In this essay, Domenico Jervolino summarizes twenty years of Ricoeur’s reading of Patočka’s work, up to the Neapolitan conference of 1997. Nowhere is Ricoeur closer to Patočka’s a-subjective phenomenology. Both thinkers belong, together with authors like Merleau-Ponty and Levinas, to a third phase of the phenomenological movement, marked by the search for a new approach to the relation between human beings and world, beyond Husserl and Heidegger. In the search for this approach, Patočka strongly underlines the relation between body, temporality (...) and sociality. Central to this new encounter of Patočka and Ricoeur is the discovery of an idea of inter-human community based on a a-subjective conception of existence. (shrink)

The Being of the Phenomenon opens European post-structuralism to further study and is certain to inspire new thinking about the origins of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology.

Este texto presenta en un primer momento el movimiento propio de la fenomenología a-subjetiva de Patočka a partir de su crítica de la versión subjetivista del aparecer, para así posteriormente mostrar una dinámica fenomenológica que comprende la manifestación como la obra misma del mundo. En este sentido, el destino de la fenomenología se trasciende en la elaboración del a priori universal de la correlación que estipula la universalidad de una manifestación anónima. Es así que finalmente la fenomenología se modifica en (...) una cierta cosmología que nos obligará a repensar una nueva acepción del ser del sujeto y que postula un nuevo sentido de ser del mundo a partir de una concepción asubjetiva del aparecer.This text initially presents the specific movement of Patočka’s a-subjective phenomenology, itself based on his critique of the subjectivist version of the Appearing. Subsequently a phenomenological dynamic comes to light, which understands the manifestation as the very world’s work. In this way, the phenomenological’s fate is inflected by the formulation of the universal a priori of correlation that stipulates the universality of an anonymous manifestation. Finally, phenomenology is perceived as a certain cosmology which will commit us to rethink of a new meaning for the subject’s being and of the world’s being from an asubjective’s conception of the Appearing. (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)

In French, the verb "to live" designates both being alive and the experience of something. This ambiguity has a philosophical meaning. The task of a phenomenology of life is to describe an originary sense of living from which the very distinction between life in the intransitive sense and life in the transitive, or intentional, sense proceeds. Hans Jonas is one of those rare authors who has tried to give an account of the specificity of life instead of reducing life to (...) categories that are foreign to it. However, the concept of metabolism, by which Jonas characterizes vital activity, attests to a presupposition as to life: life is conceived as self-preservation, that is, as negation of death, in such a way that life is, in the end, not thought on the basis of itself. The aim of this article is to show that life as such must be understood as movement in a radicalized sense, in which the living being is no more the subject than the product. All living beings are in effect characterized by a movement, which nothing can cause to cease, a movement that largely exceeds what is required by the satisfaction of needs and that, because of this, bears witness to an essential incompleteness. This incompleteness reveals that life is originarily bound to a world. Because the world to which the living being relates is essentially non-totalizable and unpresentable, living movement can not essentially complete itself. Thus, in the final analysis, life must be defined as desire, and in virtue of this view, life does not tend toward self-preservation, as we have almost always thought, but toward the manifestation of the world. (shrink)

L'oeuvre de Merleau-Ponty est tout entiere commandee par le souci de mettre rigoureusement en oeuvre le mot d'ordre husserlien de retour aux choses memes, ce qui exige, conformement au geste amorce par Husserl dans la Krisis, de reconnaitre l'oeuvre de l'idealisation -c'est-a-dire de l'objectivation- la meme ou elle se fait oublier, afin de la neutraliser. A l'instar de Bergson, pour qui la tache de la philosophie etait d'aller chercher l'experience au-dessus du tournant ou, s'inflechissant dans le sens de l'utilite, elle (...) devient proprement l'experience humaine, pour Merleau-Ponty, la tache de la pensee est de se situer a ce tournant ou l'experience s'accomplit et se voile a la fois dans des productions ou elle se fait proprement humaine, de definir un sens de l'Etre anterieur a la bifurcation du preobjectif et de l'oeuvre idealisante. Le but des recherches est de tenter de clarifier la nature exacte du tournant de l'experience ainsi que le projet phenomenologique merleau-pontien. (shrink)

Cette introduction explique la perception, reconnue par Husserl sous le titre de "donation par esquisses". Il s'agit d'opérer une réduction radicale qui va de la critique du néant au monde comme a priori de tout apparaître. A ce monde correspond un sujet dont le sens d'être fait problème puisqu'il est à la fois un moment du monde et en rapport avec la totalité comme telle.

The poetic names our capacity to transcend our finitude as subject and rejoin our worldly ground, that which links us to our origin despite the evential separation. It is the dimension of our existence which opens us to that from which our existence is nonetheless radically exiled, going, as it were, against the stream of the subject’s enclosure; it is that which, in us, reverses the evential separation, the only recourse against this separation. It is thus what makes it possible (...) to apprehend being from the viewpoint of the world, whose product and ostention it is, and not only from our viewpoint as separated beings.Le poétique désigne l’aptitude que nous avons à transcender notre finitude de sujet et à rejoindre notre sol mondain, ce qui nous relie à notre origine en dépit de la séparation événementiale. Il est la dimension de notre existence qui nous ouvre à cela dont elle est pourtant radicalement exilée, à contre-courant pour ainsi dire de la clôture du sujet; il est en nous ce qui inverse la séparation événementiale, le seul recours contre cette séparation. Il est donc ce qui permet de saisir l’étant du point du vue du monde dont il est le produit et l’ostension et non plus seulement du nôtre, comme êtres séparés.Il poetico designa la capacità di trascendere la nostra finitezza di soggetti e a ricongiungerci col nostro suolo mondano, è ciò che ci riconnette alla nostra origine a dispetto della separazione evenemenziale. È la dimensione della nostra esistenza che ci apre a ciò da cui essa è tuttavia radicalmente esiliata, risalendo controcorrente, per così dire, la chiusura del soggetto; è ciò che in noi rovescia la separazione evenemenziale, solo soccorso contro quella separazione. È dunque ciò che ci consente di cogliere l’ente dal punto di vista del mondo, di cui esso è il prodotto e l’ostensione, e non più soltanto dal nostro punto di vista di esseri separati. (shrink)

O âmbito da fenomenologia pode ser circonscrito pelo que Husserl chamou de a priori universal da correlação entre o ente transcendente e seus modos subjetivos de doação. Este a priori significa ao mesmo tempo que a essência do ente envolve sua relação com uma consciência e que o sentido de ser do sujeito consiste em se relacionar com o ente transcendante, em fazê‑lo aparecer, o que equivale a dizer que uma consciência que não fosse cons-ciência de algo, ou seja, intencionalidade, (...) não seria. A dificuldade aqui é a de dar conta do sentido de ser dos pólos da correlação, a saber, do ente transcendente e do sujeito, à luz dessa correlação, que remete a uma forma de primado da relação sobre os termos. Trata‑se de se perguntar o que significa aparecer, qual é o estatuto daquilo que aparece e, enfim, qual é o modo de ser daquilo que chamamos de intencionalidade. Eu queria mostrar que a fenomenologia é fadada a se ultrapassar em proveito duma cosmologia e duma metafísica, que aparecem não como campos que lhe seriam estrangeiros mas, muito pelo contrário, como dimensões internas e constitutivas da própria fenomenologia. (shrink)

The same subjectivity that makes the world appear belongs, as an integral part, to that which it makes appear, so that there is no alternative between the phenomenological involvement of the world by subjectivity and the ontological involvement of subjectivity by the world. These are the two faces, already abstract, of a fundamental and original situation, in other words, a primitive fact or an archifact. We have thus transported the correlation to the terrain of the world in the form of (...) a double position of the subject, which I have further formulated metaphorically through the distinction between being before and being within. So, what does it mean to belong to the world, or rather, what are the senses of belonging implied by the fundamental situation we have just described? (shrink)

En 1990, s'est tenu a Lyon le premier colloque explicitement consacré à Henri Maldiney. L'idée était de lui donner la parole, mais seulement après avoir entendu quelques-uns de ses anciens étudiants et de ses plus proches amis (Jacques Schotte, André du Bouchet, Roland Kuhn), réunis autour de questions centrales pour chacun d'eux. Encre Marine a publié les meilleures pages provenant de ces journées dans Existence : crise et création. En 2012, Henri Maldiney a eu cent ans. L'Association Internationale Henri Maldiney (...) (AIHM) a réuni un colloque d'une journée à Lyon organisé avec la Faculté de Philosophie de l'Université Jean-Moulin, là où Henri Maldiney a longtemps enseigné (dont les actes sont à paraître) et un autre de deux journées à Paris, rue d'Ulm, là où Henri Maldiney a été étudiant, organisé avec les Archives Husserl. Les contributions ici réunies montrent comment l'oeuvre de Maldiney est aujourd'hui lue à la fois par quelques-uns qui accompagnent son travail depuis longtemps déjà et par de tout nouveaux lecteurs - ce qui témoigne de la diffusion de sa pensée. Certains ont pu dire que, désormais, on peut lire Henri Maldiney "comme un classique". La reprise du texte de Maldiney Existence : crise et création " montre que décidément, même dans le retrait lié au grand âge, Henri Maldiney continue, à travers son oeuvre, d'exercer une singulière présence. (shrink)

resumo Neste artigo exploramos algumas indicações, presentes nos textos de Patočka, que apontam para uma concepção da linguagem que não a põe mais como camada derivada com relação a um solo perceptivo originário. Dissociando intuitividade e originariedade, Patoˇcka estabelece uma co-originariedade entre linguagem e percepção, co-originariedade da qual procuramos ao mesmo tempo esclarecer o sentido e determinar os limites. palavras-chave linguagem – percepção – fenomenologia – intuição – fala.

Desire and Distance constitutes an important new departure in contemporary phenomenological thought, a rethinking and critique of basic philosophical positions concerning the concept of perception presented by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, though it departs in significant and original ways from their work. Barbaras’s overall goal is to develop a philosophy of what “life” is—one that would do justice to the question of embodiment and its role in perception and the formation of the human subject. Barbaras posits that desire and (...) distance inform the concept of “life.” Levinas identified a similar structure in Descartes’s notion of the infinite. For Barbaras, desire and distance are anchored not in meaning, but in a rethinking of the philosophy of biology and, in consequence, cosmology. Barbaras elaborates and extends the formal structure of desire and distance by drawing on motifs as yet unexplored in the French phenomenological tradition, especially the notions of “life” and the “life-world,” which are prominent in the later Husserl but also appear in non-phenomenological thinkers such as Bergson. Barbaras then filters these notions (especially “life”) through Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

Un texte inédit de Jan Patocka (1907-1977) intitulé " Sur les problèmes des traductions philosophiques " (1968) dans une traduction française originale d'Erika Abrams ouvre ce volume collectif qui cherche à penser l'existence humaine et le monde commun grâce à l'oeuvre aussi capitale que protéiforme de ce philosophe tchèque. Des spécialistes en phénoménologie, en philosophie sociale et politique, en anthropologie et en esthétique déploient ici sa richesse et sa fécondité à travers quatre problématiques : le Monde commun, le Mouvement critique (...) de la liberté, la Phénoménologie et la théorie du mouvement de l'existence, le Temps et l'Histoire. (shrink)

Pt. 1. La séparation -- Les deux sens de la finitude -- La scission -- L'archi-événement -- La métaphysique -- Le langage -- Biologie privative -- L'exode -- L'exil -- Le langage -- Pt. 2. Le sentiment -- Le poétique -- Le sentiment -- Ipséité et ouverture -- Michel Henry -- Merleau-Ponty -- Heidegger -- Henri Maldiney.

La phénoménologie de Sartre peut être comprise comme une tentative de fonder radicalement l'intuition husserlienne de l'intentionnalité. " Toute conscience est conscience de quelque chose " : la conscience naît portée sur un être qui n'est pas elle, elle n'est pas constituante mais révélante et c'est en tant quelle est Néant qu'elle peut s'ouvrir à l'Être sans cesser de s'en distinguer. Or, définir la conscience par la néantisation revient à mettre au cœur de l'existence humaine une liberté qui, tout en (...) s'appuyant sur la facticité du pour-soi, demeure absolue et inconditionnée. Cependant, ce mouvement de néantisation est fondé sur une théorie du désir qui constitue la clé de voûte de L'Être et le Néant et rend compte des différentes modalités d'existence du pour-soi. Le pour-soi ne peut en effet sortir de lui-même vers le monde que parce qu'il est traversé par un désir insatiable, un manque qui ne peut être comblé : celui de réaliser l'impossible synthèse de l'en-soi et du pour-soi, bref le désir d'être Dieu. Tous les textes réunis ici tentent d'aborder la philosophie phénoménologique de Sartre à la lumière de cette articulation fondamentale entre la liberté et le désir. (shrink)

Cet article explore le moment où le thème de la formation professionnelle des femmes, longtemps négligé, s’invite dans le débat public sous la pression d’organisations internationales et nationales. À partir d’un corpus de documentaires et reportages filmés diffusés à la télévision française entre 1958 et 1973 et de différents fonds d’archives, il analyse l’émergence d’une figure de femme en formation professionnelle féminine, celle d’une femme au foyer souhaitant (re)trouver un travail après une longue interruption pour raison familiale. Cette figure en (...) vient à éclipser toute autre image, notamment celle de la salariée en formation. Les documents filmés sont pris ici comme des révélateurs des manières de penser la formation et son public dans une période de transition historique, celle d’une remise en question des rôles socio-sexuels en particulier vis-à-vis du travail. (shrink)

La 4ème de couverture porte : "Le propre du désir, à l'instar du besoin, est que l'accès à ce qu'il vise l'exacerbe au lieu de le combler, comme si son véritable objet, le désiré, était toujours au-delà de ce qu'il est susceptible de rencontrer. C'est que le désiré n'est justement pas un objet, mais cela même qui transcende tous les objets au titre de leur fond ontologique commun et qui n'est autre que le monde lui-même. Tout désir est désir du (...) monde, non pas au sens où il se rapporterait à un monde déjà là, mais parce qu'il en est la condition d'apparition - il est donc désir transcendantal. C'est à l'analyse de ce désir transcendantal que cet ouvrage se consacre, en montrant notamment que sa dynamique propre implique à la fois une communauté ontologique entre le sujet et le monde et une séparation radicale. Enfin, nous reviendrons, à la lumière de ces résultats, sur la question du désir empirique, pour en conclure qu'il procède d'une désublimation du désir transcendantal, comme si l'autre désiré était ce point du monde où le monde se replie et transparaît en lui-même.". (shrink)

The goal of this essay is first to emphasize the proximity of the approaches of these two philosophers starting from their common critique of Husserlian subjectivism. By basing the phenomenality of the world on a sphere of immanence constituted by lived experience, Husserl accounts for appearing [l’apparaître] starting from a certain appearing [apparaissant] and thus falls into a form of circularity, the same one that is at work when the natural attitude makes appearing rest on an objective appearing. The aim (...) of these two authors is then to overcome this deeper and more secret version of the natural attitude by freeing the transcendence of the world from every form of objectivity and freeing the existence of the subject from every form of immanence. It is on this sole condition that the autonomy of the phenomenal field can be guaranteed. However, the dynamic approach to the subject in Patočka, which itself leads to a determination of the world as becoming, allows him to account for the chiasm that Merleau-Ponty put forward at the end of his life without managing to ground it, since he held to an insufficient characterization of existence in terms of flesh. (shrink)

This paper explores the notion of sensing (Empfinden) as developed by Erwin Straus. It argues that the notion of sensing is at the center of Strauss's thought about animal and human experience. Straus's originality consists in approaching sensory experience from an existential point of view. Sensing is not a mode of knowing. Sensing is distinguished from perceiving but is still a mode of relation to exteriority, and is situated on the side of what is usually called affectivity. At the same (...) time Strauss redefines the field of that which is commonly characterized as affectivity. Sensing designates a stratum that lies deeper than the division between perceiving and feeling (s'éprouver), a self-affection that is not an alternative to the opening upon exteriority. It corresponds to a mode of immediate communication, to a sympathy with the world that does not entail any thematic dimension, but does not fall back into a blind fusion. Rather, sensing is something in the living being's mode of moving that is irreducible, and that includes a tending toward something. (shrink)

Husserl is the first philosopher who has managed to account for the specificity of perception, characterized as givenness by sketches (Abschattungen); but neither Husserl nor Merleau-Ponty have given a satisfying definition of the subject of perception. This article tries to show that the subject of perception must be conceived as living being and that, therefore, the phenomenology of perception must lead to a phenomenology of life. Here, life is approached from an existential point of view, that is to say, as (...) a specific relationship to the world. However, life cannot be characterized from human existence in a privative way, as in Heidegger's philosophy: on the contrary, human existence, and particularly perception itself, must be understood from vital existence, and accordingly, an "additive" anthropology must replace the privative zoology. The hypothesis of this article is that it is by characterizing life as desire, we are able to account for perception as givenness by sketches. (shrink)