Había tiempos en los que como fenomenólogo uno era visto de forma muy crítica y también compasiva cuando le atribuía a imágenes y signos algo así como una presencia encarnada. Ahora nos encontramos más bien con un exceso de oferta de presencia, inmediatez, contacto y cercanía. Sin embargo, algo de esto parece ser una reversión con la que se intenta sobrecompensar deficiencias anteriores. También en la filosofía, de cuando en cuando, se da un afán excesivo, como se encuentra en los (...) recién convertidos. Pero dejemos hablar a las cosas mismas. Con este fin me limito a señalar en forma de resumen algunos puntos tanto relevantes como controvertidos que conciernen en su conjunto al lugar de las imágenes en la experiencia y que adquieren un tono particular a través del contraste entre eidos y pathos2. (shrink)

Introduction : facets of the alien -- The human as a liminal being -- Between pathos and response -- Response to the alien -- Corporeal experience between selfhood and otherness -- Thresholds of attention -- Between cultures.

Based on the argument that violence has a parasitic quality rather than an essence of its own, this article seeks to bring to light the conversion processes through which violence crystallises out of, as well as into, various phenomena. Violence is first examined in terms of the relation between perpetrator and victim with, however, an emphasis on the fact that violence cannot be reduced to the intention or the act of the perpetrator. On the contrary, violence is shown to have (...) the character of pathos and to open up a dimension of which the act itself is only a part. Further, the author argues that in being directed towards the other, violence harbours a performative contradiction: by turning the addressee into a thing to be destroyed, the addressing act cancels itself. The paper also sets out to identify the breeding grounds of violence, which, due to its capacity for conversion, can be detected in various phenomena that are not necessarily linked to violence. This means that violence can resort to various mechanisms and can emerge in multiple fields of activity: in bureaucracy, economics, medicine, politics, war, and most importantly, in everyday life, hidden under inconspicuous but sometimes pervasive forms. Finally, the metamorphoses of violence are shown to ultimately rest on the temporal character of violence, which implies that violence has a time of preparation and an aftermath. (shrink)

Feelings not only have a place, they also have a time. Today, one can speak of a multifaceted renaissance of feelings. This concerns philosophy itself, particularly, ethics. Every law-based morality comes up against its limits when morals cease to be only a question of legitimation and begin to be a question of motivation, since motives get no foothold without the feeling of self and feeling of the alien. As it is treated by various social theories and psychoanalysis, the self is (...) not formed through the mere acquisition or change of roles, but rather through a process that is susceptible to crises, a process shaped by affective bonds and separations. Learning, which is the theme of pedagogy, loses its hold whenever it is confronted by disinterest and listlessness. In neurobiology, the increased significance of those zones of the brain that are connected with the realization of feelings makes the brain, accordingly, no mere apparatus that processes data, but a living organ that selects and “evaluates” what is “important.” Finally, cross-cultural comparison shows the extent to which the one-sided preference for understanding and willing, which is the mark of Western rationalism, arises from a typical, not to mention a highly masculine attitude toward the world and life, as many different studies on gender difference stress (In reference to this perspective, see Seethaler, Gefühle und Urteilskraft. Ein Plädoyer für die emotionale Vernunft, 1997). The following reflections provide a historical orientation directed toward a new determination of feelings. This new determination of feelings is phenomenological and takes the pathetic character of experience, nourished by the corporeality of experience as its point of departure. (shrink)

First two paragraphs of the article, in lieu of an abstract: “What I am going to discuss in terms of response and responsivity is not just a special1kind of behavior with respect to the Other. Responding has rather to be understood as the genuine way in which we encounter the alien as alien. It will be shown that the experience of the Other, i.e., what Husserl calls Fremderfahrung, requires a new sort of responsive phenomenology. This kind of responsive phenomenology goes (...) beyond the traditional form of intentional phenomenology just as much as it leaves behind every sort of hermeneutics. Responding means more than intending or understanding. [note 1] In what follows I shall unfold some of the main features to be ascribed to responsive phenomenology, and in doing so I shall proceed in the following way. After having made some general remarks about the actual and the historical background of the alien, I shall first say something about the different meanings of the alien (Fremde) and about the place of the alien in our experience. The second part leads us to a turning-point where responsivity diverges from the basic underlying presuppositions to the phenomenology of intentional acts and to the hermeneutic interpretation of texts. In a third step I shall outline the key concepts of demand and response. I shall conclude by presenting some features of what I call logic of response.” Note 1: N.B. This text was first published as a Japanese version in Metaphysica: The Journal of Philosophy and Ethics (Dept. of Philosophy, Faculty of Letters, Osaka) 27 (1996), 1-15. A German version was published under the title “Antwort auf das Fremde: Grundzüge einer responsive Phänomenologie” in B. Waldenfels & I. Datmann (Eds.). Der Anspruch des Anderen: PerspekJiven phtinomenologischer Ethik. München: W. Fink., 1998. The English translation is based on a first draft made by Robb E. Eason, C. Edward Emmer, and Evan M. Selinger and revised by the author. (shrink)

"Pensar Europa en sus fronteras", como ya en 1992 proponían un grupo de filósofos de la Universidad de Estrasburgo -Denis Guénoun, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Jean-Luc Nancy, Daniel Payot-, significa considerar qué es eso de la "geofilosofía de Europa" como una cuestión imprescindible que conlleva toda reflexión veraz en torno a la idea de Europa. El debate al que invitaron a una serie diversa de colegas y amigos, procedentes de diferentes naciones, planteaba la posibilidad misma de una identificación de Europa, así como (...) la profundidad, esto es, la misma violencia que esta posibilidad conlleva, como los hechos de la más reciente y rabiosa actualidad han confirmado una y otra vez desde aquellas fechas. La propuesta era todo menos fútil. En efecto, como es bien sabido y ellos mismos expresaron unos meses después, en julio de 1993, lo bien cierto es que ha habido terribles furores desencadenados y atroces desgarramientos tanto intra como extraeuropeos, que como mínimo nos urgen a pensar si el proyecto de lo que merece llamarse un 'mundo' puede o no puede confundirse con la exclusiva exportación de aquello que Europa habría inventado, producido e identificado. El futuro parece atenazado por dos figuras mórbidas, dos pesadillas simétricas, la mítica de un planeta homogéneo, como una gigantesca Europa que se extendiera por doquier, y la de una Europa recluida, encerrada en sus imprecisas e inciertas fronteras, una especie de barricadas o trincheras aislantes para que ella devorase en solitario el espejismo de su supuesto bienestar. Esta deplorable alternativa concita parte de nuestras responsabilidades, pues los escenarios del futuro se alimentan necesariamente de formas y de proposiciones de pensamiento, que vale la pena tratar de sopesar y de comprender. A este reto respondió la reflexión del profesor Bernhard Waldenfeis con una memorable intervención, publicada primero en francés de modo conciso y resumido, pero recogida luego en su versión definitiva en el capítulo 6 de su libro Topographie des Fremden, volumen primero de los cuatro de que se compone su magna obra Studien zur Phanomenologie des Fremden, publicada por la editorial Suhrkamp de Frankfurt del Meno en 1997. Queremos agradecer al autor y a la editorial su cortesía al permitir que publiquemos la traducción castellana de ese ensayo. "Thinking Europe at its limits", as proposed in 1992 by a group of philosophers from the University of Strasbourg -Denis Guénoun, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Jean-Luc Nancy, Daniel Payot-, means considering what the "geo-philosophy of Europe" is as an essential question that encompasses all truthful reflection surrounding the idea of Europe. The debate, to which a diverse group of colleagues and friends from different nations were invited, advanced the very possibility of an identification of Europe, together with the profoundness, in other words the very violence that this possibility implies, as confirmed time and again since then by recent and highly topical events. The proposal was everything but futile. Indeed, as is well known and was confirmed by the group itself some months later in July 1993, what is certain is that a storm of terrible furores broke out and atrocious upheavals were expressed, both intra- and extra-European, that, if nothing else, urge us to consider whether the project of what deserves to be known as a "world"may or may not be confused with the exclusive exportation of what Europe has invented, produced and identified. The future appears to be in the grip of two morbid figures, two symmetrical nightmares: the myth of a homogeneous planet, like a gigantic Europe spreading everywhere; and a confined Europe, imprisoned in its imprecise and uncertain boundaries, a kind of isolating barricade or trenches enabling it to reclusively consume the illusion of its supposed welfare. This deplorable alternative incites part of our responsibilities, since the arenas of the future necessarily feed off the forms and propositions of thought, which are worthy of an attempt to weigh up and understand. Professor Bernhard Waldenfels responded to this challenge with a memorable intervention, a concise and summarised version of which was first published in French, the final version appearing in Chapter 6 of his book Topographie des Fremden, the first of four volumes that make up his great work Studien zur Phanomenologie des Fremden, published by Suhrkamp of Frankfurt del Meno in 1997. We wish to express our thanks to the author and the publishers for their kind permission to publish the Spanish translation of this essay. (shrink)

Die in diesem Band enthaltenen Beiträge gehören in den Umkreis von Waldenfels' 1987 erschienenem Buch Ordnung im Zwielicht. Der dort vorgelegte Grundriß wird hier auf mannigfache Weise ausgeführt und fortgeführt - ein Materialienband also zu Ordnung im Zwielicht, doch gleichzeitig ein Vorbereitungsband zur Behandlung dessen, was Waldenfels dort responsive Rationalität genannt hat.

This article critiques Husserl’s idea of grounding through an exploration of his notion of the lifeworld. First, it sketches different senses of the lifeworld in the Crisis and explains in what sense it is taken to be a universal foundation of all sense-formation. Second, it criticizes Husserl’s idea of grounding and shows that it fails because the alleged foundation—namely, the lifeworld as a perceptual world, or rather lifeworldly experience as perception—is inadequately determined. Perception cannot function as a universal foundation because (...) it is always already interpretation. “The groundlessness of sense” means that the process of sense-formation can in no way rest upon an ultimate ground because contingent presuppositions and historical circumstances influence it from the very beginning. The paper concludes by discussing the consequence of this view for the relation between philosophy and sciences. (shrink)

This paper outlines the basic traits of a responsive phenomenology by focusing on the issue of originary substitution. On the one hand, a phenomenology of alienness or otherness and an ethics of the other in the sense of Levinas will prove to be closely bound up with this sort of substitution. On the other side, this substitution can be concretised by transitional figures such as the advocate, the therapist, the translator, the witness, or the field researcher; they all intervene from (...) the position of a Third without closing the fissure which opens between ourselves and the Other, between the own and the alien. Precisely by focussing on the issue of substitution, we have the opportunity to outline the basis traits of a responsive phenomenology and to discuss some of its institutional consequences. (shrink)

Introduces the phenomenology of the Other, taking into account the work of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Schutz, and Derrida, but mostly going back to things themselves.

An ethical epoché is required to leave the terrain of a self-evident morality and question its origin. In particular, four fundamental motifs of the ethical dimension are identified: pathos, to be thematised as an alternative to the persistent activist unilateralism; response, which always involves body and soul; diastasis with its stumbles and subtractions; and finally coaffection, in which the social dimension of experience is announced. Ethical behaviour feeds on the magma of pathos, which in turn would be blind and directionless (...) without any ethos. (shrink)

Es ist nicht möglich, in Freiburg von Phänomenologie zu sprechen, ohne der beiden Protagonisten zu gedenken, die sie dort heimisch gemacht haben. Das gilt auch für das Thema „Phänomenologie und Wissenschaft“, um das es im folgenden gehen soll. In seinem Aufsatz Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft, der 1911 in der europäischen Zeitschrift „Logos“ erschien, erklärt Edmund Husserl: «Nicht von den Philosophien, sondern von den Sachen und Problemen muß der Antrieb zur Forschung ausgehen». Selber hat er als Mathematiker begonnen, doch er hat (...) nie daran gedacht, die Phi- losophie als eine Wissenschaft unter anderen zu behandeln. (shrink)

Any ethics directed to future demands is confronted with two main problems. Firstly, how can we conceive a kind of future which does not only hold the past and prolong the present, but remains open for something coming in an unexpected way. Secondly, how does it happen that demands of not yet existing people really concern us? This paper tries to answer to these questions from the perspective of a responsive phenomenology based on our responding to the Other’s demands which (...) precede and exceed our own initiative. This intimates a sort of anterior future according to which we are permanently what we have to be. Leading concepts, supported by authors like Husserl, Schutz, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Marx and Nietzsche, are the following: generativity of life crossing the thresholds between different generations; procreation which allows for surviving in the children; projects of responsive politics and economics which take care to keep the world habitable; finally, a sort of tele-moral stimulated by Fernstenliebe which discovers traces of a future humanity in the face of the Other. (shrink)

The following considerations do not take their point of departure in legal logic, legal pragmatics, or in the critique of law but rather in the genesis of law, its emergence, and its place in actual experience. In particular, I would like to look at law as a special form of order and ordering power. Reference to “the law” can only be provisional, as it concerns a variable term that also changes in its linguistic designations.I will concentrate on the pre-juridical and (...) supra-juridical aspects of legal practice itself. Accordingly, although the law will not hereinafter be the object of an inquiry from an external point of view, I assume that legal thinking, as all thinking that takes place in determinate orders, has its own peculiar outside.Here I follow Foucault’s injunction concerning a penser du dehors. Close scrutiny of the internal/external difference opens up critical perspectives that spring from “the very core of law.” In general, the following pages take their cue from the responsively oriented and ‘pathically’ grounded phenomenology I have developed hitherto. (shrink)

In this article, I will use terms such as “responsive” and “responsivity”, that became indispensable for my own thinking when I tried to develop a theory of radical Fremdheit. In this article I develop the basic features of this responsivity in which others are involved. Methodologically, I am guided by a variant of responsive phenomenology that is to be understood as a phenomenology grounded in the body. Crucial to this is the descent into a radical form of experience that precedes (...) all constructs and models, as well as its own theory. (shrink)

In this seminal work, acclaimed philosopher Bernhard Waldenfels deals with the problem of the nature of order after the “shattering of the world,” and the loss of the idea of a universal or fundamental order._ _ Order in the Twilight__ unites phenomenological methodology with recent work on the theory of order, normativity, and dialogue, as well as structuralism and Gestalt theory. Philosophically stringent, it expresses a more optimistic attitude than much modern philosophy, especially deconstruction._ Waldenfels passes the question (...) of order through numerous defining aspects, and concludes that there is not one global order, but rather various conflicting domains of order. Whenever the boundary of a vital or experiential domain is crossed, a discourse speaks at the boundary, not about it, and across a threshold without abolishing it. The rest is rationalization, i.e., an attempt to find a place in the respective order for what is to-be-ordered. But why, the author concludes, should a theory be more unambiguous than reality? _ Order in the Twilight__ is an important book at this time, because it may help lift the humanities out of the skeptical, relativistic disarray in which they have been embroiled in recent decades. Waldenfels does not attempt to dictate what reality should be; rather, he is open to any valid evidences. His book offers a solid footing to the human and social sciences as they seek to escape from deconstructive irrationalism. (shrink)

Living corporeity is the intermediate element between nature and culture, which must be thought of as a reciprocal interconnection, since as corporeal beings we always move on a threshold. In the reflection of the bodily self, a doubling between the living body as a functioning subject and as a material object is revealed; after all, even one's own body sometimes takes on the features of a foreign body, as is the case in the experience of illness. In the technical instrument, (...) the body is prolonged and this highlights the connection between the technique of the thing and the technique of the self; however, despite the gradual autonomisation of the technical element from the living corporeity, there remains what escapes calculation and looms large in the subtraction of the alien. (shrink)

Through a comparison of the phenomenological motif of the alien and the psychoanalytic motif of the unconscious, a critique is advanced against Cartesian dualism, which recurs today in the natural sciences and in the split of the contemporary individual, divided between spirit and nature, the proper world and the alien world, the inner sphere and the outer sphere. It is a matter of thinking of an original subtraction, an absent presence that begins with ourselves, in a slippage that achieves no (...) synthesis. (shrink)