The question of the world in itself — the world beyond its correlation with experience in the broadest sense — is one of the sore points of phenomenology and becomes especially acute in the light of modern discussions around correlationism. These discussions, in one way or another, make phenomenology come around to the classical distinction between the phenomenon and the thing-in-itself, with the help of which Kant outlines the field of ethics as a special world lying on the other side (...) of the correlation of knowledge and object constitutive for nature. Philosophy deals with the thing-in-itself in the proper, positive sense of the word, not as phenomenology (transcendental philosophy, which reveals the correlation of knowledge and reality in the world of phenomena and the futility of attempts by theoretical reason to know anything beyond phenomena), but as a critique of practical reason. The article attempts to consider the opposition of the thing-in-itself and the phenomenon in the context of the criticism that Kant’s practical philosophy is subjected to in Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit and to explicate the arguments that this criticism makes available to phenomenology for rethinking the problem of Ding an sich and the ethical dimension of the epoche. The first part of the article examines the Hegelian analysis of the main contradiction contained in the Kantian opposition of duty as something that is in itself, and nature as a phenomenon (this opposition forms what Hegel calls the moral worldview): duty does not depend on nature and therefore does not need natural (phenomenal) realization in actions, but at the same time, duty is nothing but the necessity of actions and, consequently, the necessity of a phenomenon. This contradiction, as Hegel shows, leads to the disintegration of the moral worldview and, thus, turns into the sublation of the absolute separation of duty (thing in itself) and nature (phenomenon). The restitution of the difference between the moral an sich and the phenomenon within conscience — a phenomenon that arises as a result of the destruction of the moral worldview — turns into a new paradox, which demonstrates that the thing-in-itself (ethical good), since it is freed from the phenomenon, is not only unreal, but also turns into its own opposite. The paradox consists in the fact that the consciousness of duty, taken in its independence from the phenomenal realization in actions, becomes evil itself, turning to hypocrisy in the moral judgment about other people’s actions. In the second part of the article, the significance of the Hegelian critique of Kant’s practical philosophy for the phenomenological destruction of the difference between the thing-in-itself and the phenomenon and the problematization of the ethical dimension of the phenomenological method is explicated. Tracing the naive origins of this difference in the natural attitude and their transformation in Kantian philosophy, the author tries to consider the sublation of the opposition of the thing-in-itself and the phenomenon in the field of ethics as one of the possible paths to phenomenology. It is shown how the necessary relation of the supra-worldly an sich with the situational nature of its phenomenal realization in actions calls into question the possibility of a phenomenological epoche. The author also seeks to demonstrate that the problematization of the difference between the thing-in-itself and the phenomenon does not turn phenomenology into a system in the Hegelian sense. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the Argentine philosopher Eugenio Pucciarelli (1907–1995) and his critical reception of phenomenology. It introduces to his contribution to phenomenology in the context of its early reception in Argentina and addresses the following issues: 1) the mission of philosophy, the various ways of accessing its essence, in particular those of Scheler, Dilthey and Husserl, 2) his reception of Husserl as far as the ideals of science and reason are concerned, 3) the crisis of reason 4) his pluralistic (...) conception of reason and time, and finally, to 5) his humanistic stance. I argue that his conception of philosophy, which emphasizes the personal dimension and the social commitment of philosophical practice as well as the relentless search for unshakeable foundations of knowledge as carried out by Husserl, is underpinned by a pluralistic conception of reason, time and culture that confers Pucciarelli’s philosophizing a humanistic bias. Phenomenology as conceived by Pucciarelli becomes thus an active force by embracing multiple perspectives, such that its methodology can be applied to varying contexts and circumstances. Pucciarelli’s commitment to social justice and Latin American culture responds to the attempt to rescue the virtues and freedom of the individual, which ground human dignity. In short, Pucciarelli’s stance reveals a profound pluralistic humanism that does not neglect its militant and critical function, thus evidencing its relevance to the current sociopolitical situation in Latin America. (shrink)

This article tries to unravel some of the main clues provided by Ortega on his understanding of philosophy. The thesis we defend is that the Spanish philosopher maintains two slightly different answers concerning the question what is philosophy, though Ortega does not acknowledge them in the explicit narrative of his thinking. This, we believe, creates tensions in his late second philosophical model, as he does not fully break away from certain “adherence” or “mannerisms” associated to his early model. In this (...) respect, Ortega would be a thinker who lives between two philosophical worlds, someone who sees, narrates and interprets the philosophical shock wave occurring at his time, but does not quite let go of the old intellectual constructions. To support our thesis, we will compare two texts, his 1929 lectures What is Philosophy?, and his Notes on Thinking, from 1941. In the period between these two works, Ortega seems to move from a more “traditional,” “universalistic,” “transcendental,” in short, Husserlian phenomenological understanding of philosophy, to a more historicist, hermeneutical, and pragmatic one, which lays the emphasis on the plurality of discourses on the sense, the contingency of the philosophical narrative itself, and even the very possibility of its ending, at least in its more “metaphysical” and classical form. (shrink)

The Navarre-Venezuelan philosopher Juan David García Bacca is one of the most notable and original figures of Spanish-speaking thought, although his work has not yet received the attention it deserves. One of the pillars of his philosophy consists of what he calls a transfinite anthropology that considers man as an entity that strives to enhance his being. This anthropological approach is based on a phenomenology of nature that emphasizes the becoming and the transformations that man effects in the world. In (...) this philosophical context, García Bacca soon became interested in the work of Husserl, Scheler y Heidegger. This article deals with the way in which García Bacca describes and values Husserl’s descriptions of intentional consciousness. The problem that García Bacca poses to transcendental phenomenology concerns neither the reality of pure consciousness nor its objective scope. García Bacca is interested in finding out if there is a potentiation of the being of consciousness superior to or deeper than the self-reflection proper to the transcendental attitude. He discovers this potentiation in the notion of an “agonic consciousness” that resists the representation of its annihilation, and whose philosophical antecedent is found in the work of Miguel de Unamuno. Without sharing all of García Bacca’s interpretation of Husserlian phenomenology, the author of the article considers that it nevertheless raises relevant questions concerning the facticity and necessity proper to the transcendental subject. (shrink)

This article attempts to outline the contours of a transcendental phenomenology that would retain the intuition of a healthy realism. In this connection it is proposed to reinterpret the Husserlian notion of constitution, presenting constitution as a discover of reality. A distinction is made between strong and weak versions of constitution. It is constitution in the weak sense that combines, in our opinion, with the realist attitude. In order to achieve the above-mentioned goal (to present constitution as discovery), the Husserlian (...) notion of object sense is clarified: it is excluded as a representative or substitute of an intentional object; object sense is seen as a mode of givenness, as а medium by means of which the object is implied or given. The idea of a meaningful discovery of reality is best matched by this treatment of object meaning. It is thus possible to combine the realist attitude with the idea of meaningful access to the real, thus avoiding, on the one hand, naive realism and, on the other hand, transcendental-idealist implications. The Husserlian notion of constitution is further related with the idea of forming interpretative schemes of understanding the world, which may include political agendas, scientific paradigms, systems of speculative metaphysics, and religious faith. It is emphasized that, although the rejection of interpretation is impossible, interpretive schemes must be reconciled with real facts and events in order to “fine-tune” reason and reality. Finally, a separation is undertaken with the conception of J.- L. Marion, which relies on the deflation of meaning in favor of the given as such, calling into question the status of man as a being who possesses reason, who discovers reality and constitutes its meaning. (shrink)

This article deals with the reception of phenomenology by Xavier Zubiri, one of the most important figures of 20th century Spanish philosophy. During his lifetime Zubiri published few books, but he left an immense legacy of courses and manuscripts. Among the most important published works is the book Naturaleza, Historia, Dios. Zubiri explains there his critical reception of phenomenology: he subscribes to it, insofar as it is a philosophy of things themselves. But this evaluation of phenomenology is at the same (...) time a farewell to her. Zubiri’s philosophical project consists in giving a reason not for things as objects of consciousness, but rather for their entitary or real structure. Thus, his purpose is to establish a logic of reality or new metaphysics that is at the same time different from the old ontology and whose sources of inspiration are Heidegger and Aristotle. To the author of this essay seems also highly probable that Alfred N. Whitehead influenced decisively certain prominent features of Zubiri’s ontological program. Husserl’s treatment of the theory of wholes and parts in Logical Investigations III pertains also to the intellectual basis of Zubiri. The article raises the question of the traces of phenomenology that are still present in Naturaleza, Historia, Dios, and critically assesses their importance for phenomenological philosophy today. The article shows above all how Zubiri’s perspective vindicates phenomenologically the traditional concept of Man and his experience of religious connection (religatio) with a transcendent Grund. As a consequence, the traditional notions of spiritual reality, eros and agape are given a new meaning. (shrink)

This paper discusses why the work of Eduardo Nicol, still not translated and mostly unknown outside of the Hispanic context, deserves more attention, for two main reasons. First, the novelty of his meditations concerning phenomenology, following the steps of Husserl and Heidegger, but taking a different turn. Furthermore, several scholars have noted how his phenomenological project intertwines with the anthropological question, fostering a new approach to the question concerning “who are we?”. Our aim is to explore how Nicol, while setting (...) foot in the founders of phenomenology, departs from previous interpretations of its method, to advance a new dialectical phenomenology that could contribute to the actual debates on anthropological phenomenology. In order to do so, we will first examine how his vision of the phenomenological task involves an historical interpretation of metaphysics and a critique of two fundamental concepts: the transcendental reduction (Husserl) and the thesis of an “occultation of being” (Heidegger). A careful reading of Nicol’s philosophy would allow us to go a step further and explain how, according to him, phenomenology should become an analysis of the dialectical presence between being/beings. Finally, we will show that the answer to the question “who are we?” is to be found inside this dialectic, in what Nicol identifies as the historical phenomenon of expression, encouraging a new dialogue with other phenomenologies of the body⸺and beyond. (shrink)

It is common to assume of an “objectivist” stage of Zubiri, prior to his meeting with Heidegger in Freiburg. However, if we analyze Zubiri’s philosophy before his stay in Freiburg, we already find a “metaphysical” orientation, and not merely an objectivist one. This orientation is intrinsically related to the early appearance of the notion of “reality” in his courses. The appearance of his concept of reality is at least partially motivated by Zubiri’s early reading of Heidegger’s habilitation thesis on Duns (...) Scotus. Zubiri discovered in Heidegger the possibility of trying to carry out a phenomenological characterization of reality, which took him beyond the conception, basically idealistic, of being as a “position” or as a “belief.” With Heidegger, Zubiri was able to sustain that reality is not something extra animam. However, Zubiri could not follow Heidegger in his conceptualization of reality based on human existence, and with this he began his own path in philosophy. A path that, in a certain sense, breaks with all phenomenology, because reality is located at a moment prior to the meaning of things for a subject or for a human existent. And yet, a path that continues the phenomenological claim of a descriptive fidelity to the things themselves. (shrink)

Our paper is an overview of the anniversary All-Russian scientific conference with international participation “Aleshin Academic Readings — 2022: Philosophy as a Way of Life. Dedicated to the 30th Anniversary of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Russian State University for the Humanities,” which was held at this faculty from December 15 to 17, 2022. The first day of its work was devoted to plenary reports, the other two days were connected with the work of sections and workshops. Speakers from (...) Moscow, Almaty (Kazakhstan), Volgograd, Yekaterinburg, Yerevan (Armenia), Kaliningrad, Rome (Italy), St. Petersburg, Simferopol, Tyumen, Ufa, Bochum (Germany), Essen (Germany) performed their presentations at the conference. It discussed a wide range of topics, both classical and modern philosophy, having some bearing on philosophy as a way of life and on the significance of a philosopher’s way of life for philosophical knowledge. Particular emphasis in the course of reports and discussions was placed on the problems of the relationship between theoretical and practical in philosophy, the limited nature of the philosophy of forms and concepts and the possibilities of overcoming such limitations, the existential sense of philosophizing, the possibility of explication of living historical experience by means of philosophy, the role of philosophy for diagnosing modernity, the prospects of dialectics, the relationship between philosophy and governments. Sections of the conference were also devoted to methodological, historiographical, pragmatic and other problems of modern thought. No less wide was the range of materials on which the speakers relied, starting with pre-Socratic philosophy and ending with the most relevant examples of philosophy that have not yet received sufficient reception in our country. Many talks also referred to the history of Russian philosophical thought. (shrink)

As implied by the title this article deals with a key question running through the history of philosophy virtually since antiquity. This is the question of the relationship, on ontological grounds, of the transcendental and the mundane “universes” to the extent that the nature of transcendence, even as detached from the metaphysical sphere and recalibrated in terms of immanence in the broadly conceived subjectivist tradition, it is still a highly controversial issue primarily in continental philosophy. This is especially true in (...) view of the obvious incompatibility, at least in a naive sense, of the transcendental and the mundane contexts for which the philosophical discussion on phenomenological grounds is still open. My own arguments on the issue are mainly based on the Husserlian and Heideggerian narratives and also on E. Fink’s approach to the transcendence versus mundanity ontological problematic. On these prompts I set out to defend the position that there are serious reasons to regard the realm of transcendence as ineluctably constrained by mundanity concerns. More concretely I will try to show that there is no way, at least in the context of the phenomenological discourse, to do away with a kind of mundanity influence even in the most pure transcendental level involving the cornerstone of Husserlian transcendental phenomenology which is the concept of absolute ego. My overall approach, more than an attempt at vindicating Fink’s objections as to the purely transcendental level reached after the radical phenomenological reduction, is a demonstration of the conceptual pitfalls or even circularities involved along the way in trying to establish a sound foundation for a purely transcendental ontological level. (shrink)

The “phenomenology of existence” is one of the contemporary currents of philosophy which have developed taking existence as its central concern. The purpose of this article is to present my conception of this fundamental field of phenomenological research. In order to do this, I will analyze phenomenology of existence in the double sense of the genitive or better as a bidirectional phenomenological- existential movement; that is to say, on the one hand, I will explore the sense and scope of phenomenology (...) for existence and, on the other hand, the meaning of existence for the phenomenological existential movement. With the aim of describing this twofold dynamics, I will begin by clarifying certain concepts of the Husserlian method that have frequently either been ignored or misinterpreted and, therefore, have impeded us from understanding the meaning of what the founder of phenomenology called “personal existence.” After this elucidation that takes place at the static level of phenomenology, I will apply some key concepts of genetic phenomenology to existence in order to develop my own account of the existential phenomenology. Given that Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) was a pioneer in the study of the most representative Husserlian texts dealing with the major issues of genetic phenomenology–such as time, space, lived body, intersubjectivity and lifeworld—, I will draw from his philosophy to open a dialogue with María Zambrano (1904–1991), as an example of the possibilities offered by a—comparative—phenomenology for the study of existential problems, specifically for the development of a phenomenology of sensing and being sensed that goes beyond of the paradigm of representation. (shrink)

The article aims to concretize the phenomenological account concerning the problem of an auditory image. The author considers auditory imagery as a scientific object and compares different treatments of the problem to fix the potential and advantages of its phenomenological interpretation. In the first stage of the study, the author distinguishes the key characteristics of the image by means the lexical analysis. This is the perceptual (predominantly visual) nature of an image, integrality, and essentiality (image as an idea). In the (...) second stage, the understandings of the mental and auditory imagery in physiology, experimental psychology, music psychology, musicology, and interdisciplinary studies are described. In the third stage, the peculiar phenomenological ways of the comprehension of an auditory image are revealed. The phenomenological interest is to pick out consciousness which perceiving of an image equally from the process of perceiving and from entailing in an image. The specific phenomenological stance is placing an auditory image on the bound of transcendent (the process of perceiving) and immanent (an image that is already perceived). The auditory image is conceived as the unity of Modi of its givenness. Most fecks of this Modi are original, they cannot be transferred into other science scopes: they are the interconnection of all moments of the temporal unfolding, self-organization in the time, self-referentiality, non-semanticity, periodicity/randomness, eventuality, quasi-embodiment (physicality). Solely phenomenological problems are problems of the constitution of an auditory image, its life-horizon, intersubjectivity, and regional matching. The author infers that phenomenology does not conceive auditory image as sustained auditory representation, associated with acoustic memory. Its perceptual nature does not play a key role here. Moreover, the perceptual-semantic duality of the image is not fixed by the phenomenological description. The phenomenological approach is unique because it researches auditory data exhaustively but does not use semantic and referential analysis of them. The main feature of phenomenological description is the focus on the unity of auditory image: All the elements of auditory data are interpreted in their synthesis as the different levels of the unity of hearing image. Thus, the phenomenological approach as a whole is the most promising for comprehending such a dominant quality of the auditory image as integrality. (shrink)

The review analyzes the book The Conscience’s Double by Georgy Chernavin. I focus on the concepts of false twins of conscience, guilt, and duty in the extended context of philosophical and artistic discourse. The problem of the difference between conscience and its ersatz forms, which give rise to a distorted ethical consciousness, is considered. The main emphasis is opportunistic conscience, neurotic guilt, and false debt. The review suggests that Chernavin’s book studies the “sad theory” of moral disorientation and requires the (...) supplementation with a hypothetical “cringe theory.” In this case, the “sad theory” makes it possible to expand the phenomenological discourse by including a discussion of conscience, illustrating the uncertainty of the boundaries between the phenomenological and the symbolic, and highlighting the subject’s dependence on what they are not. In this work, there is a potential for developing an original ontology of the relationship between conscience and its evil counterpart, especially between a “spiritually sighted” and a “blindly corporeal” person. The scrutinized guilt for the lost absence of guilt is an experience that, although not lived, is important for the subject’s self-constitution. This experience, like the inner side of the subject, determines its conscious functioning and forms something like a Mobius strip. An Evil Genius makes this bond, and I am trying to conceptualize their “weakened” being. (shrink)

This paper refers to the connection between the metaphysical duality of ground and existence and inner dynamic of the particular will of man. We will analyse how the metaphysical monism, which Schelling attributes to Spinoza and later to Hegel, is responsible for the abolition of the freedom of the human individual, because it does not account for the existence of evil, and consequently reduces it to the existence of a higher order reference system that over and predetermines the individual (1). (...) We will first scrutinise the principles of separation and union, ground and understanding from the human point of view, namely as the will of ground and love, as particular and universal will (2). The will of man reveals itself as the culmination and model of the will that permeates nature, an essential aspect of the process of God’s revelation and becoming. The link between the principles of separation and union shows us the difference that Schellingian thought establishes between man and God, the real and the ideal. While God, or the purely ideal principle, precedes the separation in a logical-ontological sense, the will of man remains always in an indissoluble tension between the principles, since it is unable to overcome the opposition between good and evil that is characteristic of freedom. The good remains one of the results of human freedom and thus of the particular will of man. The good lies for Schelling not in the simple actualization of the general, but in the moment ineradicable particularity needed for the attainment of a real and effective principle (3). It is to this insurmountability of the particular will in the process of the constitution of man that our proposal of Schelling’s libertarian anarchism refers. The connection of this thesis with the critique of the State is also discussed (4). (shrink)

My essay is devoted to the very early and attractive understanding of the lived body in Ortega y Gasset’s thought. I focus especially on the text “Vitality, Soul, Spirit” of 1925, which can be considered a proto-phenomenological approach to the issue of embodiment. Ortega identifies “vitality” with “the intrabody” and makes the latter the founding dimension of subjectivity, at the basis of the affective sphere (“soul”) and at the basis of the intellectual and volitional sphere (“spirit”). In a manner very (...) close to Husserl’s unpublished manuscripts, he also shows how the body is the only reality of which there is simultaneously external perception, as if it were just another thing in the world that everyone else can see, and internal perception, which only the self can have and feel. The study also points out, however, the two major difficulties that I detect in Ortega’s precocious attempt. A first doubt concerns the too sharp stratification of vitality, soul and spirit, as can be seen in the analysis of the experiences of pain and of mobility. A second doubt concerns the ontological hesitations surrounding Ortega’s position, which is torn between a coherent phenomenological perspective and a vitalist position in which my body is only an emanation of the lifestream of the universe. (shrink)

This article presents a review of papers of the international scientific seminar “Transcendental Turn in Modern Philosophy — 8: Metaphysics, epistemology, transcendental cognitive science and artificial intelligence,” which was held on April 20–22, 2023 in Moscow. The topics reviewed were the following: “Transcendental Philosophy: Ontology, Metaphysics of Experience or Epistemology,” “Transcendentalism, Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence,” “Reception and Development of Transcendental (Phenomenological) Approach in Modern Philosophy,” as well as “Transcendental Phenomenology: Ontology and/or Gnoseology”. The author analyzes the presentations of the (...) participants, grouping them around the following thematic and problematic nodes: the transcendental foundations of cognitive sciences, the understanding and status of the transcendental unity of apperception, the relationship between gnoseology and ontology in phenomenological research, receptivity and construction in forming the subject of knowledge, etc. This approach makes it possible to identify different, sometimes opposing positions of the participants on the same question and to outline ways to overcome the contradictions. (shrink)

The aim of our “discussion remark” is not to present a critical review on the book written by S. Geniusas, a brilliant study notable by its extreme painstakingness, historical sensitivity and terminological accuracy, but rather to delve deeply into the origins of phenomenological understanding of productive imagination, i.e., to turn “back to Kant”, given in Saulius Geniusas’ book (the first chapter) for introductory reason. We proceed from S. Geniusas remark that productive imagination establishes a relation between different abilities, reconciles the (...) antagonism between them and, in this respect, exercises a pro-creative function. We reveal that it is this pro-creative element of productive imagination that brings it closer to time (as indicated by Viktor Molchanov, a prominent Russian phenomenologist, in his study of 1988) and serves as the basis for gaining new knowledge. Imagination acts as a limit for reflection, however, it gets revealed only through reflecting, and, thus, it proves to be connected with a fundamental layer of consciousness, which appears both as an object and as a means of describing reflection, i.e., as time. The convergence, or rather, identification, of time with imagination lies in the very fact that both of them exercise an objective function: time – as a possibility for semantic definition of objectivity, imagination – as a basis for a possibility of any knowledge. Moreover, imagination turns out to be a source of a paradox and, ultimately, the only thing that explains self-cognition. (shrink)

This paper deals with the problem of the origin of sense and meaning. For Husserl, the determination of the ideal identity of something new can only take place retroactively in the totality of the preceding series by stepping back towards the original foundation of sense. In this regard, J. Derrida questions the ideality of the same as presence and the possibility of retrieving any arché of sense in his writings Speech and Phenomena and Edmund Husserl’s Origin of Geometry. Phenomenology is (...) not oblivious to these difficulties, as results from a closer reading of the correlation between idealities and sensory experience: It will show that there are at least four interrelated gaps in the Husserlian phenomenology which testify the difficulty in grasping a retraceable arché of sense. First, the gap between the ideality of sense and its representation. Second, the gap between sensory and categorial intuitions, whereby both exceed one another. Third, the gap between the ideality of sense and the sense which exceeds our expectations. Fourth, the gap between the experience of the new that overcomes us and its apprehension by consciousness. Hence, there is a fundamental gap between the conceptual idealities and the essential indeterminacy of our phenomenological sensory experience, which is correlative to an excess of one in respect to the other. In this sense, Derrida’s concepts of « différance » and “invention” allow us to conceive of this self-givenness of sense as the expression of its constant self-renewal. This expression takes the form of a trace, which, neither present nor absent, suspends meaning and full presence, leaving the narrative “open” for the reinvention of sense. (shrink)

The article builds on Husserl’s “trivial” observations from the manuscript Reason — Science. Reason and Morality — Reason and Metaphysics on the topic of conscience, to then question the neglect of the topic of misguided conscience or self-deception in Heidegger’s model of conscience from §§ 54–60 of Being and Time. In Heidegger’s conception of conscience (as a silent call appealing to the authenticity of Dasein) we will not find a number of points important to the Husserlian understanding of conscience: neither (...) the unrevealed horizons of prior life, nor the relativity of intersubjective contexts, nor a misguided (and doubting) conscience, still less a search for (presumed) evidence. That said, the way Heidegger axiomatically sets up the original culpability of Dasein creates a number of dead ends or blind spots in this model. It is to these that Mark Richir addresses in his interpretation (or, more precisely, two alternative interpretations), speaking of the “original symbolic mishap” that befell Dasein, and then of the “symbolic tautology” in which it has become a prisoner. Richir’s critique is not aimed at “overcoming” Heidegger’s model of conscience, but at demonstrating a transcendental illusion — probably inevitable for one who is guided by “authenticity” and the “inner voice.” This is a kind of critical phenomenology of “authenticity”, which manages to avoid the closedness of phenomenology in itself by “grafting” in it poststructuralism. This is why both the first and the second interpretation by the Belgian phenomenologist focus on the problem of symbolic structures: “original symbolic mishap” in the first case and “symbolic tautology” in the second. (shrink)

Despite their creativity, cultural actions are not established out of nothing. They are based on previous actions, their passive or active memory, and extension. Sedimentation is the depositing of sediments that occurs during certain processes. They testify to the processes that have taken place and themselves become significant links or traces. Different layers of sediment are formed, which testify to past events, which have structures in the present. The best-known phenomenological concept of sedimentation was formulated in Husserl’s text The Origin (...) of Geometry. Husserl uses the specific geological term of sedimentation to describe the science of geometry as a linguistically (written) mediated genesis of conceptual knowledge. The human practice of knowledge can be transmitted to other generations only by expressing it linguistically and recording it in writing. Derrida used the phenomenological concept of sedimentation and created Grammatology. The main idea of documentality is that a particular kind of social objects, namely documents (records of social acts) are the ground of social reality. For all three philosophers, writing or recording becomes a model for reflecting on cultural-social reality. The purpose of this article is to discuss the writing as a model for cultural sedimentation and memory. Husserl understood writing as a sedimentation that must be reactivated. However, Derrida and Ferraris identify the written objects only with materialized writing and the repetition of what is written. They do not distinguish between imitative and comprehensive reading. (shrink)

In this article I try to show that there is an evolution in Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of the concept structure. Structure is neither an entity nor an a priori principle, but the expression of certain configurations of sense and meaning. There is a transition from a static to a dynamic approach, paralleling a movement from a philosophy of structure to a philosophy of individuation. There exists for each individual a general structure of behavior as a unity expressed in certain constants of (...) its conduct. The structure is a momentary manifestation of the general orientation of the passive-affective life in its bodily expressions. Structuration is the act of creating order in the perception of the surrounding situation and the process of taking a position in it. By doing so Merleau-Ponty replaces the Gestalt psychology with a philosophy of the living being. This essential philosophical intuition culminates in the concept of style, which becomes an important element in Merleau-Ponty’s later phenomenological aesthetics and phenomenology of world appearance. (shrink)

The article provides a philosophical reconstruction of the composition of key motives in the phenomenological project of Mark Richir, who is known for his criticism of the symbolic institution. Following Richir’s deep inspiration in Schelling’s philosophy allows to find connections between his theory of the phenomenological unconscious and affectivity, his commentaries concerning Greek mythology and mythological thinking in La Naissance de Dieux—and his political theory. Along with general historical and philosophical comments on a number of translations of Schelling into French, (...) Richir repeatedly refers to Schelling in his own theoretical arguments. The research shows how some of Richir’s concepts — in particular, his interpretation of the phenomenological unconsciousness, myth, the Protean nature of power, the change of grand epochs as a change of types of the symbolic institutions of power—can be understood on the basis of relevant passages from Schelling’s philosophy, and how a semantic genealogical connection between them can be built. By considering the importance of the phenomenological unconsciousness in the course of phenomenalization process as described in Richir’s works, it is proposed to contrast the interpretation of the unconsciousness, which retains its simple mystery and the ways of dealing, with it in Richir’s version: while psychoanalysis is striving for the “disenchantment” of the unconsciousness by means of translating it into the symbolic language and transferring the living potentiation of meaning into the reproduction of a symptom. Richir’s phenomenological appeal to mythology turns out to be a non-trivial shift from theoretical philosophy to practical philosophy. The article also pays attention to the theory of power in Richir and Lefort, which presumably dates back to La Boétie. It is proposed to reveal the antithesis of the imaginary policy of the despot proposed by Richir, reproducing the symbolic institution of power and supporting the transcendental illusion of the need for control and order in the form of a kind of “hypnosis”—and real politics as a praxis of freedom. (shrink)

By going back to the starting point of Derrida’s debates with some of the main representatives of structuralism in France, I propose to highlight the ambiguities that cover the very notion of structure, and to take the measure of the exact role that the reference to phenomenology plays then and will continue to play thereafter. Among these ambiguities: the one that touches the mathematical notion of structure, central in the triumphant structuralist mathematical current in France at that time; and especially: (...) the one called “groups of transformations,” the most important one to understand at the same time the audacities and the impasses of structuralism. The hard core of mathematization of modern physics, with Galileo’s principle of relativity, then developed in a masterly way in Einstein’s theory of relativity rest on this very structure. After tracing the broad outlines of these initial discussions, we engage in an analysis of how it is possible to understand the “epistemological contemporaneity” of relativity theory and Husserl’s transcendental aesthetics. Based on a thorough exploration of the analyses of the intersubjective constitution of space, time and the objective common world, we identify this central structure that Husserl calls “intersubjective group of transformation.” Equipped with this phenomenological structure, we trace this motif in Derrida’s work. Its insistence allows us to understand how the phenomenological premises of his critique of structuralism can help to understand his theoretical positions, especially in contrast to Jean-Luc Nancy. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the influence of J. Derrida’s philosophy on the early thought of French phenomenologist M. Richir. Main texts for the analysis are Derrida’s report « La Différance » and the article « Le Rien Enroulé » by Richir. The author stresses their deep figurative and substantive interconnectedness. Thus, Richir borrows from Derrida a number of key philosophical figures, including the figure of différance itself, and applies them to phenomenological landscape through the “first-person” narrative. Having examined the correlation between (...) Derrida’s figures of différance and Richir’s phenomenalization, the author concludes that Richir, influenced by the impersonal figure of différance, leads his “first-person” narrative in an attempt to take it beyond the limits of classical phenomenological discourse. Moreover, the author finds preconditions for Richir’s introduction of one of his early key concepts “nothing” (rien) in the text of Derrida’s « La Différance ». The main thesis of this research is: Richir borrows Derrida’s understanding of consciousness and performs phenomenological description from its perspective. The paper considers Derrida’s text as a key to understanding Richir’s article « Le Rien Enroulé » and, as a result, the key to his early philosophy in general. (shrink)

Foucault and Derrida react in two different ways to the new paradigm imposed by structuralism. Foucault uses structuralism to overcome phenomenology, in fact structuralism shows the naivety of phenomenology, in its claim to rely on conscience to constitute meaning. Instead, Derrida on the contrary immediately nurtures a certain distrust of structuralism, especially in its philosophical ambitions and uses the resources of phenomenology to criticize it, showing the metaphysical implications operating in it. We want to show how this opposing position is (...) generated by the specific way in which the two philosophers have responded to the open problems and bequeathed by Husserlian phenomenology. In particular, the theme of “passive genesis,” which was raised in the French debate by Tran-Duc-Thao and Merleau-Ponty, is central. In the first writings it emerges how Foucault has received Merleau-Ponty’s theses and it is precisely to overcome them that he inaugurates an archaeological analysis to try to distance himself from the normalizing anthropological discourse present in the passive synthesis. Derrida reads passive genesis in a radically different way from Merleau-Ponty (and therefore Foucault): the radical nature of Husserl’s phenomenology has opened a space to question the transcendental genesis of philosophical discourse and its possibility of transcending its historical, social and psychological genesis and therefore the sciences that preside over these dimensions. Consequently, showing the naivety of structuralism, Derrida’s research of the sixties is configured as post-structuralist. (shrink)

The article further elaborates on a project of phenomenological critique of ideology and reveals its potential for the discourse of literature. Since the paradigm of studying ideology as a ‘false consciousness’ set in classical Marxism run into several problems connected with the transition from being in ideology to performing its critique, a genuine way out of it became impossible due to the totality of a discursive structure common to them. The articulation of this paradox in Karl Mannheim, Louis Althusser, Paul (...) Ricœur, Michel Pecheux, and Mikel Dufrenne changed the way of statement of the question, shifting the emphasis from the content of ideology and its characteristic features to the status of a critic who is inevitably hypostatizing his thinking. The change of perspective, in turn, entailed a transformation of the method: while the previous tradition focused on finding a connection between the distorted representation of reality in ideological consciousness and the social position of its bearer, structuralist and phenomenological approaches tend to consider the contingent content of consciousness as an inevitable consequence of its structuring always-already-given horizon of meaning. Working with the latter, Mark Richir introduces the concept of a symbolic institution—the domain of meaning, which determines the human habitus, providing it with linguistic and cultural practices that have lost their phenomenological origin. In this framework, the criticism of ideology is understood as an exit from a symbolic institution, albeit temporary. Mark Richir thematizes this exit as an encounter between symbolic and phenomenological registers, i. e. a phenomenological challenge that assumes the agent of the reduction. Nevertheless, gaining a foothold 'outside' the symbolic institution is impossible: the overcome symbolic order undergoes recoding over time. Therefore, the phenomenological criticism of ideology cannot offer a normative program of a presumed non-ideological field to which the previous tradition aspired. The work hypothesizes that such critique is given as a trace of a once-perfect exit from a symbolic institution and is subject to interpretation as evidence. The development of this hypothesis is presented in the final, practical part of the work. (shrink)

Based on key texts of Derrida as well as his interviews and recently published seminars the article presents a “micrological” analysis of deconstructivist thought in the context of its appeal to phenomenology of Husserl and fundamental ontology of Heidegger. Derrida begins his intellectual path with a reflection on the most important topics of Husserlian phenomenology and discovers in the descriptions of temporalization a paradoxical movement of the immanent self-deconstruction of phenomenology. It from within undermines its own basic principle of the (...) primordial givenness of the living present to itself in its whole presence. From the point of view of Derrida’s deconstruction, the living present of self-presence of the transcendental ego, like itself, is no longer the original source of sense, meaning, knowledge and experience but rather the effect of difference. Derrida discovers the radical constitutive dependence of the present on the trace of the inevitably lost past, thus, his thought resolutely destroys the primordial nature of the present and roots it in the true “origin” as a game of delays and differences. Similarly, Derrida criticizes the project of fundamental ontology. While Heidegger conceives of the ontological difference between being and Being as the last hidden basis of any question in the discourse of metaphysics, Derrida insists that this differentiation is derived from différance as an even more primordial movement of difference. And although Derrida claims to have a more essential comprehension of the core of metaphysics compared to Husserl and Heidegger and even confidently classifies their philosophical work ones to the field of metaphysics, he continues to use the resources of phenomenological and transcendental discourse again and again, leaving them without any criticism. The most telling example here is the use of the phrase “always already” (toujours déjà, immer schon), incredibly common in the works of Heidegger and Husserl (as well as most other most famous modern phenomenologists) and accompanying most of Derrida’s texts. In this article we seek to draw attention to the mystery power of this phrase, which hides the secret of the origins of phenomenological, fundamental-ontological, transcendental, and deconstructivist discourses as such, and also to demonstrate the possibilities of self-deconstruction of deconstruction, which with new urgency returns us to the problem of defining the limits of metaphysics and the “margins of philosophy”. (shrink)