In her introduction to this collection, Tymieniecka presents her phenomenology of life - the leitmotif of the three-volume anniversary publication of Analecta Husserliana - as something that stands out from preceding historical attempts to investigate life in an 'integral' or 'scientific' way. After an incubation lasting throughout the 2000 years of Occidental philosophy, this scientific phenomenology/philosophy of life at last uncovers the entire area of the 'inner workings of Nature', exposing the way in which the (...) 'sufficient reason' and the 'ground' of beingness as such crystallise out of the 'onto poietic' process. This onto-poietic process, continuing as it does in the human creative condition, also reveals the authentic genius of the works of the human spirit. This new and original philosophy, free of fallacious simplifications, speculations and reductionism, opens up a basic starting point for all philosophy. Life, 'the theme of our times', at last receives a profound philosophical treatment. (shrink)

In Introduction to a Phenomenology of Life, renowned French philosopher Renaud Barbaras aims to construct the basis for a phenomenology of life. Called an introduction because it has to deal with philosophical limits and presuppositions, it is much more, as Barbaras investigates life in its phenomenological senses, approached through the duality of its intransitive and transitive senses. Originally published in French (Introduction à une phénoménologie de la vie) Introduction to a Phenomenology of Life (...) first defines the problem of life phenomenologically, then studies the failures of the phenomenological movement to adequately think about life, and finally elaborates a new, original, and productive approach to the problem. He engages "object-oriented" philosophies with this approach and concludes that they are far more phenomenological than previously believed. Combining original interpretations and expert readings of philosophers such as Kant and Husserl and contemporary thinkers such as Bergson, Badiou, and Deleuze, Barbaras offers here a powerful and important contribution to phenomenology and continental thought. (shrink)

Philosophy has been always received or bypassed for its resonance or aloofness with the spirit of the time. Should not philosophy/phenomenology of life be expected to do more to ascertain its validity? Should it not pass the pragmatic test, that is to respond directly to the life-concerns of its time? What is the role of the philosopher and philosophy today? Due to the ever-advancing scientific, technological, social and cultural changes that are shaping human life and the (...) life-world-in-transformation, we are desperately seeking a measure to estimate life's unfolding, a compass to stir the course between Scylla and Charibda to maintain human-hood and creative insight for laying the cornerstones for the unforeseeable unfolding of life dynamisms. It is this challenge which philosophy/phenomenology of life meets with underlying ontopoietic unraveling of the hidden logoic concatenations of beingness-in-becoming. The present collection of essays offers contributions to answer this challenge by focusing upon measure, sharing-in-life, intersubjectivity and communication, societal equilibrium, education, and more. It will be of great interest to those working in the fields of Phenomenology, Philosophy, History of Philosophy, and Contemporary Philosophy. (shrink)

To introduce this collection of research studies, which stem from the pro grams conducted by The World Phenomenology Institute, we need say a few words about our aims and work. This will bring to light the significance of the present volume. The phenomenological philosophy is an unprejudiced study of experience in its entire range: experience being understood as yielding objects. Experi ence, moreover, is approached in a specific way, such a way that it legitima tizes itself naturally in immediate (...) evidence. As such it offers a unique ground for philosophical inquiry. Its basic condition, however, is to legitimize its validity. In this way it allows a dialogue to unfold among various philosophies of different methodologies and persuasions, so that their basic assumptions and conceptions may be investigated in an objective fashion. That is, instead of comparing concepts, we may go below their differences to seek together what they are meant to grasp. We may in this way come to the things them selves, which are the common objective of all philosophy, or what the great Chinese philosopher Wang Yang Ming called "the investigation of things". It is in this spirit that the Institute's programs include a "cross-cultural" dialogue meant to bring about a profound communication among philosophers in their deepest concerns. Rising above artificial cultural confinements, such dialogues bring scholars, thinkers and human beings together toward a truly human community of minds. Our Institute unfolds one consistent academic program. (shrink)

生とは一体何か。また生はどのように現れるのか。それは、現象学において生活（としての）世界（Lebenswelt）として現れる。だが、フッサールが試みる生活世界の存在論は、狭義の生の現象学ではない。加え て、彼は生活世界を自我の超越論的生から理解する。この問題を解決するには、ハイデッガー、M.アンリ、レヴィナスによる様々な生の現象学があるが、それに対して徹底的な反論がある。生の現象学を凌駕するには、メ ルロ＝ポンティと共に、生きることの形而上学を取り上げる必要がある。それは、意識の様々な「段階」（驚き及び認識）、「豊かな矛盾」、「フェール（なす、作る、・・・させる）」（faire）等といった概念を通 じて可能になる。.

This chapter discusses the phenomenology of life. The a priori of correlation characterises the being as what presents itself in its appearances only by being absent from them, as offering itself up to an exploration, in the face of which it continuously steps back or withdraws. Transcendental life must contain something living in order to be able to characterise itself as life. Desire never meets its object except in the mode of the object's own absence, and (...) this is why nothing stops it. The link between desire and the world is the truth of the relation between consciousness and object. The phenomenological dynamic that sees in desire the essence of the subject leads to a dynamic which has a truly ontological scope. In truth, ‘Life’ is the name given to the sense of Being: nothing that claims to be can stand outside life's embrace. (shrink)

Michel Henry is regarded as one of the most important French philosophers of the second half of the 20th century. Yet, he is still not widely cited as Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida and Jean Paul Sartre are. His thought constitutes a philosophy of life, distancing itself not only from the phenomenology of the 20th century, but also from the science and technology inaugurated by Galileo Galilei and Rene Descartes. Furthermore, Leopold Sedar Senghor is an African philosopher (...) whose philosophy has often been misunderstood in both African as well as in most Western philosophical scholarly circles. Critiquing representation in Western thought only makes sense if it is made clear that it is entirely conceivable that this critique squanders its meaning elsewhere, in the East. It is inherent in it. However, very few academics have felt that this should be done. It is essential to make connections, because what Henry discovers puts him in an immediate proximity of the radical approach of Vedanta and the approach of Senghor’s Negritude theory of emotion. The objective of this article is to find significant points of convergence between absolute subjectivity, the idea of affectivity, and Negritude and Vedanta in Henry’s speculative thought. The reading of Henry, Indian philosophy (Vedanta) and Negritude (Senghor) allows for establishing a bridge between Indian philosophy (Vedanta) and phenomenology, most notably a bridge between Negritude and the phenomenology of life. (shrink)

Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka expands the phenomenological study of meanings (sense-bestowal) into an onto-genetic inquiry by grounding it in a phenomenology of life, including the emotional dimension. This phenomenology of life is informed by the empirical sciences and its doctrines parallel the new scientific paradigm of open dynamic systems. Embedded in the dynamics of the real individuation of life forms, human consciousness emerges at a unique station in the evolutionary process. Tymieniecka treats the constitution of sense as (...) a function of life, and thus the transcendental constitutive function of the cognitive, objectifying intentionality of consciousness, the purview of classical phenomenology, is viewed as a project that is limited in its scope. According to the phenomenology of life, meaning-genesis is exhibited throughout the various stages of structurization in the evolution of life. This paper highlights the transformative function of the “Imaginatio Creatrix,” which is the dynamic process at the human station of evolution that accounts for humanity’s inventive capacities necessary for the construction of a human world. The Imaginatio Creatrix transforms the more primitive stirrings of the human “soul” into subliminal passions of human existential significance. The enactive theory of the mind corroborates Tymieniecka’s rejection of Husserl’s doctrine of passive synthesis. However, Tymieniecka’s study of the creative function offers a key for further advancement in enactive theory. Three sense-bestowing functions of the Imaginatio Creatrix account for the human expansion of life: the Aesthetic/Poetic sense, the Objectifying Sense, and the Moral Sense. The Moral Sense, for Tymieniecka, is not the product of reasoning powers, but rather the fruit of subliminal passions that acquire their moral aspect through trans-actions guided by the “benevolent sentiment.”. (shrink)

This collection of conference papers is the third in a series of related volumes published under the auspices of the World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning, an organization headed by the editor of the collection and based at her home in Belmont, Massachusetts. It was preceded, in 1996, by Life. In the Glory of Its Radiating Manifestations and Life. The Human Quest for an Ideal. The editor, who has assembled nearly all of the fifty-seven volumes of (...) the series Analecta Husserliana published to date, explains that the twenty-one texts included here, all but four of which are in French, “present the work of [the Institute’s] fifth International Phenomenology Congress held in Paris, October 6th to 9th, 1994”, the theme of which was the editor’s own “phenomenology of life as a scientific, integrated philosophy of life”. (shrink)

This article presents phenomenological meta-analysis of Tymieniecka's phenomenology of life with regard to its strategies of knowledge. The novelty of phenomenology of life consists in special orientation of direct intuition of Tymieniecka's insight. The analysis suggests that the positioning of the direct intuition differes from philosopher to philosopher. Even though this perspective pays attention to individual differences in philosophical thinking, this view has to be distinguished froll1 psychologism as criticized by Husser!. and rather, seen as a (...) development of Husserl 's lheory of direct intuition. A framework for such analysis can be also found in Islamic philosophies of Suhrawardi and Ibn 'Arabi, who introduced the concepts of individual predisposition, modes of knowledge, and self-knowledge mediated by knowledge by presence. These concepts can be applied to understanding of the origins of philosophical insight. The paper examines in depth the workings of direct, or presentive, intuition in Tymieniecka's descriptions of the phenomenal field of life, and of life per se as a dynamic object. It demonstrates the dialogical nature of interrogation, and the sentience of logos as a horizon of philosophical inquiry. Finally, the paper introduces the concept of process phenomenology, and suggests directions of future research with regard to phenomenology of imagination. (shrink)

This paper argues that the Islamic metaphysical vision finds its Western philosophical counterpart in Anna-Teresa Tymienecka's Phenomenology of Life. Comparative analysis of the main categories and strategies of knowledge in Islamic metaphysics and the Phenomenology of Life demonstrates obvious similarities, but also significant distinctions whereby the systems can be viewed as complementary. Tymieniecka’s philosophy begins with epoché on preceding philosophical knowledge, while Islamic philosophy begins with revelation. Tymieniecka uses presuppositionless phenomenological direct intuition combined with reflective analysis, (...) while Sufi metaphysics combines logic, intuitio,n and reliance on the experience attained in states of mystical perception. Unification of Reality and realization of truth in the Phenomenology of Life is attained via phenomenological intuition of life in all forms of experience, and in Islam, via certainty attained in religious experiences of unveiling. Due to its refocusing on the dynamic moments of the ontopoiesis of life, Tymieniecka’s ontology serves as a possible solution to the problems incurred by the more static metaphysical vision of Reality in Sufism. (shrink)

Phénoménologie de la vie et cosmologieJ’ai établi dans mes précédents ouvrages que la corrélation universelle entre l’étant transcendant et la subjectivité, corrélation qui constitue l’objet propre de laphénoménologie, mettait originairement en rapport une Vie et un Monde plutôt qu’une simple conscience et son objet. J’ai donc montré que la phénoménologie s’accomplissait sous la forme d’une phénoménologie de la vie comprenant celle-ci comme le sens originaire de la conscience, elle-même déterminée comme désir pour autant qu’elle est traversée par une vie qui (...) la déborde et l’ouvre à une transcendance. Mais il reste à s’interroger sur l’être même de cette relation, sur le soubassement ontologique permettant de rapporter l’un à l’autre la vie et le monde. Ceci revient à questionner l’essence même de la vie, en tant que sa différence, comme vie subjective, n’exclut pas mais appelle au contraire son appartenance au monde. Je voudrais montrer que c’est au plan du mouvement et, par conséquent, dans le cadre d’une dynamique phénoménologique que cette articulation est pensable. En rapportant la vie au mouvement qui la caractérisecomme désir et le monde au procès « physique » de phénoménalisation qu’il est en dernière analyse et dans lequel le mouvement de la vie s’inscrit, on se donne les moyens d’articuler vie et monde et de dépasser ainsi leur dualité vers leur sol ontologique commun.Fenomenologia della vita e cosmologiaHo stabilito nelle mie opere precedenti che la correlazione universale tra l’ente trascendente e la soggettività, correlazione che rappresenta l’oggetto proprio della fenomenologia, metteva originariamente in rapporto una Vita e un Mondo piuttosto che una semplice coscienza e il suo oggetto. Ho dunque dimostrato che la fenomenologia si realizzava sotto la forma di una fenomenologia della vita che comprende quest’ultima come il senso originario della coscienza, a sua volta determinata come desiderio in quanto attraversata da una vita che la oltrepassa e l’apre ad una trascendenza. Ma bisogna ancora interrogarsi sull’essere stesso di questa relazione, sul fondamento ontologico che permette di mettere in rapporto reciproco la vita e il mondo. Questo porta a mettere in questione l’essenza stessa della vita, in quanto la sua differenza, come vita soggettiva, non esclude ma implica al contrario la sua appartenenza al mondo. Vorrei mostrare che è sul piano del movimento e, di conseguenza, nel contesto di una dinamica fenomenologica, che questa articolazione è pensabile. Rapportando la vitaal movimento che la caratterizza come desiderio e il mondo al processo « fisico » di fenomenalizzazione nel quale in ultima analisi esso consiste e nel quale il movimento della vita s’iscrive, possiamo articolare vita e mondo e oltrepassare così la loro dualità verso il loro suolo ontologico comune. (shrink)

Phénoménologie de la vie et cosmologieJ’ai établi dans mes précédents ouvrages que la corrélation universelle entre l’étant transcendant et la subjectivité, corrélation qui constitue l’objet propre de laphénoménologie, mettait originairement en rapport une Vie et un Monde plutôt qu’une simple conscience et son objet. J’ai donc montré que la phénoménologie s’accomplissait sous la forme d’une phénoménologie de la vie comprenant celle-ci comme le sens originaire de la conscience, elle-même déterminée comme désir pour autant qu’elle est traversée par une vie qui (...) la déborde et l’ouvre à une transcendance. Mais il reste à s’interroger sur l’être même de cette relation, sur le soubassement ontologique permettant de rapporter l’un à l’autre la vie et le monde. Ceci revient à questionner l’essence même de la vie, en tant que sa différence, comme vie subjective, n’exclut pas mais appelle au contraire son appartenance au monde. Je voudrais montrer que c’est au plan du mouvement et, par conséquent, dans le cadre d’une dynamique phénoménologique que cette articulation est pensable. En rapportant la vie au mouvement qui la caractérisecomme désir et le monde au procès « physique » de phénoménalisation qu’il est en dernière analyse et dans lequel le mouvement de la vie s’inscrit, on se donne les moyens d’articuler vie et monde et de dépasser ainsi leur dualité vers leur sol ontologique commun.Fenomenologia della vita e cosmologiaHo stabilito nelle mie opere precedenti che la correlazione universale tra l’ente trascendente e la soggettività, correlazione che rappresenta l’oggetto proprio della fenomenologia, metteva originariamente in rapporto una Vita e un Mondo piuttosto che una semplice coscienza e il suo oggetto. Ho dunque dimostrato che la fenomenologia si realizzava sotto la forma di una fenomenologia della vita che comprende quest’ultima come il senso originario della coscienza, a sua volta determinata come desiderio in quanto attraversata da una vita che la oltrepassa e l’apre ad una trascendenza. Ma bisogna ancora interrogarsi sull’essere stesso di questa relazione, sul fondamento ontologico che permette di mettere in rapporto reciproco la vita e il mondo. Questo porta a mettere in questione l’essenza stessa della vita, in quanto la sua differenza, come vita soggettiva, non esclude ma implica al contrario la sua appartenenza al mondo. Vorrei mostrare che è sul piano del movimento e, di conseguenza, nel contesto di una dinamica fenomenologica, che questa articolazione è pensabile. Rapportando la vitaal movimento che la caratterizza come desiderio e il mondo al processo « fisico » di fenomenalizzazione nel quale in ultima analisi esso consiste e nel quale il movimento della vita s’iscrive, possiamo articolare vita e mondo e oltrepassare così la loro dualità verso il loro suolo ontologico comune. (shrink)

The Phenomenology of Everyday Life presents results from a rigorous qualitative approach to the psychological study of everyday human activities and experiences. This book does not replace scientific observation with humanistic analysis, but provides an additional perspective on significant human questions. The qualitative approach this book employs is grounded in the philosophical traditions of existentialism and phenomenology, which use dialogue as their major method of inquiry. These traditions are especially well adapted to encompass and describe human events (...) and activities. In addition, such events can be properly investigated only on the basis of a method sensitive enough to articulate the nuances of human experience and reflection. In this latter regard, it is important to note that insights deriving from literature and the humanities are equally as revealing of the human world as those from experimental psychology, biology or medicine. (shrink)

Publisher's description: The Phenomenology of Religious Life presents the text of Heidegger's important 1920621 lectures on religion. First published in 1995 as volume 60 of the Gesamtausgabe, the work reveals a young Heidegger searching for the striking language that eventually formed the mature expression of his thought. The volume consists of the famous lecture course "Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion," a course on "Augustine and Neoplatonism," and notes for a course on "The Philosophical Foundations of Medieval (...) Mysticism" that was never delivered. Heidegger's engagements with Aristotle, St. Paul, Augustine, and Luther give readers a sense of what phenomenology would come to mean in his later works. Here, Heidegger reveals an impressive display of theological knowledge, protecting Christian life experience from Greek philosophy and defending Paul against Nietzsche. The appearance of this first English translation marks a significant event in Heidegger scholarship and affords a unique look into his phenomenology. (shrink)

The Phenomenology of Religious Life presents the text of Heidegger’s important 1920–21 lectures on religion. The volume consists of the famous lecture course Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion, a course on Augustine and Neoplatonism, and notes for a course on The Philosophical Foundations of Medieval Mysticism that was never delivered. Heidegger’s engagements with Aristotle, St. Paul, Augustine, and Luther give readers a sense of what phenomenology would come to mean in the mature expression of his (...) thought. Heidegger reveals an impressive display of theological knowledge, protecting Christian life experience from Greek philosophy and defending Paul against Nietzsche. (shrink)

Csepregi, Gabor In Vivo: A Phenomenology of Life-Defining MomentsMontreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 216 p.ISBN 978-0773556638.

This volume contains for the first time in English, Jan Patočka’s seminal essay “The Phenomenology of Afterlife”, as well as contributions surrounding and analyzing this text. In his essay, Patočka reflects on our relation to the dead and on how the departure of a loved one affects our continued existence. The premise of Patočka’s investigation is that our existence always takes place by and through an originary and reciprocal “being for others”. The contributors in the volume extend the field (...) of inquiry into the wider phenomenological and post-phenomenological discussion of death by being cognizant of how works of literature can broaden our understanding of the care of death, grief, forgiveness and non-reciprocal love. Also included are reflections on issues of philosophical anthropology, community, collective memory, and the ecstatic nature of life – issues that can all be related back to Patočka’s initial reflections, but which nonetheless radiate into a myriad of directions. This volume appeals to students and researchers in the field. (shrink)

This book celebrates the investigative power of phenomenology to explore the phenomenological sense of space and time in conjunction with the phenomenology of intentionality, the invisible, the sacred, and the mystical. It examines the course of life through its ontopoietic genesis, opening the cosmic sphere to logos. The work also explores, on the one hand, the intellectual drive to locate our cosmic position in the universe and, on the other, the pull toward the infinite. It intertwines science (...) and its grounding principles with imagination in order to make sense of the infinite. This work is the first of a two-part work that contains papers presented at the 62nd International Congress of Phenomenology, The Forces of the Cosmos and the Ontopoietic Genesis of Life, held in Paris, France, August 2012. It features the work of scholars in such diverse disciplines as biology, anthropology, pedagogy, and psychology who philosophically investigate the cosmic origins of beingness. Coverage in this first part includes: Toward a New Enlightenment: Metaphysics as Philosophy of Life, Transformation in Phenomenology: Husserl and Tymieniecka, Biologically Organized Quantum Vacuum and the Cosmic Origin of Cellular Life, Plotinus "Enneads" and Self-Creation, The Creative Potential of Humor, Transcendental Morphology - A Phenomenological Interpretation of Human and Non-Human Cosmos, and Cognition and Emotion: From Dichotomy to Ambiguity.. (shrink)

This work celebrates the investigative power of phenomenology to explore the phenomenological sense of space and time in conjunction with the phenomenology of intentionality, the invisible, the sacred, and the mystical. It examines the course of life through its ontopoietic genesis, opening the cosmic sphere to logos. The work also explores, on the one hand, the intellectual drive to locate our cosmic position in the universe and, on the other, the pull toward the infinite. It intertwines science (...) and its grounding principles with imagination in order to make sense of the infinite. This book is the second of a two-part work that contains papers presented at the 62nd International Congress of Phenomenology, The Forces of the Cosmos and the Ontopoietic Genesis of Life, held in Paris, France, August 2012. It features the work of scholars in such diverse disciplines as biology, anthropology, pedagogy, and psychology who philosophically investigate the cosmic origins of beingness. Coverage in this second part includes: Communicative Virtues of A-T. Tymieniecka’s Phenomenology of Life, Intentionality of Time and Quantum – Phenomenological Sense of Space, Consciousness of the Cosmos: A Thought Experiment Through Philosophy and Science Fiction, The Cosmos and Bodily Life on Earth Elucidated within the Historicity of Human Existence, Novel as Path - Mamardashvili's Lectures on Proust, and Comments on Max Scheler's Thought and Philosophical Counseling. (shrink)

We do lots of things together in a shared manner. From the phenomenological point of view, does joint or shared agency need a conscious sense of shared agency? Yet there are many processes where we seem to just go along with the group without conscious intent. Building on the classic phenomenological accounts of Edmund Husserl, Alfred Schutz, Martin Heidegger (and the synthetic account of Berger & Luckmann), I want to emphasize the thick horizon of the life-world as a fundamental (...) condition for intentional shared agency. Joint agency has divergent forms with their own peculiar intentionality, attentivity, anticipations and expectations, and embeddedness in a pre-predicative tacit knowledge in the overall live-world. Phenomenology recognizes that even ego-centered activities that appear to be fully ‘agential’ can be carried out in an anonymous un-owned manner, in the manner which Heidegger calls ‘das Man’, or ‘the one’. This suggests that tacit belonging to the collective ‘we’ undergirds individual agency. Husserl, Heidegger, and Schutz all have accounts of this ‘anonymous’, pre-predicative kind of group participation. Phenomenology has rich accounts of anonymous, voluntary, shared, social participation that demand a new concept of agency, one neglected in the current literature in philosophy of action. (shrink)

The course of human life, punctuated by unexpected and transformative moments, is never uniform. What are the characteristics of such life-defining moments, what responses do they evoke, and how do they transform the lives of those who experience them? In Vivo explores foundational questions and pivotal moments of the human experience – engagement with a foreign culture, the decision to break free from unfortunate experiences, a generous action undertaken in the context of an otherwise regular day – in (...) terms of their life-altering potential. Through illustrative examples, both real and fictional, Csepregi reveals the primacy of personal feelings in shaping human life and demonstrates the formative power of spontaneity outside the traditional context of formal education. These moments, and particularly the way they disrupt ordinary temporal order, Csepregi argues, are the lived experiences of our vitality. In an age marked by increasing anxiety about the homogenizing tendencies of contemporary life, In Vivo is timely and revelatory. Informed by a range of philosophical thinking and examples from art, music, and literature, it illustrates opportunities for meaningful reflection that are available to everyone, and urges the reader to engage with them. (shrink)

An essay review of Havi Carel, 'Phenomenology of Illness' (OUP 2015).

A Phenomenology of the Devout Life is the first part of a three-part work, A Philosophy of Christian Life. Rather than approaching Christianity through its doctrinal statements, as philosophers of religion have often done, the book starts by offering a phenomenological description of the devout life as that is set out in the teaching of Francois de Sales and related authors. This is because for most Christians practice and life-commitments are more fundamental than formal doctrinal (...) beliefs. Although George Pattison will address the metaphysical truth-claims of Christianity in Part three, the guiding argument is that it is the Christian way of life that best reveals what these beliefs really are. As the work is a philosophical study, it does not presuppose the truth of Christianity but assumes only that there is a humanly accessible meaning to the intention to live a devout life, pleasing to God. This can be said to find expression in a certain view of selfhood that emphasizes the dimensions of feeling and will rather than intellect and that culminates in the experience of the annihilation of self. This is a model of selfhood deeply opposed to contemporary models that privilege autonomous agency and the devout life is therefore presented as offering a corrective to extreme versions of the contemporary view. (shrink)

How does Christian philosophy address phenomena in the world? Felix Ó Murchadha believes that seeing, hearing, or otherwise sensing the world through faith requires transcendence or thinking through glory and night. By challenging much of Western metaphysics, Ó Murchadha shows how phenomenology opens new ideas about being, and how philosophers of "the theological turn" have addressed questions of creation, incarnation, resurrection, time, love, and faith. He explores the possibility of a phenomenology of Christian life and argues against (...) any simple separation of philosophy and theology or reason and faith. (shrink)

Words of Life is the sequel and companion to Phenomenology and the "Theological Turn," edited by Dominique Janicaud, Jean-Francois Courtine, Jean-Louis Chrétien, Michel Henry, Jean-Luc Marion, and Paul Ricoeur. In that volume, Janicaud accuses Levinas, Henry, Marion, and Chrétien of "veering" from phenomenological neutrality to a theologically inflected phenomenology. By contrast, the contributors to this collection interrogate whether phenomenology's proper starting point is agnostic or atheistic. Many hold the view that phenomenology after the theological turn (...) may very well be true both to itself and to the phenomenological "things themselves." In one way or another, all of these essays contend with the limits and expectations of phenomenology. As such, they are all concerned with what counts as "proper" phenomenology and even the very structure of phenomenology. None of them, however, is limited to such questions. Indeed, the rich tapestry that they weave tells us much about human experience. Themes such as faith, hope, love, grace, the gift, the sacraments, the words of Christ, suffering, joy, life, the call, touch, listening, wounding, and humility are woven throughout the various meditations in this volume. The contributors use striking examples to illuminate the structure and limits of phenomenology and, in turn, phenomenology serves to clarify those very examples. Thus practice clarifies theory and theory clarifies practice, resulting in new theological turns and new life for phenomenology. The volume showcases the work of both senior and junior scholars, including Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Yves Lacoste, Kevin Hart, Anthony J. Steinbock, Jeffrey Bloechl, Jeffrey L. Kosky, Clayton Crockett, Brian Treanor, and Christina Gschwandtner-as well as the editors themselves. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper examines two fundamental claims by Michel Henry on his philosophy’s relationship with classical phenomenology (Husserl and Heidegger) and Christianity. It shows in what way Henry’s phenomenology is the radicalization and absolutization of classical phenomenology: pure phenomenological truth is the identification of appearing and what appears rather than the separation of the two. According to Henry, his notions of life and truth is fully in accordance with Christianity’s Revelation of God. In the last part, (...) the paper challenges Henry’s claim that his phenomenology is a Christian philosophy from a Kierkegaardian point of view and argues that Henry’s phenomenology is, as a matter of fact, a philosophy without Christ. Contrary to a popular viewpoint that Michel Henry is a Christian thinker of our age, I would argue that Henry’s concept of God and Christ is essentially a scholarly philosophical invention. If Henry’s philosophy is an absolute and ultimate form of phenomenology, then it is reasonable to draw a conclusion that Christ as the Truth of Christianity is outside the boundary of phenomenology. (shrink)