation of the grounds of universalism of special type. This universalism, inherent in transcendental thinking, was radicalized in quasi-transcendental discourse of Jacques Derrida. It is established that explicit critique of universalism in deconstructive philosophy is aimed at “logo-centric” paradigm of universality which is questioned by (quasi)transcendental philosophy. Constitutive function of difference and otherness in establishment of transcendental and especially quasi-transcendental universality was brought to light. It was shown that in (quasi)transcendental discourse singularity is involved (...) into the sphere of universal, whereas “dogmatic” universalism brought singularity and/or particularity outside, thus questioning its own claims. Tracing transcendentalist tendency to balance status and significance of universal and particular (singular), the author concludes that relation between them makes possible constituting hyper-universality of special type. Universal implications of the Derrida’s notion “quasi-transcendental” are defined. It was determined that one of the main factors constituting universalism of quasi-transcendental type is the deconstruction of binary thinking, accomplished first of all with the help of principles: differance, insolvability (aporia) and trace. Among them insolvability implies universality revealing the overlap and mutual conditioning of alternative (at a glance) elements. Instead, the trace conditions superiority of logo-centric alternatives “primary-secondary” and “presence-absence”. (shrink)

The article begins by examining two arguments used by Derrida in work published in 1967. The first claims against Lévi-Strauss that an empirical pattern of events cannot be injected into or superimposed onto an historical pattern claiming universality, for then there can be no disconfirmation of what is said. (This argument is used against Marxian history by some who write in the wake of Existentialism, Paul Roubiczek for instance.) The second claims against Foucault that he does not distinguish between reason (...) as part of thinking and language and reason as an empirical historical structure capable of modification along time. The article then discusses the use of very similar if not identical arguments in Derrida’s much more recent work on laws, Force of law. The intelligibility, the interpretability, of laws and their history comes after the laws, not before, and is thus not fully universalisable. (shrink)

Several commentators have argued that with his concept of anonymity Merleau-Ponty breaks away from classical Husserlian phenomenology that is methodologically tied to the first person perspective. Many contemporary commentators see Merleau-Ponty’s discourse on anonymity as a break away from Husserl’s framework that is seen as hopelessly subjectivistic and solipsistic. Some judge and reproach it as a disastrous misunderstanding that leads to a confusion of philosophical and empirical concerns. Both parties agree that Merleau-Ponty’s concepts of anonymity mark a divergence from classical (...) Husserlian phenomenology. I will question this view and demonstrate that Merleau-Ponty’s discourse on anonymity remains Husserlian in two important senses: it analyses senses in terms of constituting selves and communities of such selves, and it accounts for the formation of experience by the temporal sedimentation of intentional activity. The argument proceeds in four steps. The first section argues against the widely spread notion according to which Merleau-Ponty’s anonymous subject is collective. In the second section, I offer an alternative reading by demonstrating that Merleau-Ponty uses the term “anonymous” primarily to characterize the lived body of a personal subject. In section three, I introduce Merleau-Ponty’s idea of trace and show that for him both the perceived thing and the perceiving body are traces and as such refer to earlier constitutive acts of alien subjects. I then argue that Husserl’s concepts of sedimentation are crucial for the understanding of this idea. Finally, in section four, I show how Husserl’s theory of depresentation informs Merleau-Ponty’s discourse on anonymity. (shrink)

In a series of texts surrounding Specters of Marx, Derrida makes a gesture that seems in contradiction with “deconstruction” and that is apparently closer to a classical phenomenological method. By giving messianicity the status of an irreducible universal structure, these texts give rise to a radicalization and transcendentalization of the temporality of historical messianisms. This article, first, highlights the phenomenological character of this approach and, second, questions its legitimacy in the light of subsequent texts, in which Derrida analyzes the relationship (...) between media and Christianity. (shrink)

In previous essays (1973, 1975, 1977) I have praised Derrida's contributions to philosophical dialogue and also insisted on their limitations. The considerations raised in this present essay do not lead me to a position that is less ambivalent. Philosophy is a particular language-game. Like any other, it has its constitutive rules; or, perhaps better: its practice has certain distinctive features by means of which we recognize philosophizing and distinguish it from other linguistic activities. None of this can be set down (...) in the form of necessary and sufficient conditions, and there always will be large areas of controversy about the paradigms themselves. Nonetheless there are philosophers, and they generally acknowledge Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz, Hume, and even some of their colleagues as also being philosophers. This acknowledgement holds even where there is philosophical disagreement - as must inevitably be the case, in view of the dialogical character of philosophical discourse. Derrida occasionally enters into the dialogue, as do many others - poets, novelists, critics, diplomats, attorneys, cooks, barbers, and babysitters. These occasional contributions to philosophical dialogue differ in focus, in style, and in lack of self-referentiality from the works which constitute the main corpus of philosophy. Some might wish to say, as if the matter were paradoxical, that such contributions are both philosophical and not philosophical, or that they are neither philosophy nor not-philosophy. That might be as good a thing to say as anything. The practice of philosophy is complex and has many levels. Those who are acknowledged as its finest practitioners have a focus, a style, and a respect for where questions begin and end. Derrida does not share these qualities, and does not care to share them. That is no reason to ignore his work, but it is sufficient to explain why philosophers do not recognize it as a contribution to the central corpus of philosophy. (shrink)

The essay on Husserl’s phenomenology of touch in Derrida’s recent On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy represents his only substantial re-engagement with Husserlian phenomenology to be published following the series of texts dating from the period marked by his Mémoire of 1955 through to the essay ‘Form and Meaning’ included in Margins (1972). The essay, devoted to some key sections of Husserl’s Ideas II, appears to break new ground in Derrida’s readings of Husserl, but in fact demonstrates a profound continuity with his earlier (...) readings. In fact, I argue that this continuity is in a part an effect of Derrida’s ongoing commitment to the ‘methodology’ of deconstruction. I show how this commitment leads Derrida to conflate three separate distinctions within Husserl’s discussion, a conflation that obliges Derrida to misread the letter of Husserl’s text, and which, in turn, blinds him to a certain radical potentiality within Husserl’s phenomenology of sensibility. (shrink)

Beautiful passages are passages of ‘pure presence’ inasmuch as they cannot be separated from an absence, from an absence that cannot be revoked by restoring a ‘pure presence’. Beautiful passages are passages that move and inspire because they do not withhold anything, though their gift and their surrender lies in an ellipsis that is essential to ‘pure presence’ and that cannot be sidestepped, as if a remainder, a reserve, or a surplus inhered in them. It is impossible to get a (...) grip on beautiful passages. They are riddles that have been solved but persist in the midst of their solution and do not forfeit any of their enigmaticalness. Their beauty resides in an experience of intensity, in an experience based on an elision, on a tightening and an averting. Such averting is an immediate turning towards the one who feels the intensity, touching and stimulating him as a consequence. This paper explores the question: Are there beautiful passages in Of Grammatology? (shrink)

Derrida's work encompasses dynamic spatial dimensions to understanding as a pervasive theme, including the search for a ‘new psychoanalytic graphology’ in Writing and Difference. This preoccupation with a spatial text for repression also occurs later in Archive Fever. Building on Derrida, this paper seeks to develop key aspects of a new dynamic psychoanalytic graphology through diametric and concentric interactive spatial relation. These spatial movements emerge from a radical reconstruction of a neglected aspect of structural anthropologist Lévi-Strauss’ work on spatial relations (...) prior to myth. This psychoanalytic graphology is argued to silently pervade Freud's own direct accounts of repression. This graphological domain is developed through diametric and concentric spatial movements across common concerns of Derrida and Freud such as inversions, interruption and restoration, regarding traces in the unconscious. A spatial text is uncovered for diverse features of Freudian repression, including ambivalence in obsessional neurosis and psychosis, splitting of the ego and repetition compulsion. This psychoanalytic graphology challenges the construction of a restricted subjectivity based on repressive diametric spatial relations. It goes beyond Freud's logocentric repression, resonant with Derrida's more radical call for a wider spatio-temporal understanding of structures of differential relation, prior to causality and myth. (shrink)

Aurélien Djian | : L’ambition de cet article est double. Il s’agit d’abord de fixer le contexte philosophique qui sous-tend le débat entre Derrida et Marion en 1999, à l’Université de Villanova, et de réviser la perspective qui y est formulée selon laquelle le destin de la phénoménologie est intimement lié à une décision à prendre à l’égard du concept d’horizon : « il n’y a pas de phénoménologie sans horizon », affirme Derrida à Marion, il faut donc la dépasser (...) ; « la dernière étape en vue d’une véritable phénoménologie serait d’abandonner le concept d’horizon », rétorque Marion à Derrida. Cette révision de perspective nous conduira alors, dans un second temps, à restituer, en se servant de l’histoire du concept d’horizon comme fil directeur heuristique, le sens de ce que nous appellerons l’histoire française de l’herméneutique phénoménologique, dont l’unité, par-delà la multiplicité des étiquettes, réside dans le partage d’une même définition de l’activité philosophique, comme tentative de laisser se montrer soi-même à partir de soi-même le phénomène par excellence, et, avec et contre le second Heidegger, d’une même exigence de dépassement de l’horizon, solidaire de la métaphysique moderne de la subjectivité. Le principe d’une telle reconstruction permettra enfin d’envisager la possibilité d’une histoire différenciée des concepts alternatifs de phénoménologie et d’horizon, qui reste à écrire. | : The task of this article is twofold. First, it is meant to sketch out the philosophical context within which the Derrida/Marion debate that happened in 1999 at the university of Villanova took place, and to overhaul the perspective that it puts forward, that the destiny of phenomenology itself is linked at the abandon of the concept of horizon : “Without horizon there is no phenomenology”, argues Derrida against Marion ; “the last step for a real phenomenology would be to give up the concept of horizon”, answers Marion to Derrida. This overhaul will then leads us to use the history of the concept of horizon as a heuristical guiding thread to flesh out what makes the unity of what we can call the French history of hermeneutical phenomenology, that is to say, firstly, the sharing of the same definition of philosophy, as the attempt to let the distinctive phenomenon be seen as it shows itself by itself. And, secondly, with and against the second Heidegger, of the same requirement of overcoming the horizon, as it is committed to the modern metaphysics of subjectivity. The principle on which such a reconstruction is based will finally allow us to consider the idea of a differentiated history of the alternative concepts of phenomenology and horizon. History which is yet to come. (shrink)

The object of the paper is the attempt at retracing Heidegger’s conception of the relation of time and being from his major work “Being and Time” to the lecture he gave in 1962 on “Time and Being.” In order to explain the transformation of Heidegger’s thinking between 1927 and 1962, the emphasis is put on the new understanding of the oblivion of Being as belonging to the essence of Being itself, as well as on the analysis of the double meaning, (...) temporal and ontological of presence and on Ereignis, the “event of appropriation,” which is the new name given of the relation between man and Being. (shrink)

La reflexión sobre los números y las significaciones es una buena muestra de cómo la fenomenología incipiente se sitúa en el terreno de la lógica pura. El artículo plantea que, para trazar una reflexión que no rasgue la personalidad filosófica de Husserl, lo ideal debe entenderse desde la perspectiva de trabajos posteriores. El artículo intenta ofrecer, tras los análisis iniciales de los números y de las significaciones las tesis sobre la idealidad en Husserl que, en nuestra opinión, detectan los aspectos (...) fundamentales de la fenomenología a pesar del abandono posterior del realismo eidético. (shrink)

Buddhism has always produced epistemological systems, and those of the Mahāyāna, in particular, always showed knowledge and perception to be inherently delusive. “Higher” forms of Buddhism have a degenerative philosophy of history according to which a sort of Golden Age was disrupted by the rise and gradual development of knowledge and the delusion inherent in it, which have reached their apex in our time – the final phase of the “Era of Darkness.” From this standpoint, this paper intends to show (...) science, in which Marcuse saw an inherent instrumental/technological interest, to have been developed by delusion and to have simultaneously furthered the development of delusion, to the point at which they begot the deadly ecological crisis proper to this concluding phase of the Era of Darkness – which reveals as such the delusion at its root, achieving the latter’s empirical reductio ad absurdum and offering us the possibility of eradicating it and thus healing our minds and, hopefully, our world. (shrink)

This paper accomplishes two tasks. First, I examine in detail Edmund Husserl’s earliest philosophy of surrogates, as it is found in his 1890 “On the Logic of Signs ”. I analyze his psychological and logical investigations of surrogates, where the former is concerned with explaining how these signs function and the latter with how they do so reliably. His differentiation of surrogates on the basis of their genetic origins and degrees of necessity is discussed. Second, the historical importance of this (...) text is disclosed by showing how Semiotic serves as both the inspiration for, and the foil to, Husserl’s 1901 First Logical Investigation. Husserl not only adopts the idea that linguistic signs can function via association, but also maintains that such signs can motivate me to execute one of two experiences. The key difference between the texts is that Husserl abandons his theory of surrogates in 1901, instead holding that I can experience absent objects by means of empty intentions. The reasons why Husserl found it necessary to transform this tenet of his philosophy are discussed at length. (shrink)