In this contribution I want to sketch a phenomenology of music, expounding and expanding the philosophy of Michel Henry. In the work of Henry, several approaches to a phenomenology of music are made. The central question of the contribution is: “What do we hear when we hear music?” It is argued that there is an unbridgeable divide between the intentional sphere of the world and its sounds and what in Henry’s philosophy is understood as Life. Music is the language of (...) Life itself and cannot be merely considered a composition of sound. Music does not imitate nor even represent the world, but is the inner movement of life itself. In this respect, Henry is close to Schopenhauer’s view on music, in which the Will is sharply contrasted to representation. However Schopenhauer’s thought needs a phenomenological elaboration in order to understand music as an immediate experience. In the article, music is compared to painting, since this is a recurring methodological theme in Henry’s thoughts on music. (shrink)

My question is whether a phenomenology of community is possible. Phenomenology starts from experience, in the Husserlian sense of Erlebnis. Now, can a community be experienced, and not empirically but rather phenomenologically understood? What is a community from the viewpoint of experience? In this text, I will respond to, and elaborate on, this question. More specifically, I will attempt to understand community from the perspective of life by drawing on the work of Michel Henry.

This article sets out to reinterpret Sartre’s famous analysis of the look in Being and Nothingness from the cultural-anthropological perspective developed in the posthumous Notebooks for an Ethics. In the latter, he comments on some passages by Michel Leiris on the cult of the zar, a North-African belief and practice involving spirit possession. The article also seeks to show the influence of cultural-anthropological thought on Sartre, asking about what new light these rather unexpected analyses may shed on his thinking about (...) the relationship to the Other. I start with the doctrine of the look as we know it from Being and Nothingness. Then I examine how, in Sartre’s Notebooks, his account takes some new directions. The link with possession, already present—though underdeveloped—in Being and Nothingness, becomes clear. I briefly introduce Michel Leiris in order to interpret Sartre’s comments on the zar cult as described by Leiris. This opens up a new perspective on religion and the social. Finally, I offer some concluding considerations. (shrink)

Genderism and Realism. A Reading of Émile Zola’s The Masterpiece Does sexual morality play a role in our perception of reality? This contribution explores the rise of modernity as a radical change of perception. This is done by reading an 1886 novel on painting, Émile Zola’s L’Oeuvre (The Masterpiece). The Masterpiece is a novel that meticulously explores the relationship between reality and representation in which the genderism implications become clear. Zola comments implicitly on the paintings of Éduoard Manet, on which (...) naked women are depicted without any symbolism, which makes them ‘scandalous’. Contrary to Zola’s essayistic work on naturalism, the novel makes clear that the revolution of ‘naturalism’ in painting takes place within a gendered framework. The nakedness of the female model, which represented in the first half of the nineteenth century the highest ideal of beauty in a predominantly male culture, becomes the nakedness of reality, understood as a transgression of a gendered moral order. In The Masterpiece, painting comes to nothing, depicted by the suicide of the painter who fails to create his masterpiece. In doing so, Zola bids farewell to his initial enthusiasm for Manet’s work, and in the form of a novel he describes the ultimate consequence of naturalism, namely that ever-changing life cannot be depicted at all. In this article, The Masterpiece is interpreted as an ‘iconoclastic’ novel, in which the real protagonist is Christine, who resists Claude’s gaze fixed on her as a model. In doing so, Zola creates a triumph of literary naturalism over painting, but does not get beyond an essentialist genderism; the difference between man (representation of reality) and woman (presence of real life). (shrink)

The article focuses on Jean-Luc Marion’s ‘saturated phenomenon’ by reading it within the context of Husserl’s Logical Investigations. It is argued that Marion’s revision of Husserl must not be understood as a refutation of Husserl but rather as an extension of Husserlian phenomenology. In other words, since Marion needs Husserl and the thesis of intentionality to develop his ideas, the saturated phenomenon affirms the structure of classical phenomenology. This implies corrections of Marion’s description of the saturated phenomenon: the article investigates (...) how the Husserlian idea of ‘disappointment’ (Enttäuschung) is able to elucidate the saturated phenomenon. (shrink)

According to some, French philosophy has taken an obvious turn towards/into a theological context. In their work, contemporary philosophers such as Ricoeur, Levinas, Girard, Henry, and even Derrida and Lyotard in their later periods focus on issues usually associated with theological debates. For thinkers like Henry, Marion, and Lacoste, theology even plays a prominent role in their thought. Why this post-Heideggerian turn to God? This book introduces the typically French debate of the so-called 'theological turn of French philosophy' through a (...) presentation of the philosophers mentioned. Why are they all interested in the quest for God and Religion? How do they understand God in a philosophical way? Thinking about these questions offers to both philosophy and theology the opportunity for a crossover which is mutually enriching. This book aims to contribute to this fascinating process. (shrink)

In this contribution I wish to attempt a radical phenomenological elucidation of the notion of authenticity. In order to elaborate on this highly problematic philosophical idea of authenticity, I make use of the philosophy of the French philosopher Michel Henry. Although Henry does not make use of the term as such, it is his understanding of the Self as self-affection that makes a real philosophy of authenticity not only possible, but also inevitable. Following this line of thought, I will maintain (...) that Michel Henry’s philosophy is a philosophy of authenticity. Since there is, as we shall see, the original experience of the Self, an original experience of life as self-affection, this primal experience appeals us not to renounce our origin. The authentic sphere as described in Henry’s works is called Life. I will discuss first Henry’s phenomenology as a radicalization of classical phenomenology, in which the appeal for authenticity is explicit. Then I will focus on Henry’s idea of the notion of the Self and how this notion escapes the problem of everlasting self-reference. In the last paragraph I will focus on a possible Henrian comprehension of the authentic life. I will also question the role of Christianity in his later works. Is the Christian life the authentic Life? And if so, what does that imply? (shrink)

In this contribution I wish to attempt a radical phenomenological elucidation of the notion of authenticity. In order to elaborate on this highly problematic philosophical idea of authenticity, I make use of the philosophy of the French philosopher Michel Henry . Although Henry does not make use of the term as such, it is his understanding of the Self as self-affection that makes a real philosophy of authenticity not only possible, but also inevitable. Following this line of thought, I will (...) maintain that Michel Henry’s philosophy is a philosophy of authenticity. Since there is, as we shall see, the original experience of the Self, an original experience of life as self-affection, this primal experience appeals us not to renounce our origin. The authentic sphere as described in Henry’s works is called Life. I will discuss first Henry’s phenomenology as a radicalization of classical phenomenology, in which the appeal for authenticity is explicit. Then I will focus on Henry’s idea of the notion of the Self and how this notion escapes the problem of everlasting self-reference. In the last paragraph I will focus on a possible Henrian comprehension of the authentic life. I will also question the role of Christianity in his later works. Is the Christian life the authentic Life? And if so, what does that imply? (shrink)

Business ethics exists only because people do business—hence applied ethics—and like other forms of applied ethics, it is based on two poles: (ethical) theory and (entrepreneurial) practice. But what is their exact relationship? And what about the role of the case itself, which is always a narrative? Case studies are neither merely practical nor purely theoretical. Education and training as well as academic and popular debate regarding business ethics often involve the use of case studies. This contribution is a hermeneutically (...) oriented exploration of the role case studies play in business ethics training. To that end, I will introduce an interpretative concept Paul Ricoeur developed in his 1986 Du texte à l’action and his 1965 study of Freud De l’interprétation. (shrink)

The error is the real cause of the misery of man. This is the main thesis of Malebranche’s Magnum Opus The Research of Truth. In this paper the Cartesian background of this thesis is examined. I demonstrate that Malebranche translates Descartes’s idea of the error to a theological level, where it is called the fall. After a survey of the ideas of the error according to Descartes and the fall according to Malebranche, I compare the two thinkers on the theme’s (...) of the suspension of prejudices, the unreliability of the senses, scepticism, in which their vision’s agree, and the theme’s of the lumen naturale and the idea of God, in which their vision’s differ. In a concluding part I examine the Cartesian/Malebranchistic solution for the state of man in the fall, which unveils the philosophical structure of the religious conversion. (shrink)

In the 1990s, the French phenomenologist philosopher Michel Henry gets interested in Christianity – but does not join the theological debate. Inspired by Marx – who is usually considered an atheist thinker – Henry develops a radical phenomenology of immanent self-affection. In this paper, I want to explore Henry’s writings on Marx to find out how Henry understands and constructs relations between Marx’ philosophy of reality on the one hand, and Christianity on the other.

It is the aim of this contribution to question the two conceptions of violence in the later Levinas. One of the face, the other the violence that must be overcome by the face. The article argues that this cannot be understood fully without taking into account Levinas’ Talmudic philosophy. By focusing on the notion of trauma in the later work of Levinas, it is argued that Levinas’ idea of the human subject is understood as radical vulnerability. This idea is evaluated (...) on the basis of short comparisons with the thinking of Lacan, Žižek and Camus. The claim is made that to Levinas, violence is not a phenomenon to be eliminated by rational ethics, but one that forms the very notion of humanity itself. This is elaborated by showing how the Bible takes on a central role in Levinas’ thought. (shrink)

In this contribution, a poetical transformation of victimhood is explored as described by Jean-Paul Sartre in his Saint Genet, a study of the writer Jean Genet. First, the question is answered what Sartre, who famously wrote “There are no innocent victims,” has to say about victimhood. Second, an outline is given of the context of Jean Genet’s work and the role he plays in Sartre’s thinking. There is a clear line from Sartre’s earlier study of Baudelaire to Saint Genet. Both (...) authors try not to reject the judgement that has been passed on them but to affirm it, to turn this affirmation into an art. Third, already in his Baudelaire, but even more in Saint Genet, Sartre describes the merge of the victim and executioner as a mystical enterprise. Moreover, like Baudelaire, Genet transforms the idea of the convict and evil into a language dedicated to flowers. This leads to a transformation from victimhood to poetry. (shrink)