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Dorothée Legrand, Dylan Trigg (Eds.): Unconsciousness Between Phenomenology and Psychoanalysis

Unconsciousness Between Phenomenology and Psychoanalysis Book Cover Unconsciousness Between Phenomenology and Psychoanalysis
Contributions To Phenomenology, Volume 88
Dorothée Legrand, Dylan Trigg (Eds.)
Springer
2017
Hardback 106,99 €
XVII, 281

Reviewed by:  Philip Hoejme (University of Amsterdam)

The 88th volume in the series Contributions to Phenomenology – Unconsciousness Between Phenomenology and Psychoanalysis deals with the unconscious as a phenomenological concept. The volume, edited by Dorothée Legrand and Dylan Trigg, contributes to the discussion of how different interpretations within phenomenology deal with unconsciousness. The focus is on the manifestation of an unconscious within the phenomenological tradition, both explicit and implicit. This way of working with a psychoanalytic concept within phenomenology is described by the editors in the introduction as, “all authors let themselves be informed by psychoanalysis and are oriented by phenomenology.” (ix). The first chapter examines this from within the phenomenological framework developed by Husserl, while the second chapter does the same with phenomenology as developed by Merleau-Ponty. After these two chapters, the following chapters describe and examine the limits of phenomenology, together with what might lie beyond these limits. In the third chapter, questions concerning the status of the unconscious within the limits of phenomenology are dealt with; the fourth chapter starts to move beyond these limits. This chapter deals with topics such as anxiety, affect figurability, and non-linguistic modes of thinking. The fifth and last chapter briefly looks at what is beyond phenomenology, examining the notion of surprise as an unconscious phenomenological marker and the unconscious in both psychoanalysis and surrealism, relieving psychoanalysis of its insistence on interpretation.

In the first part, Within the Husserlian Framework, Dermot Moran and Alexander Schnell examine the unconscious within Husserlian phenomenology. Husserl is considered as dealing with an unconscious in the sense that, for him, “patterns of intentional behaviour that have ‘sunk down’, through habituation, so as to be unnoticed or ‘unremarked’ (unbewusst),” (15) evidently closely resemble Freud’s own description of the unconscious.

“Bernheim had given the injunction that five minutes after his [the patient] awakening in the ward he was to open an umbrella, and he had carried out this order on awakening [from hypnosis], but could give no motive for his so doing. We have exactly such facts in mind when we speak of the existence of unconscious psychological processes.” (Freud, 2012[1916-1917]: 234-235)

In addition to this, Moran writes that “Both [Freud and Husserl] have a conception of human life as the harmonization or balancing of conflicting forces”, (12) suggesting that there is an unconscious to be found, opposed to consciousness. For Husserl, as for Freud, unnoticed behaviours constitute how humans “saturate situations with meaning including imagined intonations and implications.” (22). This point is close to the psychoanalytical claim that we tend to instil meanings and desires on situations or people unconsciously. In these situations, psychoanalysis would, through analysis, come to make these unconscious processes part of our conscious experience. This means that psychoanalysis would often confront us with desires, wishes or fears we did not know we had, or that run counter to what we perceive. Schnell, in his text, takes the perspective that “if consciousness is defined by intentionality, the unconscious can only refer, in phenomenology, to a non-intentional dimension of consciousness.” (27). Thus, he links the conflicting forces to a difference between intention and non-intention.

Such an understanding seems to be in line with Moran’s notion that the similarity between Husserl’s and Freud’s views is their claim that life is filled with unconscious meaning. Schnell generalizes three kinds of phenomenological unconscious, based on the works of Husserl, Levinas and Richir. The first is an unconscious he describes as being constituted when moving beyond the “immanent sphere” (45). He calls this generative unconsciousness, signifying an unconscious that has “a surplus of meaning both beyond and below phenomenology’s descriptive framework” (25). The second kind of unconsciousness is hypostatic unconsciousness, which, according to Schnell, relates to genetic unconsciousness much as Freud’s death drive relates to the life drive. This is a relationship between a drive to be a self and a drive to be with the Other (viz. to be social). Freud, prior to postulating the death drive, had written only of the libidinal drive, but in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), the death drive was added. The death and life drives relate to each other as creation and destruction, and in Civilization and Its Discontents (1930), Freud again develops the death drive to explain the aggressiveness (the death drive) of some civilizations. The third kind of unconscious phenomenology is the reflective unconscious, reflecting not only on itself but also on the two other types of the unconscious. Hence, this third kind of unconscious brings with it a totality of all these variations of the unconscious.

The second part, From the Specific Perspective of Merleau-Ponty, elaborates on the unconscious in relation to the writings of this French philosopher. Emmanuel de Saint Aubert, in his essay, argues that the unconscious, as proposed by the late Merleau-Ponty, is not constituted by repressed representations. Instead, the unconscious is understood by Merleau-Ponty as cited by de Saint Aubert (50): “the fundamental structure of the psychological apparatus … [and as our] … primordial relationship to the world.” In this understanding of the unconsciousness, Merleau-Ponty posits the idea of “the body as mediator of being” (as cited by de Saint Aubert [52]). Such an understanding breaks with the classical Freudian notion of the unconscious. For Freud, the unconscious was composed of repressed representations, forbidden desires, and unfulfilled wishes. By breaking with this understanding, Merleau-Ponty reveals an interpretation of the unconscious that equates it to a bodily aspect of lived life. This is taken up by Timothy Mooney, who expands on the assertion that habits are modes of the unconscious, as already posited by Moran and Schnell in their essays on Husserlian phenomenology. In his essay, Mooney uses Merleau-Ponty’s examination of phantom limbs, where “a patient keeps trying to walk with his use-phantom leg and is not discouraged by repeated failure.” (63) This is an example of how bodily habits, in Merleau-Ponty, become unconscious. Hence, an amputee can attempt to move an amputated arm repeatedly because such an action has become habitual, even if the arm is no longer there.

By examining the way in which one’s past experiences shape bodily habits, and how these habits come to influence one’s future, Mooney argues that the unconscious nature of habitual bodily functions constitutes an unconsciousness that, at the very least, shares some similarities with unconsciousness in psychoanalysis. These are bodily (unconscious) habits: a “common embodiment” (xi) shared by all, meaning that we all have unconscious bodily habits. As examples of these, the fact that I am hardly aware of breathing, or that most of us use hand gestures when speaking, seem to be instances of such habits. However, this is a radically different notion of the unconscious from the one proposed by Freud, who claimed that the unconscious is created by a repressive culture that ties us together. Lastly, James Phillips examines the notion of a nonverbal unconsciousness in Merleau-Ponty. This understanding of the unconscious interprets it as being the nonverbal part of ordinary thoughts. Such an understanding of the unconscious is, however, a development of the Freudian concept of unconsciousness, which is more of a repression of desires and wishes.

The third part, At the Limit of Phenomenology, examines whether it is possible to talk of a phenomenological unconscious. Questions pertaining to this inquiry are dealt with over four essays. In the first essay, one of the editors of this volume, Legrand, examines both how the unconscious in psychoanalysis and phenomenology deal with revealing the/an unknown as a way to examine how the unconscious in psychoanalysis breaks the defined limits of phenomenology. Legrand, in her essay, clearly expands upon what was already stipulated by Schnell, for whom the unconscious in phenomenology constitutes those instances where habits have become second nature, i.e. unconscious. In Danish, there is an idiom: jeg gjorde det på rygraden (trans. I did it on my spine, viz. without a second thought.) This is an example of how we accept that some things come to us from an unconscious place, e.g. that we often do things without being aware of many of the underlying processes. However, Legrand argues that there are problems with relating phenomenology and psychoanalysis to each other. This problem becomes clearer in the essay by François Raffoul, who continues Legrand’s line of thought by examining Heidegger’s ‘Phenomenology of the inapparent’ and Levinas’ claim that ‘the face of the Other’, understood as a secret, an unknown, posits an ethical dimension that creates a limit for phenomenological inquiry.

In this essay, the limits of phenomenology are tested by Levinas’ claim that ethics is first philosophy. In Levinas, the face of the Other is an unknown: it cannot be reduced to an object by the conscious perceiver. This is the limit of phenomenology mentioned by Legard. By claiming that the Other is unknown, Levinas’ phenomenology brings up an ethical aspect in its phenomenological investigation; an ethical aspect that also constitutes an unconsciousness. In his introduction, Raffoul writes that “What the term ‘unconscious’ designates, perhaps improperly, is such an alterity escaping presentation, an alterity that frustrates any effort of presentation by a phenomenological disclosure.” (114) This alterity is what Levinas posits in the face of the Other, which comes to frustrate any further phenomenological disclosure because it is an inapparent, or unknown. Thus, if it is impossible to get rid of the unconsciousness in phenomenology, Joseph Cohen’s essay expands on this by seeking to answer the question of whether there could be an unconsciousness that will not let itself become conscious. Or, as Cohen poetically frames this question, is there a night which is not followed by a day? Husserl, Cohen posits, did not see this being a possibility, as for Husserl there “always lies the possibility of conversion … of transforming the unfamiliar into the familiar, the improper into the proper, the ‘un-world’ into the world.” (135) However, as Cohen explains, there is an unconscious in Husserl that precedes any self-consciousness: an unconsciousness of the night. Husserl claims that this awakes in the morning as a consciousness, but in Cohen, this conversion of the unconscious to consciousness does not happen.

Following Cohen down into the night, Drew M. Dalton, in line with de Saint Aubert, insists upon the unconscious nature of bodily experience. Thus, he comes to regard the body (the dead body, a corpse) as an entity that can be recognized by consciousness, without being a consciousness. A corpse, in this view, is “an inhuman asubjective unconsciousness,” (xiii) and the dead body comes to confront a subject with an ethical dilemma, namely its own vulnerability. This ethical dimension is similar to how the face of the Other, in Levinas, brings ethics into the phenomenological endeavour. Hence, the corpse comes to constitute an unconscious unknown to us, but which nonetheless fills us with dread: an experience of our own mortality. Following Freud’s claim that the corpse is the uncanny par excellence, Dalton, in concord with both Freud and Lacan, concludes that the face of the Other, and the corpse, constitute a traumatic presentation, captivating us, perhaps, much as a deer is captivated by a light rushing towards it.

The fourth partr, With Phenomenology and Beyond, begins with the second editor’s essay. Here, Trigg elaborates on the experience of not fully being ‘me’. By examining states of consciousness where this very fact, of being conscious, is ambiguous, Trigg examines unconscious bodily states. As an example of such an experience, Trigg offers up hypnagogia: a state wherein the subject might experience lucid dreams or sleep paralysis. In such a state, Trigg argues, one is simultaneously both conscious and unconscious. Trigg describes this in the following way: “the hypnagogic state is a liminal state, it occurs in-between dreaming and waking, such that there is an overlap between the two spheres.” (164). Consequently, hypnagogia is a bodily unconscious experience, similar to that already discussed by Cohen and Dalton. There seems to be a clear resemblance between a dead body (Dalton) and the body of someone experiencing sleep paralysis, since neither body, to any perceiver, constitutes a conscious subject. On this topic, Freud wrote that “The state of sleep is able to re-establish the likeness of mental life as it was before the recognition of reality.” (Freud, 1911: 219) Hence, in Freud’s own writings, we are also able to find a description of sleep that relates it to the realm of the unconscious, or the unreal. This interpretation is echoed by V. Hamilton, who, in her book Narcissus and Oedipus writes that “For Freud, the sleeplike state of withdrawal involved ‘a deliberate rejection of reality’” (Hamilton, 1982: 30). It is not only during sleep, or in hypnagogia, but also in actual sleep and in sleeplike states of (mental) withdrawal, that we reject reality in favour of something else. In all of these instances, Trigg argues, we encounter a phenomenon that might constitute an unconscious state of being within (and beyond) phenomenological inquiries. That this point is also found in Freud’s writings suggests that this unconscious, which Heidegger claimed could not be dispelled from phenomenology, is to be found in psychoanalysis. It should be added, however, that the unconscious for Freud is a mental process, and not, as it is here, an unconscious state or phenomenon.

Whereas the unconscious for Freud is created by culturally repressed drives, Thamy Ayouch posits an unconscious that is not created by the cultural repression of natural drives. Instead, Ayouch suggests an unconscious which is an instituted affectivity: “This notion bridges the gap between past and present, the self and the Other, activity and passivity, but also nature and culture.” (199). By reformulating the unconscious in this way, Ayouch deals with non-binary gender configurations far more convincingly than Freud, who thought that homosexuality and heterosexuality develop based on a child’s successful resolving of the Oedipal complex. An unconscious not understood as in a binary relationship with consciousness greatly differs from Freud’s perspective. This critique of Freud has also been put forward by others: an example of such can be found in works by Judith Butler (see, for example, Subjects of Desire, 1988, or Gender Trouble, 1999.) Ayouch writes that the concept of institutional affectivity, as taken from Merleau-Ponty, leads to the conclusion that “sleep would be only a content of the transcendental subject, the Unconscious only a refusal to be conscious, and memory only a consciousness of the past.” (200). This line of argument (refusing to be conscious) is taken up by Dieter Lohmar, who sets out to examine non-linguistic modes of thinking using the phenomenology of Husserl. One such mode of thinking is called scenic phantasma, or daydreams (211). These are modes of thinking that Lohmar describes as allowing a subject to play out different life scenarios. Thus, in such instances, “we are playing out possible solutions to a problem, mentally testing our options, their usefulness for a solution and their respective consequences.” (211) Daydreams are unconscious acts, and Freud saw these as an escape from reality. But for Lohmar they are also private, and therefore not located within the consciousness of anyone other than the person experiencing the daydream. Another kind of unconscious day-to-day experience is examined by Line Ryberg Ingerslev. In her essay, Ingerslev examines how many habits have become unconscious processes in our day-to-day lives (see: Moran, Schnell, and Mooney.) Habits, in this sense, are understood by Ingerslev as unconscious processes that prevent us gaining self-familiarity. Hence, habits allow us to ‘automate’ functions that relieve us of familiarity with ourselves, freeing up our mind for other tasks. Ingerslev argues that our lack of unified control over many aspects of our bodily life, constitutes breaks with a unified conscious experience of life. This, Ingerslev claims, is the effect of an unconscious phenomenon at work. As an example of this, one might think of riding a bike, or similar actions. During such feats of motor control, the subject is hardly aware of the minor adjustments being made unconsciously to maintain balance. We might also add that if one attempts to be conscious of this activity, it probably becomes even harder to cycle. This is not unlike the earlier claim by Mooney. Ingerslev concludes by positing that one does not consciously act, but instead responds to actions already instigated unconsciously by habits.

The fifth and last part, Beyond Phenomenology, concludes this volume by examining those experiences located beyond phenomenological inquiries. Both of the texts examine the notion of surprise, either as a biological response to outside stimuli, a response which can be measured, or as a way to create art within the surrealist art movement. Natalie Depraz argues that surprise constitutes a disturbance of one’s conscious life, which is both objective and measurable. As an example of this, she states that the pounding of the heart due to a shock might be a way to measure the unconscious, since this is an unconscious reaction to outside stimuli. This she relates to Freud’s notion of ‘slips of the tongue,’ a concept developed by Freud in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901[1904]). In this idea, the unconscious thought comes to reveal itself to the subject by (unconsciously) forcing its way into verbal language. A racing heart, according to Depraz, opens up the possibility of examining the unconscious as the cause of a bodily reaction. The beating of the heart is like a slip of the tongue in Freud’s example. Both are posited as measurable evidence of an unconscious, in the sense that the reaction is instigated unconsciously. But there are also differences between the two examples: the beating of the heart is an objectively measurable fact, whereas a slip of the tongue could (possibly) be a wilful act.

Another kind of unconscious is scrutinised by Alphonso Lingis, who examines artistic creation within the surrealist movement as a form off unconsciousness. Lingis begins by questioning the role of the unconscious in orthodox psychoanalysis, asking how the unconscious could function if freed from psychoanalysis’ insistence on using interpretations to root out the cause of the unconscious. Such an examination leads to an exposé of the surrealist movement, whose adherents, inspired by the theories of Freud, used the technique of automatic writing (among other techniques) to stimulate their production of art. Lingis writes that the technique of automatic writing is similar to Freud’s technique of free association, a technique grounded in the inquiries made by Freud and Bernheim in the early days of psychoanalysis. Freud and André Breton (a key figure from the surrealist movement Lingis focuses on) differ considerably regarding the importance of the latent content in dreams. While Freud was interested in this content, Breton was, on the other hand, “interested in the manifest images for their irrational and marvellous, poetic character.” (264) By focusing on the manifest content, Breton moved the focus from interpretation to experience, thus breaking with the orthodox psychoanalytic focus on the latent dream content and the primacy put on interpretation.

In conclusion, this volume succeeds in its aim of describing and examining the psychoanalytic unconscious from within, at the limits of, and beyond phenomenology. The authors and editors have written a contribution to the field of phenomenology that clearly examines what a phenomenological unconscious is, how one can think of an unconscious as a concept within phenomenological discourse, and how the notion of the unconscious can push beyond the limits of phenomenology. In particular, I would highlight the fourth chapter, as it deals with phenomena that are also central to psychoanalysis and the works of Freud. By connecting seminal works within phenomenology (Husserl, Heidegger, Lavinas, and Merleau-Ponty) with different psychoanalytic works (particularly the works of Freud and Lacan) this volume brings these two disciplines into a fruitful relationship with each other. I do, however, wish to point out that the theoretical breadth of the psychoanalytic notion of an unconscious is dealt with in a limited fashion, but this is in line with the overall goal of this volume. Specifically, I would have liked to see more discussion of the differences between Freud’s and Jung’s conceptions of the unconscious. It would also have been interesting to incorporate an examination of the disagreement between Freud and Ferenczi: a difference of opinion relating to the technique of free association, or some discussion of the Rorschach test as a way of measuring unconscious processes. Notwithstanding these minor flaws, this volume is of interest to anyone concerned with either phenomenology or psychoanalysis (both clinical and theoretical), as it bridges the two disciplines over an impressive span of topics, without becoming trivial. The themes tackled might cover a broad spectrum, but what they all have in common is a questioning and engaging examination of how an unconscious might be found within, at the limits of, or beyond phenomenology. In addition, the volume is written in clear and accessible language, making it a useful starting point for anyone who might be interested in a phenomenological examination of the unconscious.

Bibliography:

Freud, S. (2012). Eighteenth Lecture: Traumatic Fixation – the Unconscious. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis (1916-1917), 231-242. Wordsworth Editions Limited.

Freud, S. (1911). Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XII, Case History of Schreber, Papers on Technique and Other Works (1911-1913), 213-226. Hogarth Press.

Hamilton, V. (1982). Narcissus and Oedipus: The Children of Psychoanalysis. Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Thomas Fuchs: Ecology of the Brain: The phenomenology and biology of the embodied mind

Ecology of the Brain: The phenomenology and biology of the embodied mind Book Cover Ecology of the Brain: The phenomenology and biology of the embodied mind
Thomas Fuchs
Oxford University Press
2017
Hardback £34.99
370

Reviewed by: Valeria Bizzari (Clinic University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany)

“Embodiment theorists want to elevate the importance of the body in explaining cognitive activities. What is meant by ‘body’ here?” (A. Goldman, F. De Vignemont, 2009, 154).

All’interno del panorama filosofico e scientifico contemporaneo, la domanda posta da Goldman e De Vignemont solleva questioni quantomai spinose e attuali: Che cosa significa essere corporei? Qual è il ruolo del nostro cervello: strumentale o costitutivo della coscienza e del suo rapporto con il mondo? E’ possibile ridurre le attività del soggetto a sostrati neurali o è necessario tenere in considerazione altri elementi, in modo da non decontestualizzare e isolare la soggettività? In altre parole, in che senso è possibile oggi parlare di embodiment?

Nel nuovo libro del professor Thomas Fuchs, noto filosofo e psichiatra presso la Clinic University of Heidelberg, è possibile trovare esaurienti risposte a tali interrogativi. Ecology of the Brain, uscito nei primi mesi del 2018 ed edito dalla Oxford University Press, offre infatti una descrizione innovativa e accurata del cervello, ben lontana sia dai paradigmi neuroriduzionisti sia da quelli funzionalisti e emergentisti, ma ancorata ad un’immagine di soggetto come persona essenzialmente intersoggettiva e inserita in un mondo-della-vita che, a sua volta, ne condiziona lo sviluppo, in un processo circolare in cui cervello, organismo e ambiente hanno un ruolo egualmente fondante rispetto alla vita di coscienza.

Circolarità può essere considerata, in effetti, la parola chiave dell’intero libro: si parla di circolarità ontologica, nel definire lo status del cervello (non organo isolato, ma parte di un organismo vivente); di circolarità epistemologica (non è il cervello che conosce, ma la persona) e di circolarità eziologica (processi neurali e interazioni intersoggettive si condizionano a vicenda, plasmando il cervello e il rapporto soggetto-mondo).

I. Cervello, corpo e percezione

Nella prima parte del libro, Fuchs critica i paradigmi delle neuroscienze cognitive, secondo le quali il cervello è l’unico soggetto dell’azione e della percezione e il vero e proprio costruttore della conoscenza e del rapporto che l’individuo intrattiene con il mondo. Negli ultimi anni in particolare, complici le numerose scoperte neuroscientifiche che sono state fatte (basti pensare ai celeberrimi “neuroni specchio”, che sembrerebbero attivarsi durante la comprensione intersoggettiva) il corpo sta in effetti subendo una riabilitazione ontologica e cognitiva. Si parla sempre più spesso di “embodied cognition”, “embodied action” e “embodied emotions”. Tuttavia, come nota anche Fuchs, è necessario porre attenzione al modo in cui il corpo viene inteso, poichè la maggior parte delle teorie rimane ancorata a una concezione “meccanica”, di “corpo-cervello” del tutto scisso dalle attività di coscienza.

Le prospettive che, pur enfatizzando il suo ruolo, considerano l’embodiment qualcosa di puramente esterno alla percezione, e non costitutivo di essa, sono molteplici, e si possono schematizzare come segue:

  1. Minimal Embodiment: questo approccio, supportato in particolare da A. Goldman, sostiene che ogni cosa che abbia una benché minima importanza per la conoscenza umana avvenga nel cervello, “the seat of most, if not all, mental events” (A. Goldman, F. De Vigemont 2009, 154). Tuttavia Goldman, ponendosi in aperto contrasto con gli altri sostenitori dell’Embodied Cognition (EB), non considera il corpo (inteso come il fisico nella sua totalità) e l’ambiente elementi decisivi nel processo cognitivo. La priorità viene attribuita piuttosto a stati cerebrali, che il filosofo definisce Brain-formatted: ad esempio, nel contesto della cognizione sociale, gli stati cerebrali coinvolti saranno quelli localizzati nell’area dei neuroni specchio, secondo una logica che riduce l’embodiment a processi neurali. In quest’ottica, il cervello non si configura come una parte del corpo, ma, al contrario, il corpo è nel cervello, e le rappresentazioni “brain-formatted” sono “the most promising concept” per promuovere un approccio “embodied”. Questa prospettiva, che potremmo definire internalista e computazionale, ricorda un po’ l’esperimento del “cervello in una vasca”: paradossalmente, infatti, sembra sostenere un’immagine di cognizione disincarnata, in quanto la visione di corpo che supporta viene semplicemente ridotta a una simulazione di fattori corporei che avviene all’interno del cervello. Risulta difficile, quindi, considerare il minimal embodiment un’autentica versione dell’ EC: al contrario, ridurre la corporeità a meccanici processi cerebrali, sembra piuttosto una rielaborazione della classica prospettiva rappresentazionalista e computazionalista. In altre parole, pur fornendo numerose evidenze empiriche, la proposta di Goldman non sembra sufficiente a una descrizione esauriente del processo cognitivo. Tuttavia, come sottolinea Thomas Fuchs (ponendosi in continuità con la proposta di Louise Barrett (2011)), non è possibile concepire un cervello completamente scisso dal corpo, né tantomeno pensare a una priorità degli stati neurali. Al contrario, è necessario pensare al corpo nella sua totalità e nella sua connessione con l’ambiente;
  2. Biological Embodiment: In netto contrasto con il “minimal embodiment”, tale approccio (adottato da autori come Chiel e Beer, Shapiro e Straus) rivaluta il ruolo dell’anatomia e dei movimenti corporei considerandoli centrali all’interno del processo cognitivo, in quanto antecedenti qualsiasi operazione cerebrale di elaborazione delle informazioni. In tal senso, le strutture extra-neurali costituirebbero l’assetto a partire dal quale si modella la nostra esperienza cognitiva. Piuttosto che essere completamente determinate dall’attività neurale, le attività cognitive, così come i responsi motori, sembrano il risultato della nostra conformazione fisica: la flessibilità dei tendini, l’attività muscolare e il complesso funzionamento corporeo determinano infatti le attività “mentali” e Il movimento si configura così come una funzione decisiva per la percezione e l’azione. Le prove empiriche a favore di questa tesi sono molte: è stato dimostrato, infatti, che le vibrazioni producano patterns propriocettivi che inducono un cambiamento nella postura corporea, così come modificazioni della percezione dell’ambiente; allo stesso modo, variazioni ormonali possono condizionare processi cognitivi come la percezione, la memoria o l’attenzione. Nonostante tale approccio abbia dunque il merito di aver rivalutato il ruolo del corpo nella sua complessità, secondo un’ottica che si potrebbe definire gestaltica, il rischio è tuttavia quello di scadere in un mero riduzionismo biologico incapace di spiegare ciò che concerne la vita emotiva e morale del soggetto agente.
  3. Semantic Embodiment: Secondo tale prospettiva (che include, ad esempio, il lavoro di G. Lakoff e M. Johnson), il corpo, insieme alla sua postura e ai suoi movimenti, non solo determina il modo in cui facciamo esperienza del mondo, ma anche i significati che attraverso la percezione siamo in grado di cogliere. Rispetto alle proposte sopra descritte, tale modello di comprensione fa dunque un notevole passo in avanti attribuendo alla corporeità una responsabilità strutturale e contenutistica. In altre parole, la conformazione del corpo percipiente e le sue capacità motorie possono influenzare le valutazioni del soggetto a proposito dell’ambiente: ad esempio, grazie al fatto di avere le mani, percepiamo un oggetto come manipolabile, afferrabile e così via. Il contenuto della percezione sembra così direttamente provocato dall’ “essere corporeo” del soggetto. In particolare, a mediare tra esperienza corporea e rielaborazione concettuale sarebbe la metafora, intesa come il prodotto di schemi ricorrenti relativi all’immagine corporea (sopra-sotto, di fronte, a lato, dietro e così via). Il ruolo delle funzioni sensorio-motorie si rivela dunque la chiave del processo percettivo e cognitivo, così come la base del linguaggio condiviso. E’ interessante notare come il semantic embodiment possa essere assimilato dalla prospettiva della “cognitive linguistic”, di cui gli stessi Lokoff e Johson sono sostenitori: secondo tale approccio,  linguaggio e cognizione interagiscono costantemente, e la capacità linguistica non viene ascritta a un potenziale innato ma deriva dalle interazioni e dal contesto d’uso in cui le abilità linguistiche stesse si acquisiscono e si sviluppano. Sebbene rifiuti il rappresentazionalismo, tale corrente si pone comunque a metà tra una spiegazione fisicalista e un approccio che, invece, considera le relazioni tra organismo-ambiente come referenziali. Anche in questo caso, tuttavia, sembra che alcuni elementi della vita soggettiva, ad esempio l’affettività e tutto ciò che concerne la sfera del pre-riflessivo, non siano tenuti in considerazione, e che una spiegazione che si rifaccia alle tesi principali di questo genere di EC non renderebbe giustizia alla complessità e peculiarità di tali tematiche.
  4. Functionalist Embodiment: la versione più accreditata di tale modello di embodiment è quella definita “extended mind”, supportata da A. Clark e D. Chalmers. Secondo tali autori, considerare il processo cognitivo un’attività esclusivamente neurale costituisce un gravissimo errore. Essi suggeriscono, piuttosto, che la cognizione dipenda dall’azione incarnata di un sistema complesso, del quale possono far parte anche alcuni elementi ambientali. In quest’ottica, il ruolo del corpo non si risolve all’interno della disputa tra meccanismi neurali o corporeità intesa nella sua totalità, ma viene enfatizzata piuttosto la possibilità che il cervello e l’organismo vivente costituiscano un continuum con l’ambiente esterno: si ha dunque una visione di corpo come sistema esteso. Al fine di determinare cosa faccia effettivamente parte del processo cognitivo, Clark e Chalmers hanno elaborato una sorta di test, il Parity Principle, secondo il quale “If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it done in the head, we would have no hesitation in recognizing as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is part of the cognitive process” (A. Clark, D. Chalmers 1998, 8). In altre parole, secondo tale approccio, i meccanismi cognitivi non si trovano necessariamente ed esclusivamente all’interno della nostra mente. Nonostante, quindi, venga enfatizzata la necessità di una visione gestaltica del processo cognitivo, pare che, tuttavia, tale modello non dia priorità al soggetto inteso come corpo vivo, ma consideri l’organismo in senso meramente biologico, uniformando il suo ruolo all’interno della percezione a quello che, in certe occasioni, potrebbe assumere l’ambiente, in quanto entrambi possono ugualmente farsi latori di informazioni utili. Inoltre, la coscienza e l’esistenza corporea sono considerate come due elementi separati, caratteristica che rimanda al cognitivismo classico e che conferma una visione di fisico alla stregua del fisiologico.
  5. Enattivismo: la prospettiva enattiva sostiene la tesi secondo la quale il processo percettivo alla base della cognizione sia costituito dall’azione. Il più famoso esponente di un simile approccio è E. Thompson, che insieme a Varela e Rosch, nel testo The Embodied Mind riprende la fenomenologia merleau-pontiana e cerca di svilupparne alcuni concetti. Similmente alla “mente estesa” di Chalmers e Clark, anche in questo caso viene sottolineato il fatto che il processo cognitivo non si svolga esclusivamente nel cervello, ma sia distribuito tra corpo, ambiente e mente. Tuttavia, nel caso dell’enattivismo il corpo mantiene comunque la sua priorità, in quanto modella e influenza la percezione: gli aspetti biologici, infatti, incluse le emozioni e le caratteristiche meramente organiche, hanno effetto sulla cognizione, così come i processi sensorio-motori che regolano il rapporto tra individuo e ambiente. Alva Noë ha sviluppato un modello di cognizione enattiva ponendo in diretta correlazione le contingenze sensorio-motorie e le affordances ambientali, sostenendo la tesi secondo la quale “la cognizione è azione” e si baserebbe sull’ ”esplorazione” che il corpo fa dell’ambiente e sulle “structures of our biological embodiment” (F. J. Varela, E. Thompson, E. Rosch 1991, 149). Nonostante tale approccio enfatizzi, dunque, il ruolo del corpo inteso nella sua dinamica relazione con il mondo, ricordando alcune tesi del fenomenologo Merleau-Ponty, esso non chiarisce, tuttavia, in cosa consista il sistema cognitivo, né tantomeno offre una definizione univoca di esperienza cosciente. Non è inoltre chiarito a sufficienza in che senso il corpo possa avere una funzione costitutiva nel processo percettivo.

Combinando fenomenologia, neuroscienze, psicologia dello sviluppo e enattivismo, Fuchs propone dunque un modello alternativo, per il quale la percezione consiste in una relazione attiva tra soggetto incarnato e ambiente, e sostiene la tesi per cui la soggettività non è un epifenomeno di processi neurali, né tantomeno si possa identificare con il cervello. Le neuroscienze cognitive, infatti, commettono errori categoriali, che ricadono sotto il nome di fallacia mereologica e fallacia di localizzazione. La prima, identificata da Bennett e Hacker nel 2003, riguarda l’errore di identificare una parte con il tutto, in questo caso, considerando il cervello l’unico soggetto della percezione, quando invece è la persona nel suo complesso a farlo. La fallacia di localizzazione, invece, indica l’errore di attribuire specifiche esperienze fenomeniche a determinate aree del cervello. Tuttavia, come nota Fuchs, non è possibile localizzare le funzioni cerebrali, ma soltanto i loro disturbi. Inoltre, l’attivazione di un’area del cervello è condizione necessaria ma non sufficiente a una determinata funzione. In atre parole, la coscienza non è il cervello, nè tantomeno può essere considerata un prodotto del cervello. Vi sono numerosi altri fenomeni che vanno tenuti in considerazione, e che non fanno parte del mondo fisico, bensì del mondo-della-vita. La coscienza, infatti, emerge da integrazioni sensoriali-motorie del soggetto vivente con l’ambiente in uno spazio d’azione intermodale; è dotata di un’intenzionalità affettiva che la connota teleologicamente; è consapevole delle potenzialità del sé; integra varie esperienze nel tempo ed è capace di auto-esperirsi in relazione all’ambiente. Al livello neurobiologico è quindi necessario aggiungere il livello dell’esperienza intersoggettiva di sé. Enfatizzando la priorità del mondo-della-vita, Fuchs sottolinea la necessità, da parte delle neuroscienze, di divenire sociali e prendere in considerazione anche quegli aspetti esperienziali che di solito vengono considerati superflui. Il pericolo del rinnovato interesse nei confronti della corporeità è infatti quello di sfociare in una sorta di “neuromania” che consideri il cervello, e non la persona, il vero soggetto dell’esperienza.

Avvalersi di un approccio fenomenologico si rivela quindi adatto per descrivere al meglio la relazione chiasmatica che lega il soggetto al mondo. In particolare, la nozione di “corpo vivo” si rivela utile a tale scopo poiché implica un organismo psicofisico che, per mezzo delle sue capacità cinestetiche, e, quindi, del movimento, non solo riesce a fare esperienza dell’ambiente, ma anche di se stesso (autocostituzione del corpo vivo).

II. Un approccio fenomenologico alla percezione: l’importanza del corpo vivo

Secondo la prospettiva fenomenologica, sia il processo cognitivo che la stessa coscienza altro non sono che il prodotto del nostro essere incarnati. Il corpo costituisce il mezzo attraverso il quale il soggetto può vivere nel mondo e distinguersi dalle creature inanimate. Il corpo vivo, infatti, è caratterizzato dal fatto di essere intenzionalmente diretto verso l’esterno (ponendosi come punto di partenza per ogni tipo di conoscenza) e da un’auto-affezione che gli permette di essere consapevole di se stesso indipendentemente da qualsivoglia interazione con il mondo.

E’, in particolare, Merleau-Ponty a sostenere l’inseparabilità tra capacità corporee e coscienza: in altre parole, la nostra percezione del mondo dipende dagli aspetti strutturali della nostra esistenza corporea. Tale affermazione è confermata, ad esempio, dal caso dell’arto fantasma: pare, infatti, che i pazienti che abbiano sofferto dell’amputazione o della perdita di un arto continuino ad avere percezione dell’arto in questione, come se lo possedessero ancora. Secondo il fenomenologo francese questo caso dimostra in modo esplicito come l’intenzionalità motoria—pre-riflessiva e corporea- strutturi a fondo le esperienze, indipendentemente dalla situazione meramente biologica del soggetto. Il motivo per cui l’arto perduto viene esperito come “quasi-presente” consiste nel fatto che le strutture corporee continuano a fornire al soggetto la percezione del mondo esterno. L’arto fantasma è ancora “incorporato” e inserito nel mondo, che lo “invita” a interagire con esso e i suoi oggetti, nonostante il soggetto non sia più effettivamente in grado di farlo quando. In altre parole, nonostante l’evidente deficit, il mondo continua ad apparire come un luogo a cui l’ “io posso” del soggetto può ancora relazionarsi.

Il ruolo del corpo vissuto sembrerebbe, infatti, quello di strutturare l’esperienza percettiva e renderla significante. Tale tesi risulta evidente, ad esempio, al momento dell’acquisizione di una nuova abitudine: quest’operazione, infatti, non si configura affatto come il risultato di un’operazione meramente intellettiva che avviene per mezzo di rappresentazioni o inferenze, quanto piuttosto come un atto pre-riflessivo, involontario e corporeo. L’incontro tra corpo e mondo implica inoltre un rapporto dinamico e dialettico: la percezione, infatti, non si configura come una mera rappresentazione, ma lo stesso “corpo abituale” viene costantemente modificato dalla sua interazione con l’ambiente. Imparare a danzare, a suonare uno strumento o a scrivere a macchina comporta infatti un cambiamento delle affordances e della relazione intenzionale tra soggetto e mondo.

A partire da quest’immagine di percezione è possibile sostenere che il corpo vivo sia un elemento fondamentale dell’intero processo cognitivo, motivo per cui pare necessario riformulare il rapporto tra cognizione e coscienza e, piuttosto, pensare a un approccio embodied alternativo o comunque complementare a quelli precedentemente descritti.

All’interno di tale proposta il movimento assume una funzione fondamentale, poiché si configura come lo strumento principale attraverso il quale si forma la cognizione: attraverso i movimenti corporei, infatti, il soggetto esplora il mondo, percepisce le affordances e determina le sue abitudini (habit body). In altre parole, il processo cognitivo non è affatto plasmato da rappresentazioni, ma sembra piuttosto il risultato di una percezione essenzialmente incarnata, che avviene a partire da un corpo vivo. Le capacità corporee non sono quindi meri strumenti all’interno del processo cognitivo, ma costituiscono esse stesse la cognizione: seguendo queste tesi, potremmo addirittura affermare che la mente (intesa come l’insieme dei processi cognitivi) sia essa stessa il corpo.

Nella seconda parte del libro, Fuchs sviluppa quindi una visione di cervello compatibile con il mondo della vita esperienziale, e coerente con la dualità che caratterizza la soggettività, che è sì corpo fisico, ma anche corpo vivo, in perpetuo contatto con un mondo culturale e sociale che ne condiziona lo sviluppo.

E’ interessante notare come, in questo contesto, il processo cognitivo sembri avere caratteristiche affettive: il movimento si configura, ad esempio, come la prima risorsa comunicativa, fonte di concetti non linguistici e cinetici (spazio, tempo, forza..). Le attività motorie, così come le esperienze emotive, sembrano quindi gli strumenti principali per rapportarsi e conoscere il mondo, prima che subentrino capacità cognitive più complesse, il cui corretto funzionamento pare piuttosto derivare da esse. Lo sviluppo della percezione mondana sembra perciò dipendere da esperienze corporee complessive e irriflesse, il cui protagonista è il corpo vivo, il corpo che si muove.

Focalizzarsi sulle capacità cinestetiche e motorie, piuttosto che sui correlati neurali attivi durante la percezione, permette perciò di avviare un’indagine verso un percorso più promettente. In altre parole, la concezione gerarchica tra i vari elementi attivi nel processo percettivo deve essere ripensata. Sebbene, infatti, un corretto funzionamento neuro-fisiologico sia necessario, ancor più importanti ai fini di una corretta percezione sono il processo propriocettivo e le cinestesi dell’organismo percipiente: il risultato sarà una concezione olistica di soggetto, e una visione circolare di causalità. Fuchs parla infatti di causalità circolare verticale, che avviene tra cellule (livello base), organi (livello intermedio) e organismo complessivo; e causalità circolare orizzontale, che coinvolge percezione, movimento e ambiente. Causalità circolare orizzontale e verticale si condizionano poi a vicenda, in un meccanismo complesso e olistico che permette il ciclo di cognizione, percezione e movimento. In altre parole, esiste una risonanza costante tra organismo, cervello e ambiente, legame che un approccio riduzionista e fisicalista non è affatto in grado di spiegare  esaustivamente. Il corpo vivo si fa mediatore tra soggetto e mondo, e questo legame non può essere descritto in termini di “rappresentazione”, “mappe”, “simulazioni” o “rispecchiamenti”, ma come una vera e propria risonanza, un rimando continuo e pre-riflessivo tra qualità affettive, corpo, cervello e stimoli esterni.

Prendendo come esempio lo sviluppo della socialità, e descrivendo l’ intersoggettività primaria (ovvero il rapporto diadico tra neonato e madre, che si configura come la prima forma di sincronizzazione affettiva) e l’ intersoggettività secondaria (che implica lo sviluppo dell’attenzione condivisa e relazioni intersoggettive che comprendono l’uso di oggetti), Fuchs enfatizza come fin dalla nascita l’individuo sia, in effetti, pre-riflessivamente e corporalmente legato all’altro e al mondo: l’intenzionalità corporea e l’immediata consapevolezza delle proprie cinestesi caratterizzano il soggetto fin da subito.

L’azione corporea non sempre, quindi, è complementare alla cognizione, ma è possibile sostenere che essa stessa sia cognizione. La posizione di Fuchs è quindi coerente con ciò che afferma M. Johnstone: “The human mind is not contained in the body, but emerges from and co-evolves with the body… A human being is a body-mind, that is, an organic, continually developing process of events”(M. Johnson 2007, 279).

Grazie alle nostre capacità cinestetiche impariamo a rapportarci con il mondo, acquisiamo nuove abitudini, diveniamo in possesso di quel “saper fare”, la praktognosia, essenziale per il nostro ancoraggio al mondo in quanto presenze animate (e non come cervelli disincarnati e decontestualizzati).

L’esperienza non è un epifenomeno, ma ha un ruolo centrale per la comprensione della mente: è quindi necessario un ripensamento della comprensione dell’apparato cognitivo: la mente umana sembra infatti “incarnata” nell’organismo e “incorporata” nel mondo, perciò irriducibile a strutture cerebrali.

La nostra vita mentale sembra coinvolgere, inoltre, tre tipi di attività corporee interrelate tra loro: auto-regolazione, interazione intersoggettiva, percezione sensoriale-motoria. Un approccio che tenti di spiegare in modo esauriente tale sistema deve quindi tenere in considerazione non tanto la correlazione tra attivazioni neurali e stimoli esterni, quanto il rapporto dinamico tra soggetto e ambiente circostante. Di conseguenza, anche l’apparato neurofisiologico dovrà essere ripensato come qualcosa di plastico, attivo e in costante evoluzione. Il risultato è un’immagine di soggetto e mondo come elementi ugualmente coinvolti in un processo circolare e olistico incomprensibile da una prospettiva meramente rappresentazionalista: cognizione e coscienza (incarnata) sono quindi intimamente connesse.

Un ulteriore vantaggio dell’approccio fenomenologico adottato da Fuchs è inoltre quello di rendere giustizia alla corporeità nel suo complesso: il corpo vivo, infatti, implica qualcosa di più di un insieme di schemi sensoriali-motori funzionanti. Essendo un’entità essenzialmente psicofisica, il Leib include fattori pre-noetici che, tuttavia, hanno un ruolo attivo nella percezione, come, ad esempio, i fattori affettivi ed emozionali.

Come nota Gallagher (si veda, ad esempio, S. Gallagher, M. Bower 2014) infatti, gli elementi affettivi e passivi hanno un valore motivazionale che anima l’interazione tra soggetto e mondo: si pensi, ad esempio, al caso della fame, istinto in grado di condizionare e talvolta distorcere i giudizi cognitivi. Uno studio effettuato da Danzinger et al. nel 2011 ha infatti dimostrato che le decisioni dei giudici non sono mai totalmente il frutto della mera applicazione delle leggi: molto spesso, piuttosto, il loro stato psicosomatico gioca un ruolo fondamentale nell’emissione del verdetto. Allo stesso modo è stato dimostrato come le emozioni condizionino la percezione mondana e i processi cognitivi: questo ha fatto ipotizzare l’esistenza di una coscienza affettiva e incarnata la cui posizione all’interno dell’esperienza non sia del tutto passiva.

Tale descrizione di persona come organismo essenzialmente duale ha conseguenze importanti. Innanzitutto, il contributo di Fuchs permette di ripensare il cosiddetto “mind-body problem” in termini di interrelazioni tra mente e corpo, o meglio, tra organismo vivente e cervello. Si potrebbe sostenere che la sua sia una versione “forte” dell’emergentismo, che va tuttavia a dare priorità al tutto rispetto alle componenti, e a enfatizzare la reciprocità tra livello locale e livello globale (grazie al concetto di causalità circolare). Il peggior difetto delle teorie contemporanee a proposito del rapporto mente-corpo, infatti, è quello di escludere un concetto autonomo di vita, che Fuchs (con esplicito riferimento alla nozione di autopoiesi introdotta da Varela) prende invece in considerazione, convinto che non sia possibile parlare di soggetto, o mente, senza aver ben presente il fatto che questo sia essenzialmente un corpo vivo, dotato di e-mozioni e “gettato” fin da subito in un mondo tutt’altro che asettico e passivo.

III. Per una psichiatria diretta alla persona

Una simile concezione di soggetto ha inevitabili conseguenze anche in ambito psichiatrico: negli ultimi capitoli del libro, quindi, Fuchs affronta il tema della malattia mentale e dello statuto della psichiatria. Anche in questo caso la sua posizione risulta antagonista rispetto a antagonista a quegli approcci neurobiologici riduzionisti, secondo i quali la patologia mentale altro non è che un disturbo cerebrale. In tal modo, tali prospettive reificano il disordine psichico (infatti localizzano gli stati mentali in specifiche aree del cervello), e isolano il soggetto (in quanto considerano esclusivamente gli aspetti neurobiologici, indipendentemente dal contesto). Tuttavia, i disordini mentali non sono localizzati nel cervello, ma affliggono la persona e le sue relazioni con gli altri e con il mondo. Riprendendo il tema della circolarità, che funge da filo conduttore dell’intero libro, Fuchs sostiene che la malattia mentale stessa consista quindi in un processo circolare nel quale processi psicosociali (interazioni intersoggettive), interazioni tra cervello, organismo e ambiente, e processi neurali e molecolari all’interno del cervello si condizionano a vicenda. Oltre a una predisposizione genetica, nell’eziologia della psicopatologia hanno quindi un ruolo anche le prime interazioni sociali (che influenzano la maturazione epigenetica del cervello) e le influenze ambientali (quelle negative, ad esempio, comportano uno sviluppo deficiente delle capacità relazionali).

Di conseguenza, anche i trattamenti dovranno tenere in considerazione sia i processi neurali che quelli intenzionali interattivi. Alla farmacologia (che influenza l’andamento del disordine a livello neurale, modificando le attività cerebrali che, a loro volta, influiscono sull’esperienza soggettiva) si andrà quindi a sommare l’effetto di una terapia interattiva basata su uno scambio interpersonale che ha l’effetto di alterare gli schemi neurali. I trattamenti si configurano così come vere e proprie azioni, forme di comunicazione incarnata orientate alla persona nel suo complesso.

Come sosteneva Merleau-Ponty, infatti, “la malattia è una forma d’esistenza completa” (M. Merleau-Ponty 2003, 177), espressione di una particolare variazione dell’essere-al-mondo del soggetto colpito.

Cercando quindi di oltrepassare la mera interpretazione e catalogazione dei sintomi, l’approccio descritto da Fuchs sembra avere il merito di spiegare scientificamente in cosa consista la malattia e comprendere cosa significhi per il paziente l’esperienza psicotica. Enfatizzando la centralità degli aspetti pre-riflessivi dell’esperienza, una visione “circolare” di patologia riesce così a porre la dimensione pre-teorica, vissuta e emozionale al centro dell’indagine psichiatrica.

Risulta chiaro, quindi, come un approccio meramente riduzionista sia insufficiente a spiegare la complessità dell’esperienza della malattia: non è possibile localizzare la patologia in una specifica area del cervello, in quanto ciò che risulta compromesso è la soggettività nel suo complesso. La dualità enfatizzata all’inizio del volume, in cui il soggetto viene descritto come corpo fisico e corpo vivo, permette quindi di definire la psichiatria come una scienza che possiede un “soggetto-oggetto”, un orizzonte di significato che, come già aveva osservato Basaglia, necessita di un approccio integrativo, che oltrepassi il gap epistemologico tra un riduzionismo neurobiologista  e una psicologia che spiega i sintomi esclusivamente in termini di disordini interni alla mente. Mutuando un’espressione di Jaspers, è necessario un pluralismo metodologico che tenga in considerazione la complessità della coscienza, i suoi vissuti e il ruolo delle interazioni sociali.

Il libro di Fuchs riesce quindi ad offrire non solo una rinnovata immagine di soggetto, ma anche un’interessante e concreta proposta nel campo della psicopatologia: la circolarità descritta all’interno del libro non è perciò un concetto astratto, o una semplice metafora dell’interazione soggetto-mondo, ma una vera e propria direzione che le terapie dirette ai disturbi “mentali” (se così possiamo ancora definirli) dovrebbero assumere.

Ecology of the Brain permette quindi di trovare risposte soddisfacenti ai quesiti che ci si poneva all’inizio di tale recensione: embodiment non è un semplice attributo, ma un modo di essere del soggetto che va ben oltre i suoi sostrati neurali, poiché il corpo vivo si fa fin dalla nascita coscienza dinamica e intenzionale in cui processi vitali e fisici (Leben e Erleben) si intrecciano ontologicamente in modo inestricabile.

Bibliografia Essenziale

Barrett, Louise. 2011. Beyond the Brain: How Body and Environment Shape Animal and Human Minds. Princeton University Press.

Bennett, Max, Hacker, P. 2003. Philosophical foundations of neuroscience. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Clark, Andy, Chalmers, David. 1998. The Extended Mind. In Analysis 58.

Danzinger, Shai, et al. 2011. Extraneous factors in judicial decisions. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the USA, a. CVIII, n. 17, pp. 6889-6892.

Gallagher, Shaun, Bower, Matthew. 2014. Making enactivism even more embodied. In Avant V No. 2/2014, pp. 232-247.

Goldman, Alvin, De Vignemont, Frederique. 2009. Is social cognition embodied?. In Trends in Cognitive Sciences 13 (4), pp. 154-159.

Jaspers, Karl. 1959. Allgemeine Psychopatologie. Springer, Berlin-Gottingen-Heidelberg; engl. transl. General Psychopathology. Chicago: Il, University of Chicago Press.

Johnson, Mark. 2007. The Meaning of the Body. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 2003. Fenomenologia della Percezione. Bompiani Editore, Milano.

Varela, Francisco, Thompson, Evan, Rosch, Eleonor. 1991. The Embodied Mind. The Mit Press, Massachusetts.

Hans-Georg Gadamer: Hermeneutics between History and Philosophy: The Selected Writings of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Volume I

Hermeneutics between History and Philosophy: The Selected Writings of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Volume I Book Cover Hermeneutics between History and Philosophy: The Selected Writings of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Volume I
Hans-Georg Gadamer. Editors: Pol Vandevelde, Arun Iyer
Bloomsbury
2016
Hardback $207.00
384

Reviewed by: Meghant Sudan (Colby College, Waterville, ME, USA)

This is the first in a series of three volumes of Gadamer’s essays. While many of Gadamer’s shorter writings have been translated and anthologized so far, this series aims to bring to the English reader the many that remained untranslated.[i] The translations in this volume are very readable and have a light touch about them, which also enhances access to Gadamer’s thought. By including several essays published well after Truth and Method (1960), the volume promises to make visible the nuances in his later reflections and deepen our insight into the earlier work.  On the whole, it paints a portrait of Gadamer as an erudite historian of philosophy, a committed humanist (and staunch Europeanist), and a genial raconteur of his long, rich academic career.

These are mostly good things. While my review unavoidably considers Gadamer’s own views in these essays, I am more concerned even there with this edition as a self-standing volume and I will examine certain editorial and translation decisions to this end. The present volume contains 18 essays[ii] arranged in four parts, covering Gadamer’s reflections on (1) history in general, (2) Dilthey’s significance, (3) other critical encounters, and (4) Heidegger’s significance. A Preface by the translators outlines the goals and contents of the volume, stresses the nuance to be gained by reading Gadamer’s later writings, and situates Gadamer’s thought broadly with respect to its reception in both continental and analytic philosophy. An Introduction by the translators spells out some details of Gadamer’s thoughts on history, phenomenology, language, and practical philosophy, and encourages the beginner predisposed towards these thoughts.

Part 1 contains 6 essays, the oldest of which is from 1964 and the newest from 1991. This part considers the problem of history as a lived experience and as an existential question in the face of a prevailing naturalism. Part 2 contains 3 essays from the period 1984-1991, which attest to the enduring presence in Gadamer’s work of Dilthey’s conception of hermeneutics and historical consciousness.  Part 3 contains 5 essays dating between 1974 and 1994, which situate Gadamer’s thought in relation to other figures in his firmament, Husserl, Sartre, Bourdieu, Habermas, and Derrida. While Heidegger looms large in in every piece, Part 4 contains 4 essays from 1985-6 focused on different aspects of Heidegger’s work as a researcher and as a teacher.

The essays on the first topic, “history,” vary greatly in style.  Some are analytical and were intended as articles, while others are relatively lyrical, when not simply rambling, and come from “improvised”[iii] opening or closing remarks at conferences.  The first essay “Is there a causality in history?” lays out the key idea.  The concept of causality in the natural scientific attitude concerns a regular connection enabling prediction and planning ahead, whereas causality in history is rooted in the fundamental experience of an event as something that has already happened, something singular and surprising that entangles us in questions of freedom and necessity.  To understand this experience, Gadamer unpacks the history of the concept through various philosophers and shows that the concept of causality is interwoven with fundamental ontological questions about human existence.  Drawing up a term’s intellectual history[iv] and relating it to the structure of Dasein with Heidegger’s help is a common thread through several essays. The problem of history, then, invites us to think the question of being.

The other essays in this part develop this key idea different ways.  I found it hard, however, to see how developing the idea differently also amounts to adding “nuance” to it, as the translators claim (viii-ix).  The second essay is said (x) to newly re-engage Leo Strauss, but one finds in it just a passing mention of Strauss that clarifies very little.[v]  Moreover, the essay’s thrust that the problem of historicism in recent philosophy has always been around since the ancient Greeks seems to de-historicize the issue itself.  The third essay (from 1991) is really all over the place.  In it, Gadamer returns to the contrast between the scientific and historical viewpoints, but we can scarcely take seriously the leaps he makes between the Big Bang and the evolution of the universe on the one hand, and Foucault, Homer, Galileo, and much else on the other.[vi] The essay eventually snowballs into dire warnings about the rise of technology and pious reminders about the value of the humanities.  This might catch everything and still miss nuance.

To look for nuance in the fourth essay, which comes from “improvised” opening remarks, is futile. The last two essays in this part develop the concern for historical consciousness in a softer, reflective register, and ask about the experience of the old and the new and of dying.  The nuance I find in the latter, however, is only an indirect one: while the conception of philosophy as a reflection on dying is somewhat familiar and remains interesting, Gadamer’s way of setting up this reflection via easy talk of the practices of dying in Christian, Islamic, and “the great East Asian cultures” (61) simultaneously underlines the need for a richer historical-sociological understanding of these topics and, in palpably betraying this need, Gadamer gives an honest account of the limits of his reflections on the question of death. In sum, while I celebrate the effort to make more of Gadamer’s corpus available to the English reader, I am left puzzled about how this also makes available a greater nuance.

Related worries appear in regard to the translation.  As mentioned, it reads easily and captures the effortless flow of Gadamer’s travels through complex ideas and vast periods. The edition includes a general glossary of German, Latin, and Greek expressions at the end and helpful editorial endnotes to each essay guide the reader diligently.  Yet, I am confused by some translation decisions.  For example, it feels important to note Gadamer’s use of variants of both Geschichte and Historie in a volume taking its departure from the topic, but this is not done.  It might very well be the case that Gadamer does not differentiate their senses, but, given his clear interest in linguistic and idiomatic trajectories as well as the Heideggerian background, it would have been useful to mark the verbal difference.

Had verbal differences been noted, essay 3 about the history of the universe and human historicity could have helped.  Here, Gadamer seems to use Historie-variants for the professional discipline and Geschichte-variants for sites of deeper historical consciousness. Translating both with “history” and not marking the German term causes one to lose sight of this possible nuance.[vii] In the opposite direction, different words are given in place of one word. Gadamer consistently refers to a central concern in the essay on causality in history with the word Zusammenhang, but this is translated variously as “fabric,” “connection,” and “complex” on the first few pages (3-4).[viii]  The same couple of pages also translate Freiheit once as “freedom” and then as “liberty,” but in this case it is possible to guess why two different words are used, for the editors may have wished to distinguish Gadamer’s own handling of “freedom” from Ranke’s technical term “scenes of liberty” (4).[ix]

A striking instance of the choice to translate the same word differently concerns another central concept featuring in comparisons of Dilthey and Husserl, which is itself a recurrent theme in the collection.  In essay 7, “The Problem of Dilthey: Between Romanticism and Positivism,” Gadamer complicates a standard story about Dilthey’s work proceeding directly from psychology to hermeneutics, from conceiving the understanding as an inner process to its establishment as a general principle of the historical sciences.  Rather, for Gadamer, Dilthey’s thought is initially inspired by Husserl’s anti-psychologism, which leads him to reformulate the account of an “inner process” through concepts of life and lived experience. Yet, unsatisfied with Husserl’s explorations of transcendental subjectivity, Dilthey combines both German Idealist and British empiricist influences to expand the theory of meaning and its grounding in life and, ultimately, to envision hermeneutics anew.  The concept Bedeutung underlies this revised story, but this word is translated sometimes as “significance” and sometimes as “meaning,” apparently to distinguish Dilthey’s life-based conception from Husserl’s logical-ontological conception.  While Gadamer himself consistently used one term for both conceptions, the terminological distinction added without notation by the translators may lead the anglophone reader astray.

The aforementioned essay is the first of three devoted to Dilthey’s contributions, making up part 2 of the volume.  This part is stronger and more focused than the first.  While the first essay (1984) sets out the central claims and turning points of Dilthey’s evolving work, the next essay (1985) pulls into its orbit Ortega y Gasset and Nietzsche, which, through their inclusion, broadens the debates on psychology in the period in which Dilthey worked out his position.[x] The translators probably had the third essay (1991) foremost in their minds when they noted that Gadamer, in comparison with his earlier critical rejection of Dilthey,[xi] “softens” his stance in the later essays (xxix).  Here, Gadamer underlines that his earlier contrast between traditional hermeneutics (the line from Schleiermacher to Dilthey according to Gadamer) and philosophical hermeneutics (Gadamer’s self-representation) was not meant to separate, but to join the two in the demand for a reformed hermeneutics (107, 117).  He admits that his earlier Schleiermacher critique was somewhat deficient, but he notes that that does not affect his Dilthey reading (105-6), and he appears to shift from his earlier, internal critique of Dilthey’s lamentable restriction to the concept of objectivity used in the natural sciences to taking it as a product of historical circumstance.[xii]  The third essay was written in the context of new works on Dilthey’s thought and recent publication of posthumous materials, but it is still able to convey to us today the importance of re-examining the Dilthey-Gadamer encounter.[xiii]

Part 3 covers Gadamer’s other encounters (Husserl, Sartre, Bourdieu, Habermas, and Derrida) and is a bit of a mixed bag in terms of strength, but possibly justifies its inclusion in the volume due to the unfailing ability of Franco-German encounters to deliver satisfying entertainment, whether this takes place in a seminar room or on the football pitch.  Essays 10 (1975) and 11 (1974) embody Gadamer’s reflections on Husserl.  The former essay had been translated previously and I take it that it is recalled here as an introductory piece to situate the latter essay, which wades a little deeper into the issues. The former essay claims that appeals to intersubjectivity do not absolve Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology from its subjectivist trappings, nor is the concept of intersubjectivity lacking in Heidegger’s project in Being and Time, since the concept of being thrown into the world and the equiprimordiality of being-with and being-in-the-world include it.  The latter essay analyzes the concept of the lifeworld and emphasizes that this is not a new development in Husserl’s thought.  Rather, it marks a return to older questions about the thoroughness in bracketing the world, and, in fact, returns to yet older questions in German Idealism about thoroughness in setting up the foundations of transcendental philosophy (143).  Gadamer locates his own turn to the movements of interpretation as an alternative to such issues of foundation, which have not been able to exit the sphere of the subject.

Essays 12 and 13 engage Sartre, Bourdieu, and Habermas, but they are not as strong as the Husserl treatments.  Gadamer reminds us how novel Sartre’s joining together of Hegel with Husserl and Heidegger had appeared at the time and how this had to be squared with the characterization of Sartre as a French moralist.  This concern with views from outside is also present in the review of Bourdieu’s The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger, which is coupled with the short review mentioned earlier of Habermas’ Philosophical Discourse of Modernity.  Gadamer cannot stomach Bourdieu’s sociological approach, which appears to him to reduce the highest questions of truth and thinking itself to mere posturing, and he suspects that Bourdieu’s analysis of academic sublimations of socio-economic structures and anxieties is driven by a misplaced animus against the German university system and by easy comparisons with the more public intellectual sphere in France (169).

The Habermas review is slightly more respectful, but in Gadamer’s eyes he too misunderstands Heidegger’s thought.  This is due to his use of a French reception of Nietzsche to view Heidegger, whereas, while marred by reductionism, Bourdieu at least had the sociological orientation right.  Part 2 closes as it began with another re-translation, this time of Gadamer’s 1994 reckoning with Derrida.  Coming on the heels of the non-dialogue with Habermas and Bourdieu, this essay shows Gadamer practicing what he teaches as a theorist of dialogue, as he pursues one with deconstruction well after the Gadamer-Derrida exchange in the early 1980s had exhausted itself and which most had admitted to be of a “somewhat disjointed and non-dialogical character.”[xiv] Gadamer recounts here his problems with Derrida’s understanding of logos in the critique of logocentrism, the focus on writing but not reading, the asubjectivity in the concept of trace that ignores a fundamental dialogical unity, and he does not forget to remind us that Derrida is writing from a French tradition over a German one.[xv]

Part 4 brings us four essays on Heidegger from 1985-86, each replete with fond recollections of the master’s quips and quirks, but each playing a slightly different role in this part.  The first (essay 15) combines an account of Heidegger’s formative influences with Gadamer’s own under his direction.  Hagiography notwithstanding, Gadamer occasionally registers nuances that one looks for in his later work, which occur in the form of realizations that dawned upon him much later, although these are not worked out in detail.  He mentions his “recent insight” (211) that a possible influence of American pragmatism through Emil Lask may have come Heidegger’s way, or how, only much later, Gadamer saw in Heidegger’s course (co-taught with Ebbinhaus [sic], 213) on Kant’s philosophy of religion the inner theological grounds of Heidegger’s critique of metaphysics, which informs several late essays, e.g. essay 2 in part 1.

Essay 16 touches on Heidegger’s turn from his early, theologically saturated phase to a later “flight into poetic concepts” (223), but the essay is too short to be informative.  Essay 17 takes up Heidegger’s turn to the pre-Socratics and Gadamer again notes his late realization that this turn too was prefigured in the intensely religious and theological forces in Heidegger’s early thought (242).  This essay is only as helpful as the large strokes it paints with, but it is for the same reason remarkable for its brazen declarations about “the Greeks,” the fulfillment of the destiny of the west, and the like, which surpass Heidegger-style declamations along these lines.[xvi]

Or, in another instance, which the translators single out to illustrate Gadamer’s historical approach to concepts,[xvii] Gadamer explains how illuminating Heideggerian etymology can be by telling us about the word ousia.  Before its philosophical codification and sedimentation, ousia meant a sustaining relation to the land, or a piece of property in this relation, and this sense underlies Heidegger’s effort to re-think being through Anwesenheit. Strangely, however, Gadamer states that this old meaning persists timelessly and seeks to demonstrate this with the help of a problematic example of 20th century Greek displacements from war and genocide.  “The Greeks” (237), who were pushed out to the countryside by external genocide and internal displacement in the 1920s are said to gain presence (Anwesenheit) because these refugees are “all of them housed in their own small houses.” What does this have to do with the ancient Greek term? Gadamer continues confidently:

“The Greek can say the same and can say it right up to the present.  Whoever knows Athens can see this… Here, the word ousia manages to make the philosophical conceptual sense clearer in its relation to the original meaning of the word.” (ibid.)

The final essay 18 also revolves around Heidegger and “the Greeks,” but here Gadamer balances his endearingly self-deprecating reminiscences of the master as well as his protective gestures in the face of the latter’s “political ‘aberration’,” as he puts it (173), with a sharp account (257-268) of his differences with Heidegger over the question of approaching Plato mainly through Aristotle and thereby missing Plato’s own openness to an historical, dialogical questioning of being.  Gadamer gathers evidence in support of his critique from close readings of Heidegger’s comments on Plato as well as various Platonic dialogues, which the reader will wholeheartedly welcome after the number of unsubstantiated, sweeping claims in earlier parts of the book.  And although this is not Gadamer’s explicit intent, the style of his confrontation with Heidegger’s Plato hints at his proximity to the Tübingen school of Plato interpretation and to the shared background shaping the profound works on Plato by another student of Heidegger, Jacob Klein.

The end matter contains an index of names, an index of subjects, and a list of works cited by Gadamer.[xviii]  In view of the express intent of the series to complete the task of translating Gadamer into the English through its selections, it would have been useful to include a list of existing English translations of Gadamer’s other works of the kind at the end of the Bernasconi edition of Gadamer’s Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays.

In sum, this collection of essays provides a convenient point of access into the main planks of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, despite some inscrutable editorial and translation decisions described above, which prevent it from fully serving further research needs.  It presents a rounded picture of Gadamer’s thought situated against key themes and figures, despite the great variation in the quality of the texts, and, as we saw, the picture is revealing in unintended ways as well.  Finally, it showcases Gadamer’s flair for the essay form. Reading his essays, then, renews faith in this dwindling rarity, but, also – and this might be one of the ways that the ability to revisit earlier ideas from later parts of a long life generates “nuance” – a collection of essays allows both the author and the reader to live through the experience of an object under varying conditions. Putting into words that well apply to a reading of his own writings, Gadamer denies an ideal of complete transparency and affirms the infinitely varied and fused shades of darkness and light “even during the course of one’s life, so that things in a changing light are illuminated in a changing manner and often fall completely into obscurity.  There is no light of an enduring day that makes the true significance of everything appear.” (81)

[i] Thus, together with those that were translated earlier elsewhere (130 articles), the series (50 articles) helps assemble an English version of all the major essays in Gadamer’s Gesammelte Werke (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1986-95, 10 volumes).

[ii] Two essays in this selection had been previously translated into English by Gadamer scholars and translators Richard Palmer and David Vessey.  These are both in the third part.

[iii] Essay 4 in this part, “A World Without History?” (1972), was an “improvised opening talk” at a conference (288n.1), and it reads as such.  Essay 3, “The History of the Universe and the Historicity of Human Beings” (1988), was a concluding speech at another conference (286n.1) and also rushes through a bewildering number of topics.  Essay 5, “The Old and the New” (1981), was an opening speech (288n.1).

[iv] Gadamer even formulates this at one point thus: “For a long time, I have followed the methodological principle of not undertaking any investigation without giving an account of the history of the concept.” (126) The translators’ introduction remarks on the richness of this method not without some enthusiasm, using Gadamer’s discussion of ousia as an example (xviii), to which I will return later.

[v] The sought nuance would pertain to the differences we might perceive between Gadamer and Strauss on the problem of historical consciousness, but all this comes to rest on one cryptic sentence: “Strauss could not see that a reflection on the temporality of our understanding and the historicity of our existence is not always already at play in this question.” (17).  Which question?  A few lines above Gadamer states that we are concerned with “the urgency of the Socratic question,” but there was no mention of Socrates up to this point.  In another essay, Gadamer says that “[t]he Socratic question is a constant exhortation to remember, which sustains itself in all human reflection and in all human acts of giving an account of oneself, whether one may own such an account to oneself or to another.” (83) Presumably, Gadamer has this in mind, but neither he nor the editors help bring it before the reader.

[vi] Consider this passage, which continues the puzzling talk of the universe as evolving – Gadamer calls it a “theory of evolution,” no less (27) – from the Big Bang: “If there is indeed such an evolution, then it follows in fact that this evolution in always pressing onward somehow pulls the future of the totality into our speculation.  Here Foucault comes to mind.  This may exceed our cognitive capacities, but it is thought ‘scientifically’ and fundamentally promises a savoir pour prevoir.  Now this situation is completely different in the case of history, as indicated by Jacob Burckhardt’s famous words about history…” (ibid.)  No relief from the barrage of such associations comes until the essay ends.

[vii] The difference, at first pass, seems to be between, on the one hand, the textually received tradition of storytelling and its historical-phenomenological significance, and, on the other, the professional forms of studying the past beyond written records, involving archaeology and the pre-Greek past (28-29).  The difference is missed in translating all instances with “history,” and made yet harder to see with other related decisions, like rendering Vorzeit as “pre-history” (240), Historie as “historiography” (49), etc.  This contrasts with the attention given to Gadamer’s play with root forms of words, e.g. forms of stehen (51, 54), scheiden (52), schreiben (195), etc.

[viii] Or “context” in other places.  Essay 7 mostly uses “connection” to translate Zusammenhang, except on p. 80, where, like p.100 in essay 8, the metaphysically loaded term “nexus” is used.

[ix] The editorial note 2 on pp.282-3 reminds the reader of Ranke’s conception, which suggests (without explicitly stating) that “liberty” was chosen to mark it off from Gadamer’s conception of “freedom.”

[x] The question of locating Nietzsche returns in essay 13’s talk of German and French receptions of Nietzsche in the context of a very short review of a Habermas text (174-8).  Related to this ‘locating’ is Gadamer’s stress on claiming Ortega for German thought and as a consummate European: “[Ortega] is one of the essential figures of European thought… Today, Europe inquires into its tasks under the changed constellation of the declining century… At this time, it is very precious for us to have a Dilthey as a universal advocate for the historical tradition to which we belong, as well as the European Ortega, who drew his inspiration from the whole of the European history of thought.” (102)

[xi] See Gadamer, Truth and Method, revised trans. by Weinsheimer & Marshall (New York: Continuum, 1998), 173-242.

[xii] That Dilthey succumbed to the pressure of the times is expressed in essay 9 (109), but essay 7 (80) remarkably goes as far as to treat this as inevitable because Heidegger has shown that something of the order of the forgetting of being clouds modern metaphysics.

[xiii] The anglophone reader today has many texts of Dilthey on history and hermeneutics available in the English to enable their analysis as well as of Gadamer’s references to them. I’m especially thinking of Dilthey’s youthful, detailed treatise on hermeneutics, and other writings on history, hermeneutics, and human sciences published by Princeton University Press in the late 1980s. Truth and Method mentions but does not take up the earlier treatise by Dilthey, and the present volume encourages its re-examination.  The volume rarely engages in close reading of texts, but does contain intriguing clues emphasizing the presence of German idealism in the constellation of influences and tendencies at work in both thinkers.  This topic has recently received impetus from the work of Kristin Gjesdal (Gadamer and the Legacy of German Idealism [2009] and her not unrelated Herder’s Hermeneutics [2017]), for instance.  In view of these areas of research, it would have been useful to include Gadamer’s essays on Hegel and other German Idealists as a more pressing matter than those covered in weaker pieces of the present selection.

[xiv] Fred Dallmayr, “Hermeneutics and Deconstruction: Gadamer and Derrida in Dialogue,” in Dialogue and Deconstruction: The Gadamer-Derrida Encounter, eds. Diane Michelfelder & Richard Palmer (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 75-92 (here, p.77).

[xv] “Even more strongly than [Stärker als] our idealistic and phenomenological tradition, to which Derrida belongs [an der Derrida teilhat], what appears essential in the works of Derrida is the French style of literary criticism.” (190). German in brackets added by reviewer.

[xvi] A sample: “When Heidegger speaks of the end of philosophy, we immediately understand that we can only talk like this from the Western perspective.  Elsewhere, there was no philosophy that set itself apart so much from poetry or religion or science, neither in East Asia nor in India nor in the unknown parts of the earth. ‘Philosophy’ is an expression of the trajectory of Western destiny.” (229-230)

[xvii] See my footnote 4 above.  The passage also elicits a long endnote by the translators (307 n.6), which focuses on the senses of Anwesen and steers clear of any comment on the disturbing example.

[xviii] Perhaps a sign of the times, but I note with some regret that I did not receive a hard copy of the book for review, which at least prevented me from seeing the back matter completely.

John Panteleimon Manoussakis: The Ethics of Time: A Phenomenology and Hermeneutics of Change

The Ethics of Time: A Phenomenology and Hermeneutics of Change Book Cover The Ethics of Time: A Phenomenology and Hermeneutics of Change
Bloomsbury Studies in Continental Philosophy
John Panteleimon Manoussakis
Bloomsbury
2017
Hardback $102.60

Reviewed by: Samuel D. Rocha (University of British Columbia, Canada)

Augustine’s Confessions is not a book. It has no title in the titular or thematic sense. It is simply what it is: confessions. What more could it be? A collection of thirteen small books? An evangelical memoir? A developmental prayer diary? A pre-modern work of speculative non-fiction? These are tedious questions. No one cares whether the Confessions is a book or not. Augustine does not seem to care. This reveals that, as with most things taken for granted, we do not know what books are when we address or review them as books. So what is the intellectual genre of Augustine’s Confessions? Jean-Luc Marion has remarked that the Patristic period of theological thought would have understood itself as philosophy, not theology, and thus scholastic theology begins after the end of theology.[i]

It is helpful to keep these opening remarks in mind if one seeks an encounter with John Panteleimon Manoussakis in The Ethics of Time. It is a book that cannot be read, even if one tries to read like a cow through rumination, as Nietzsche demands in his preface to Genealogy of Morals.[ii] The Ethics of Time must be encountered. Reading is certainly an encounter of a certain kind, but the kind of encounter this book demands goes much further than any other recent philosophical book I have read. This may be because our present mode of reading is detached from the type of reading we find in Ezekiel, where the prophet is fed a holy scroll, and I suspect that my suggested encounter beyond reading is in many respects nothing but a truer form of reading. Nonetheless, there is a distinction to be drawn between a literary encounter and the phenomenological encounter that Manoussakis’ book investigates (through desire) and demands (through ethics). (This distinction is carefully attended to by Manoussakis in the theological realities of the beginning, logos, and flesh throughout the book, but especially in chapter 7, “The Time of the Body.”)

To encounter something implies many things. The adversarial sense of an encounter is perhaps the most obvious. Manoussakis seems to suggest these terms of encounter in the book’s epigraph that quotes from Aeschylus’s Agamemnon: “It is a violent grace that gods set forth.”[iii] After all, to “encounter” is to be en contra. This may begin to explain why wresting and sex are hard to distinguish from each other en vivo. No one can deny that the one I lay with until the break of dawn is one I have encountered. When Jacob wrestles the angel of God in Genesis, it is not so different an erotic description from the one we read in the Song of Songs. This means that the encounter is not adversarial so much as it is erotic. Manoussakis seems to endorse this erotic notion of encounter in his analysis of the emptiness of the pouring jug, broken jar, and eucharistic chalice. He writes, “the body’s corporeality does not lie at all in the material of which it consists (the body as object), but in the void that holds (the body as flesh).”[iv] This account of incarnate emptiness, among many other passages, eventually repeats itself enough to demand an erotic encounter with Manoussakis. An encounter, as we will see, that ends in kenosis.

One might object that presenting ideas in a book is not the same thing as demanding them as the terms for a specific kind of encounter, but this takes us back to the reason why I insist that this book must be encountered as opposed to being read, however unsatisfying that opposition may be for philosophical logic-chopping (to use the Jamesian expression). More important for my purposes here, if I take the erotic terms for this encounter seriously, then this review must struggle and fail to break free from Manoussakis in the course of re-viewing his book. Perhaps he will break my hip as I beg him for a blessing. We will have to see, again and again. That is what it means to re-view something.

One might consider The Ethics of Time to be an eclectic book in light of its variety of sources. This would be a mistake. It is true that Manoussakis works from Ancient Greece and the Early Church to contemporary phenomenology and cinema. However, this seems to be more of a personal reflection of Manoussakis—more reasons for my insistence on an erotic encounter—than evidence of technical or systematic pyrotechnics. It may be hard to ignore the sheer volume of philological, theological, psychoanalytic, exegetical, and phenomenological resources put to use in this volume, touching equally upon ancient scriptures as recent films, but this quantified sense of eclecticism misses more than it hits. It mainly misses the book’s constant refrain: Augustine’s Confessions. Unlike Heidegger, who despite his occasional explicit turns to Augustine is in constant dialogue with him throughout the entirety of Being and Time, Manoussakis never pretends to stray from him. In other words, Manoussakis repeatedly draws upon the only other book I can think of that can to the same degree be misunderstood through its voluminous variety. Perhaps he is being vain in tempting this comparison? Or maybe he is too humble to admit it?

Beyond the constant presence of Augustine’s Confessions in the book as a musing refrain, Manoussakis just as constantly invents original interpretations of the classic text. Before I mention any of these insights, and immediately attract the philosopher’s skepticism, I would like to remark on how Manoussakis phrases his inventions. This is not a note on method in the sense of construction or composition; it is more a note on voice and style. If one would permit the expression, I would say this is a brief note on the musicality the book. For me this was the most philosophically challenging aspect of the book but also the most delightful.

“What we call life is a series of intervals from sleep to sleep.”[v] This line comes within a discussion of boredom and just before a deeper look into the radical implications of having “nothing to do.” Even without puzzling together the meaning of the line within its proper textual context, it serves as an example of the barrage of poetic impulses that assault the Academician and exhort the Artist. They often come in swift lines and fine-tuned associations. The urge to call them hasty is the desire to read, the desire to take Manoussakis at his word is the urge to encounter.

All of this is to say that there is an active wit in the book that is sharp and playful enough to verge on being unserious. But these risky moments of “Will and Grace”—anyone who misses this is too dull to understand this book—are contained with a form and structure where metaphors bear the mythopoetic weight of the book’s absent thesis. For instance, Manoussakis titles his Chapter 5, “After Evil,” hinting at the ethics of time where we move beyond evil without ventured beyond it entirely. This chapter features a stunningly clear and original rendition of Augustine’s account of the privation of evil—where evil is not simply metaphysically privitive of the good, but where sin becomes the ethical condition for the possibility of freedom—and reveals a powerful account of the book’s major preoccupations. The account does not so much make this preoccupation clear so much as it makes it serious enough, to the one willing to accept the terms of encounter, to see with eyes of faith.

For Manoussakis, the difference that lies in the interval between evil and goodness is only time. This difference is presented by Manoussakis through the two gardens of Eden and Gethsemane, which allude to his most steady companions, the Confessions and Christian scripture. These two gardens hold within them the capacity to re-present an ethics that is opposed to stasis; in other words, an ethics of time. This rendition of an ethics of time is central to the book’s unmet desire to address itself as a book titled The Ethics of Time.

A key feature of the above analysis is important to understand on its own terms, without too many distractions. Manoussakis makes this point plain, but rather than quote him directly, I would like to try and bend his words in my direction. Rather than resolve the apparent tension in sin or evil by positing a Manichean notion of the good, Manoussakis asserts the goodness of sin and evil revealed in time. This is not as radical as it may seem. I recently asked the question “What is an ethical way to teach ethics?” Socrates answers this question when Meno raises it by rejecting the assumption of the possibility of knowing what is ethical. In De Magistro, Augustine rejects the possibility of teaching entirely. Manoussakis, for his part, follows suit in a clever way. When we admit that we know not what we do, when sin admits to being sinful, when evil can encounter itself as evil, there we find the goodness and the ethics of time. The implications of this idea in moral theology and normative philosophical theories are interesting in their own right, but the phenomenological scope of this book takes us in another more scandalous direction.

The book ends with three scandals. The first two—evil and goodness—have been mentioned to some extent already. The third is grace but becomes more articulate as what Paul calls “the scandal of the cross.”[vi] Here the enigmatic and aphoristic wit of Manoussakis makes its last attempt to call the reader into encounter—the encounter of conversion. One may reject this encounter since it has now modulated from Manoussakis himself to Christ, but this raising of the pitch and register of the erotic appeal seems to be the entire point of the final scandal and, indeed, the book that exists beyond its title. In the cross we find the ultimate body, the broken body that survives the violence of resurrection. After all, Christ’s resurrected body was glorified with all five wounds sustained on the cross still intact and poor saints wear them as scandalous signs of grace. One cannot speak of open wounds as being good and no one can speak of these wounds as being evil. Within Manoussakis’ phenomenology of change presented as the ethics of time, I find a profound and moving meditation on the suffering, sacrifice, and salvation of wounds and woundedness.

Whatever ethics may be, I am fairly certain that it cannot afford to be entirely blind to the moral significance of things, especially the things that go beyond the recognizable the boundaries of moral significance. As we have seen, this would include a genuine ability to understand, as Augustine did and as Manoussakis clearly does, the evil of goodness and the goodness of evil within the interval of time.

Judging something to be morally important is not the same as seeing it as it is. There is a moral field of vision that goes well beyond judgement’s moral capacities. In at least this sense, phenomenology is fundamentally ethical. But this is not always true in practice. Phenomenology as well water is little more than a series of constructive historical notes and debates, on the one hand, and methodological squabbles, on the other. Phenomenology as living water is always opposed to every “ology” and “ism”—including phenomenology and constant opposition. In other words, as its rich history and methods suggest, phenomenology is fundamentally philosophical and this philosophical conception applies equally to phenomenology after the so-called “theological turn.” This turn would be a poor way to try and capture Manoussakis’ project, unless it is to show that every real turn is in some sense a theological one, preceded and anticipated in the Hellenistic tradition. The beginning chapters of The Ethics of Time bear this out in a series of preliminary meditations on movement but they only arrive at their fundamental insight as one allows time—not only the time of duration but above all the time of the interval, the sliding, wailing, and fretless interval—to work across the pages of the book to transform the reading into a dynamic encounter of time in the place of das Ding.

[i] In his Berkeley Center Lecture, “What Are the Roots of the Distinction Between Philosophy and Theology?”, delivered at Georgetown University on April 7, 2011.

[ii] Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morailty, trans. Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swenson, (Indiannapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 1998), 7.

[iii] John Panteleimon Manoussakis, The Ethics of Time, (London and New York: 2017), front matter.

[iv] Ibid., 156.

[v] Ibid., 21.

[vi] Ibid., 161.

Ken Slock: Corps et machine: Cinéma et philosophie chez Jean Epstein et Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Corps et machine: Cinéma et philosophie chez Jean Epstein et Maurice Merleau-Ponty Book Cover Corps et machine: Cinéma et philosophie chez Jean Epstein et Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Ken Slock
Mimesis
2016
Paperback 24,00 €
274

Reviewed by:  Sophie Dascal (Geneva University of Art and Design)

L’ouvrage de Ken Slock tente d’initier un dialogue entre le philosophe Maurice Merleau-Ponty et le cinéaste-théoricien Jean Epstein autour desquels de nouvelles pistes de réflexion se sont ouvertes ces dernières années. Le texte de Slock, à l’intersection de l’esthétique du cinéma et de la philosophie, a pour but d’apporter non seulement un regard neuf sur la pensée d’Epstein et de Merleau-Ponty mais aussi d’aborder, à travers ces deux auteurs, certaines problématiques essentielles qui apparaissent à la frontière poreuse entre cinéma et philosophie. Bien qu’il n’y ait pas explicitement de philosophie du cinéma chez Merleau-Ponty, sa phénoménologie et l’esthétique du cinéma d’Epstein partageraient le même projet ambitieux de traiter la question du savoir dans sa relation au voir. Cette théorie de la connaissance les amène, chacun à sa façon, à repenser la place de la « raison » au sein de leur système philosophique, remettant en question par là-même la frontière entre philosophie et non-philosophie pour Merleau-Ponty et entre philosophie et cinéma pour Epstein. L’ouvrage de Slock se compose de trois parties, contenant chacune deux chapitres. La première partie présente les éléments des pensées de Merleau-Ponty et Epstein afin de les mettre en relation, notamment au travers du concept d’« ambiguïté ». La seconde partie poursuit la comparaison entre Epstein et Merleau-Ponty en se concentrant sur la notion de réversibilité ce qui permet à Slock d’amener le cinéma dans la pensée de Merleau-Ponty et d’entrer dans le cœur de sa thèse, à savoir le rapport entre la conscience cinématographique et la conscience humaine. Dans la troisième partie de son ouvrage, Slock fait intervenir un troisième auteur, Gilbert Simondon, afin de développer une esthétique de la machine basée sur l’asymétrie entre l’homme et le cinématographe. La conclusion de l’ouvrage propose alors une alternative « tactile » au modèle epsteinien basée sur le concept de profondeur tel que Merleau-Ponty le développe dans la Chair.

Dans la première partie, Slock décrit l’équilibre « précaire » de la position de Merleau-Ponty, à l’intersection entre phénoménologie husserlienne et rapprochement vers une forme d’ontologie. D’après lui, le caractère inachevé de son œuvre a amené la recherche « merleau-pontienne » à entamer un travail d’interprétation et de déchiffrement exigeant une reconnaissance d’une pensée plaçant l’opacité, l’ambiguïté et la profondeur, comme paramètres essentiels de son investigation de l’être, du monde et de l’image. Dès les premières lignes de son chapitre, Slock met en avant les problèmes que Merleau-Ponty hérite du projet husserlien de renégocier une séparation du transcendantal et de l’empirique et en particulier dans le cadre de son étude du langage. Selon Merleau-Ponty, le langage philosophique, incapable de produire lui-même un discours réflexif, est en crise et nécessite alors un discours réflexif non-verbal, ouvrant la porte aux images et aux images en mouvement, partiellement affranchies des failles du langage verbal. Le principe clé de l’intégration des images à la pensée de Merleau-Ponty serait dès lors de faire voir au lieu d’expliquer et c’est à partir de ce constat que Slock va rapprocher Merleau-Ponty d’Epstein. Même si la relation de Merleau-Ponty au cinéma repose sur un corpus restreint et même si la place accordée au cinéma est incomparable à celle accordée à la peinture, le cinéma, du fait de sa capacité immersive, donnerait la possibilité au sujet de devenir à la fois voyant et vu. A cause de sa dimension technique et artificielle, le cinéma est logiquement plus proche du langage parlé que la peinture. Cette dernière jouit d’une forme d’immédiateté et de simplicité du geste créateur qui correspond à la recherche de Merleau-Ponty d’une expérience artistique désœuvrée. Malgré cela, le cinéma possède la capacité d’offrir une réflexion sur la réversibilité de la conscience et du monde et les images cinématographiques feront peu à peu leur retour dans la pensée merleau-pontienne à mesure que le principe de réversibilité s’affine dans ses théories postérieures aux années 40.

En ce qui concerne Epstein, Slock le considère comme un auteur inclassable à plus d’un titre. Mêlant à la fois des enjeux scientifique, métaphysique et poétique, Epstein ne chercherait pas à être la conscience d’un artiste mais à décrire le cinéma en tant qu’entité artificielle indépendante. Malgré son travail théorique prolifique, celui-ci ne précède jamais l’élaboration de ses films. Au contraire, l’écrit récupère seulement ce que le film suscite en l’organisant dans un discours rationnel. Le langage écrit est toujours asservi à la rationalité et c’est pour cela que seul le cinématographe est capable de résoudre les problèmes de la philosophie en palliant aux limitations de l’esprit humain. Slock voit chez Epstein une pensée inédite de la rupture qui force le lecteur à un renversement total de ses croyances. Elle nous renvoie à une époque où la « philosophie du cinéma » restait tout à faire, un potentiel « indéfini » qui exigeait de repenser les frontières entre technologie, philosophie et image. Si le rejet de la doxa philosophique est radical chez Epstein, cela serait moins le cas chez Merleau-Ponty qui préserverait une certaine idée de la « raison ». Néanmoins, Slock rapproche le positionnement du cinéma chez Epstein, qui n’est ni une raison autoritaire, ni un pur empirisme, à l’ambiguïté de la philosophie merleau-pontienne. Mais contrairement à Merleau-Ponty, Epstein irait au-delà du stade de claudication volontaire du discours de Merleau-Ponty, en disposant d’une entité théorique capable de se soustraire aux cadres de la raison, et d’élever la perception au rang de connaissance. Slock conclut la première partie de son ouvrage en mettant en avant l’ambiguïté comme concept majeur unissant Epstein et Merleau-Ponty.

Dans la deuxième partie, Slock poursuit la comparaison entre les deux auteurs en se basant notamment sur une série de cours intitulée Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression donnés par Merleau-Ponty en 1952-1953 et se concentre sur sa notion de réversibilité, au cœur du rapport de Merleau-Ponty à Epstein et au cinéma. D’après Slock, le concept de « mouvement », tel que développé dans les cours de Merleau-Ponty, se rapproche au plus près du « secret » de l’expressivité et c’est dans ce contexte qu’il ménagerait une place sans précédent au cinématographe. Le cinéma semblerait être, en effet, une possible mise en pratique de l’expressivité du mouvement. Mais surtout, et c’est le cœur de la thèse de Slock, le cinéma mettrait en jeu le concept de réversibilité. Ce sont plus particulièrement les dimensions de normalité et d’étrangeté qu’il met en avant car Merleau-Ponty utilise la notion d’étrangeté pour désigner la réversibilité et le rôle révélateur des procédés de manipulation de la temporalité au cinéma. Il y aurait donc rupture, pour Merleau-Ponty, entre la « normalité » attendue du cinéma en tant qu’enregistrement du réel et son étrangeté liée au choc que provoque son altérité avec le monde. Cette « normalité » amènerait Merleau-Ponty tout comme Epstein à associer le cinématographe à la conscience humaine, capable de se révolter contre cette association forcée aux normes de la perception humaine et ainsi soutenir l’idée d’un mouvement qui exprimerait plus que lui-même. Néanmoins, il est important pour Slock de défendre l’idée qu’il ne s’agit ni pour Merleau-Ponty ni pour Epstein de créer un régime d’identité entre le cinématographe et la conscience humaine. Bien au contraire, l’étrangeté évoquée par Merleau-Ponty proviendrait de l’altérité même de la conscience cinématographique face à celle de l’être humain. Avec la notion de réversibilité qui se retrouve au cœur du tournant philosophique de Merleau-Ponty, le cinéma gagne de l’importance en rendant compte du double mouvement du corps vers le monde et réciproquement. D’après Slock, cette notion est également centrale dans la relation entre Merleau-Ponty et Epstein. Mais si cette notion semble concerner l’écrit chez Merleau-Ponty, elle est le propre du cinéma chez Epstein. D’après Slock, l’intervention du cinématographe, qui fait exploser les lois de l’Univers par la réversibilité des images, mettrait fin à l’équilibre précaire de la phénoménologie pour laisser place à une pure instabilité. La réversibilité du temps, centrale dans la pensée d’Epstein, porte une valeur philosophique dont Slock ne doute pas. Slock pose dès lors la question suivante : « la temporalité alternative offerte par les images cinématographiques peut effectivement générer du savoir neuf, ou bien reste-t-elle une fiction philosophique » (128) ? Il répond positivement à cette réserve en défendant que le cinématographe, en plus de permettre de saisir cette alternative, serait également capable de générer un entendement alternatif, au travers du choc généré par la réversibilité des images, amenant ainsi la pensée brute et le monde à redécouvrir leurs liens.

Slock poursuit en se concentrant sur la question du regard de l’homme face à celui du cinématographe afin de déterminer ce en quoi ils se distinguent mais aussi ce en quoi ils se rejoignent. L’asymétrie entre ces deux regards est fondamentale d’après Slock car elle permet de rendre le cinématographe « expressif ». Le regard de la caméra s’inscrirait, pour Epstein, à un niveau « surréflexif ». Le cinéma apporterait de cette manière une solution au paradoxe phénoménologique d’une conscience capable de s’examiner sans interférer avec l’examination, mais aussi sans « s’oublier ». En effet, pour Epstein, le cinéma porte un regard qui peut assumer les distorsions sans que celles-ci soient falsifiantes. Le cinéma serait ainsi un excellent candidat pour ce « second niveau » de réflexion : « à l’écran, je découvre ma pensée “au carré” » (143). Slock propose alors un rapprochement entre l’idée epsteinienne d’un « baptême de l’écran » et la théorie du langage de Merleau-Ponty. Pour Epstein, le baptême de l’écran amène le spectateur à se confronter pour la première fois à sa propre image objectivée. En ce qui concerne Merleau-Ponty, une première rupture du silence est fondamentale car elle offre la possibilité d’expérimenter le vide, expérience qui se rapprocherait de celle du baptême de l’écran. Le spectateur se retrouve face à une image de lui-même identique mais différente, ce qui crée une instabilité dans son rapport avec sa propre identité. Cette première analogie amène Slock à en aborder deux autres : celle entre le concept epsteinien de croyance et celui d’hallucination de Merleau-Ponty et celle entre le mouvement vital selon Epstein et l’expressivité. Malgré ces similitudes, Epstein entrerait en conflit avec le désir de la phénoménologie d’un retour à l’être brut, à cause de l’intervention du cinématographe. Slock insiste en effet sur la méfiance de Merleau-Ponty à l’égard des artifices scientifiques et du culte de la technique qui en ferait un intermédiaire entre la conscience et le monde. Néanmoins, la conscience cinématographique et la conscience expressive « réformée » restent similaires d’après Slock en tant que le cinématographe n’agit pas comme une addition à la conscience, contrairement aux autres technologies, mais comme une forme expressive parallèle à celle-ci. Ainsi, Slock conclut en défendant l’idée selon laquelle le cinéma plutôt que d’amplifier la vision comme les autres outils scientifiques, offre une vue nouvelle du monde.

La troisième partie de l’ouvrage est consacrée à l’analyse de l’esthétique de la machine cinématographique au travers d’une analyse du rapport entre homme et machine en faisant appel à un troisième auteur, Gilbert Simondon. D’après Slock, le principe de la « conscience » cinématographique apparaît avec le postulat selon lequel le cinéma possède une vision différente de celle de l’être humain. C’est à partir de ce postulat que Slock défend l’idée du cinéma comme possible interlocuteur de la phénoménologie de Merleau-Ponty. Comme déjà abordé plus haut, Merleau-Ponty se méfie de l’outil artificiel comme dédoublement ou amplification du rapport naturel au monde car il met en danger la conscience irréfléchie qui s’anéantirait dans l’artifice. Ainsi, Merleau-Ponty critique l’excès de l’artifice, qu’il soit conceptuel ou technique en y opposant l’immédiateté du retour aux choses mêmes, non seulement à travers le corps percevant, mais en floutant les frontières entre le corps et le monde. Pour Slock, Epstein critiquerait également l’artifice comme valeur en soi à partir du moment où il se met au service de la rationalisation du monde. Néanmoins, Epstein défend le cinématographe qui, à l’inverse de la technique scientifique, ramène à un rapport plus originaire et non pas artificiel au monde. C’est dans ce rapport problématique de la conscience à l’artifice que Slock fait intervenir la philosophie de la technique de Gilbert Simondon, héritier de Merleau-Ponty, et qui possèderait la particularité de réussir à rendre compatible le retour au monde brut et l’artifice technique. L’idée centrale de Simondon est que la machine exprime directement l’être primitif en dialoguant avec lui et ne se réduit donc pas au prolongement d’une pensée technique et conceptuelle qui l’éloignerait de cet être. D’après Simondon, la difficulté d’intégrer les particularités techniques proviendrait du rejet culturel de son époque, de l’objet technique auquel l’on refuse toute dimension esthétique et donc une véritable valeur significative. Réduire la machine à l’outil consisterait, pour Simondon, à établir une symétrie entre celle-ci et l’homme, la vidant de son sens. C’est pourquoi, d’après Slock, le refus d’une esthétique de la machine aboutit à la fois à sa réduction au statut stérile d’outil et à sa sacralisation. Les intuitions de Simondon et de Merleau-Ponty quant à un prométhéisme de la machine seraient compatibles en ce qu’elles portent toutes deux sur une symétrie homme/machine qui donne lieu soit à une conception de l’outil comme prolongement de la conscience et une répétition automatique de sa forme, soit à l’idée d’une technique reproduisant la conscience de manière autonome. Slock fait alors intervenir Epstein et sa pensée du cinématographe, cette machine expressive qui ne s’apparente ni à un outil, ni au fantasme de l’androïde et qui entretient avec son créateur un rapport asymétrique riche de sens. Le modèle de la machine cinématographique d’Epstein offre un point de vue intéressant dans le problème « d’asymétrie » rencontré par Simondon dans sa tentative d’éclairer le rapport entre homme et technique et Merleau-Ponty dans sa réflexion du rapport entre philosophie et langage. D’après Slock, Simondon et Epstein se distinguent par leur vision différente du caractère automatique de la machine. Si pour Simondon, l’aspect automatique de la machine devrait être éliminé, pour Epstein il est fondamental dans sa capacité à manipuler le temps. Ce dernier se retrouve alors dans la tâche délicate de distinguer le pur mécanisme automatique de l’autonomie expressive de la machine. D’après Slock, il est difficile pour Epstein de faire de cette autonomie plus qu’une posture théorique. Il est pour cela vital, pour Epstein, de fonder sa pensée sur un potentiel incompressible, particulièrement en ce qui concerne la question de l’automatisme qu’il ne peut démontrer, où le potentiel du cinéma n’est appréhendé qu’en « décalage ». La réponse de Simondon au problème de l’automatisme qui correspond d’après Slock à la vision de la relation entre l’homme et la machine d’Epstein, consisterait à mettre la machine et l’homme sur un pied d’égalité asymétrique offrant la possibilité d’un dialogue. Slock conclut alors en affirmant la similitude entre les trois auteurs abordés dans la recherche d’une machine et d’une pensée qui s’articuleraient en une entité vivante.

Slock propose alors une analyse du rapport entre la machine cinématographique et le divin avant de s’atteler à la conceptualisation d’une philosophie du possible. D’après Slock, le cinéma apparait comme un outil surpuissant d’exposition de la vérité chez Epstein. Au lieu de prolonger et conforter le mode opératoire de la raison comme la science, la machine cinématographique y couperait court en instaurant sa propre autorité. La légitimité du cinéma se justifie en opérant en dehors des cadres établis par l’entendement humain, étant ainsi capable d’atteindre directement les choses mêmes. Cette conception pourrait rapprocher le cinématographe d’Epstein du divin. Néanmoins, il s’éloignerait autant de la conception du « divin », entendu comme ce qui rend possible un savoir basé sur la continuité et l’irréversibilité, que de l’humain. Face à ces deux types de pensée rigide, divin et humain, Epstein oppose la pensée fluide permise par le cinéma. Ainsi, contrairement à Merleau-Ponty qui ne distinguerait pas complètement la parole du cinématographe de sa récupération par le discours philosophique, Epstein la concevrait comme étant exclusive. Slock propose alors de situer le cinématographe dans un espace d’indétermination entre l’humain et le divin. A cela, il ajoute une mise en question de la valeur réelle du « possible » dans lequel cette alternative flotte. Cette valeur du possible constitue d’après Slock l’un des éléments essentiels de la pensée d’Epstein mais aussi l’un des points communs le plus fort entre ce dernier et Merleau-Ponty. Dans cette conception, Epstein se positionnerait contre Kant en défendant la validité épistémologique du fictif. L’écrit joue dans ce cadre un rôle prophétique, ne pouvant apporter la preuve mais seulement inciter la croyance. Slock revient alors sur le caractère divin du cinématographe, en ce qu’il ne construit pas un autre entendement mais une nouvelle apparition d’une forme d’entendement divin. Il y aurait en effet une divination de l’image chez Epstein, à partir du moment où le cinématographe possède la capacité d’insuffler à l’objet capturé une existence propre à l’écran. Slock propose alors une forte critique d’Epstein et de son échec double : « d’une part, il ne parvient pas à véritablement établir ce tiers « autre » entre Dieu et l’homme. Et d’autre part, il faillit à son discours parfois violemment critique d’une pensée assujettie à « Dieu » […] » (214). Ainsi, la pensée epsteinienne adopterait un accent ouvertement antirationaliste mais souterrainement théologique. Le renversement de la Raison amènerait à une autre tyrannie qui remet en cause l’indétermination dans laquelle Epstein veut se maintenir. Pour pallier cela, Epstein adopterait, d’après Slock, une position de « panthéiste moniste », « une posture censée lui permettre de résoudre finalement les dualismes de la philosophie, en les faisant régresser vers une unité primordiale » (216) et lui permettant de préserver une forme d’indéfinition entre le sujet et le monde qui s’entend surtout dans le sens d’une expansion radicale du sujet. Slock conclut alors cette troisième partie en insistant sur le fait que, contrairement à un prométhéisme tel que le craignait Merleau-Ponty, on assiste avec le cinématographe à une indistinction théorique entre le monde et la conscience.

Le chapitre conclusif propose une série de rapprochements entre l’esthétique du cinéma et la Chair de Merleau-Ponty en mettant en avant une alternative « tactile » au modèle epsteinien. Slock défend en effet l’importance du rôle de l’image en mouvement dans la volonté de sauvegarder le discours de Merleau-Ponty sur l’« être non coïncidant » et celle de penser l’image et l’image en mouvement comme mise en œuvre d’une réversibilité entre le voyant et le vu. Dans cette visée, Slock met en avant le concept de profondeur qui vise à réintroduire un principe d’altérité et de réciprocité dans l’ontologie merleau-pontienne et qui prendrait un sens supplémentaire lorsque mis en relation avec l’image en mouvement. La profondeur ainsi repensée amène à une redéfinition du voir fondamentalement compatible avec les théories d’Epstein et permet de confirmer une théorie de l’ouverture réciproque du voyant et du vu. D’après Slock, cette idée accompagne le problème de la proximité et de l’association du voir et du toucher, une autre voie possible pour rapprocher Merleau-Ponty du cinéma. En effet, d’après Slock, la tentative du phénoménologue de rendre la vision plus tactile, l’amènerait à préserver une forme de surréflexion en l’intégrant directement à l’expérience perceptive et ainsi mettre en relation réversibilité et cinéma. Pour Slock, il est primordial de poursuivre la volonté de permettre à l’expérience spécifique du cinéma et à la corporéité de la conscience merleau-pontienne de mieux se définir mutuellement. Pour lui, redéfinir la vision du cinéma comme vision tactile amènerait l’idée du film comme étant lui-même un corps percevant à la rencontre duquel le spectateur s’avance. Au travers du principe de réversibilité, le film devient sujet percevant, une structure à la fois perceptive et expressive. Cette conception l’amène à proposer une alternative à la théorie d’Epstein en pensant l’écart à travers l’interface avec laquelle la conscience perceptive va interagir avec cet « autre » présent dans les images en mouvement. Le film devient alors un corps à la fois voyant et visible et l’écran un espace de dialogue entre le corps du spectateur et celui du film. Cette conception de surface tactile marquée par le principe de réversibilité, désigné par les termes de surface et de profondeur, apparaît pour Slock comme la métaphore la plus pertinente destinée à penser le film comme interlocuteur corporel du spectateur. Ainsi pour Slock, « le cinéma n’offre pas de coïncidence complète du spectateur et du film, mais bien un rapport tactile au sens entendu ici, puisque c’est sur un même mode qu’ils sont chacun voyant et vu à la fois. La créature cinématographique d’Epstein se retrouve ici réduite à sa surface, l’écran, réciproque de l’épiderme humain » (246).

L’ouvrage de Slock présente une thèse intéressante et inédite sur la relation entre les pensées de Merleau-Pony et d’Epstein sur le cinéma et élabore une conception phénoménologique du cinéma qui ouvre sur un rapport « tactile » entre le spectateur et le film. Une des grandes forces d’une telle conception est son ouverture sur une possible réflexion sur les usages contemporains de l’image en mouvement comme les écrans tactiles ou la réalité virtuelle et augmentée. Ce livre me semble d’intérêt non seulement pour les chercheurs qui se consacrent à Merleau-Ponty ou Epstein, mais également pour les théoriciens du cinéma qui s’intéressent à des questions ontologiques et aux usages et développements contemporains de l’image en mouvement.

Richard Schaeffler: Phänomenologie der Religion: Grundzüge ihrer Fragestellungen

Phänomenologie der Religion: Grundzüge ihrer Fragestellungen Book Cover Phänomenologie der Religion: Grundzüge ihrer Fragestellungen
Richard Schaeffler
Karl Alber
2018
Paperback 34,00 €
216

Reviewed by:  Thomas J. Spiegel (University of Potsdam)

Religion denken. Rezension zu Richard Schaeffler: Phänomenologie der Religion, Grundzüge ihrer Fragestellung

 

Ein zentraler methodologischer Widerstreit der kontemporären theoretischen Philosophie kann als einer zwischen Beschreibung und Erklärung verstanden werden (Leiter 2004, Rorty 2010). Dieser Widerstreit ist bekanntlich zunächst von Dilthey (1984), dann auch von Wittgenstein (2002) metatheoretisch in den Blick genommen worden. Philosophie als Erklärung insbesondere in Form des Naturalismus ist die derzeitige Orthodoxie in weiten Teilen der Philosophie, insbesondere der angelsächsischen Tradition, aber zunehmend auch im deutschsprachigen Raum, der sich allmählich formalen und inhaltlichen Standards der analytischen Philosophie anzupassen scheint. Philosophie als Beschreibung wird maßgeblich von den Traditionen der Phänomenologie und Hermeneutik vertreten; Traditionen, die (glücklicherweise) zwarlebendig sind,  aber im kontinentaleuropäischen Raum eben nicht mehr in der Form vorherrschen wie beispielsweise noch in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts. In diesem Sinne könnte man behaupten, dass Philosophie als Erklärung bereits „gewonnen“ habe oder sich auf dem „Siegeszug“ befinde. In diesem Spannungsfeld, das zentrale soziologische und metaphilosophische Aspekte berührt, sind detaillierte phänomenologische Studien wie Schaefflers Phänomenologie der Religion wertvoll, um ein Gegengewicht gegen eine relative Vormachtstellung des Naturalismus in (Teilen der) analytischen Philosophie zu entwickeln und Potentiale der Phänomenologie, i.e. Philosophie als Beschreibung, als Alternative zu verdeutlichen.

Das Ziel von Schaefflers Buch ist die Darstellung und Entwicklung der Phänomenologie in Anschluss an Husserl als geeignete Methode der Beschäftigung mit dem Phänomenon der Religion zur Beantwortung folgender Desiderate, die in der bisherigen Religionsphänomenologie laut Schaeffler unbeantwortet blieben: Die „‚Rückübersetzung‘ der Noemata (intentionalen Korrelate) in die Konstitutionsleistungen der religiösen Noesis (des religiösen Akts)“ (S. 32), die Herausarbeitung der Differenz des religiösen Aktes gegenüber anderen Akten, die Bestimmung der Bedeutung der religiösen Intersubjektivität gegen eine religiöse Individualität und die Ablehnung einer Überbetonung der Eigengesetzlichkeit der Religion, was Kritik an religiösen Formen verunmögliche. Schaeffler möchte diese Ansprüche durch eine exemplarische Entfaltung bestimmter Grundbegriffe der Religionsphänomenologie einholen. Die Entscheidung für die Phänomenologie gründet in der Überzeugung, dass die Religionsphilosophie der Religion nicht den „Selbst-Aussagen der Religion […] mit apriorischen Argumenten“ ins Wort zu fallen hat (S. 13). Zusätzlich zu dieser Setzung führt er folgende Gründe an (S. 32): erstens fängt Phänomenologie die Eigengesetzlichkeit der Religion ein und verhindert Reduktionismus; zweitens lässt Phänomenologie uns die Aspekte der religiösen Erfahrung aus dem religiösen Akt verstehen; drittens sorgt Phänomenologie für ein angemessenes Verständnis der Geschichte der Religion. Diese Potentiale sieht Schaeffler noch ungenutzt und erwirbt damit die Motivation zur Durchführung des Projekts. Dabei habe die phänomenologische Religionsphilosophie zugleich die kritische Aufgabe, „Fehlgestaltungen (Pseudomorphosen)“ (S. 14) religiösen Handelns aufzudecken und zu korrigieren. Das Richtmaß dieser Korrektur soll dabei jedoch der von der jeweiligen religiösen Praxis entnommene Standard sein.

Diese genannten Desiderate an eine Religionsphänomenologie sollen in diesem Buch geklärt werden. Im ersten Kapitel diskutiert Schaeffler mögliche methodologische Ausrichtungen der Religionsphilosophie: Philosophie als ‚Abkömmling‘ der Religion (i), religiöses Fragen als der Philosophie methodologisch vorgeordnet (ii), Religionsphilosophie auf Basis philosophischer Theologie (iii), transzendentale Theologie (iv), religionsphilosophische Phänomenologie (v) und der linguistic turn in der Religionsphilosophie (vi). Aus schon genannten Gründen entscheidet sich Schaeffler für die religionsphilosophisch-phänomenologische Methode.

Es ist leider den Kapiteln nicht je ein Desiderat zugeordnet. Es scheint, dass Schaeffler hofft, dass nach dem Durchgang des Buches von selbst deutlich wird, wie diese Desiderate zu den Teilen der phänomenologischen Darlegung passen. Hier wünscht man sich als Leser eine klarere Regieanweisung seitens Schaeffler, aus der deutlich wird, welche phänomenologischen Darstellungen für welches Desiderat tatsächlich relevant sind. In diesem Sinne ist es gut, dass Forschungsdesiderate klar benannt werden – nur die positive Lösung für diese Desiderate kann unklar bleiben.

Kapitel zwei bis vier handeln von verschiedenen Aspekten des religiösen Aktes. Das zweite Kapitel widmet sich der Eigenheit der religiösen Sprache als Teil des religiösen Akts, das dritte Kapitel widmet sich dem religiösen Kult als Einbettung des religiösen Akts, das vierte Kapitel widmet sich den Traditionen, in denen die Formen des religiösen Akts überliefert werden.Schaeffler betont hier zu recht, dass die Fähigkeit zum religiösen Akt nicht angeboren ist, sondern stets die Erlernung durch das Sich-Einordnen in eine vorhandene Tradition benötigt. Das fünfte Kapitel unternimmt die Überlegung, wie der Begriff Gottes (bzw. der Götter) ein Thema der Religionsphilosophie in phänomenologischer Hinsicht sein kann. Zu diesem Zweck stellt das Kapitel drei Denkweisen in Bezug auf Gott einander gegenüber: die Götter der Religionen, der Gott der Philosophen und den Gott der Bibel. Ziel dieser Gegenüberstellung ist es, das Verhältnis von religiösen Akten und religiösen Gegenständen zu verdeutlichen: Gegenstand („Korrelat“, S. 142) des religiösen Aktes ist Gott (bzw. Götter). Den Begriff Gottes (bzw. der Götter) will Schaeffler dabei aus der Religion als Phänomen selbst gewinnen und nicht ex cathedra im Sinne einer philosophischen Theologie entwickeln. Auf das fünfte Kapitel folgt ein Ausblick in Form einer Reflexion auf das Verhältnis von Religion und säkularer Vernunft. (Der Inhalt des Ausblicks ist weiter unten ausführlich behandelt.)

In nuce: Der Anfang des Buches stellt eine interessante Reflexion auf Methode und Sinn der Phänomenologie dar. Der Mittelteil – der Hauptteil des Buches – ist die konkrete Anwendung dieser Methode in Form eines phänomenologischen Flugs über die begriffliche Landschaft der Religion. Der Schluss – der Ausblick – fragt nach dem Verhältnis von Religion und säkularer Vernunft. Wie bei vielen philosophischen Werken geschieht die wichtigste Arbeit auch hier am Anfang und am Schluss der Darstellung. Im Folgenden beschränke ich mich daher in der kritischen Auseinandersetzung auf vier zentrale Punkte, die sich maßgeblich mit Anfang und Schluss von Schaefflers Monographie beschäftigen.

  1. Naturalisierung der Religion als Methode

Schaefflers Auseinandersetzung mit konkurrierenden methodologischen Ansätzen der Religionsphilosophie ist zumindest in der Darstellung und Kritik der reduktionistischen Strömungen zu kurz. Ein seit spätestens der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts zentral gewordener Topos im Nachdenken über die Religion besteht in naturalisierenden, i.e. reduktionistischen, Erklärungsstrategien. Diese Naturalisierungsstrategien kommen in bestimmten Formen daher. Zwei paradigmatische Ausformungen dieser naturalistischen Reduktionsind folgende: einmal solche, die das Phänomenon der Religion in einem weitgehend darwinistisch-evolutionstheoretischen Rahmen begreifen, wonach Religion vor allem ein selektionsrelevanter Faktor sei. Zweitens gibt es solche, die Religion und Glaube als nützliche Fiktionen psychologisieren wollen. Religion wäre dann nichts anderes mehr als eine evolutionsbiologische Laune bzw. bloße psychologische Einbildung.

Schaeffler lehnt zwar die Reduktion der Religion zugunsten ihrer Eigengesetzlichkeit ab (S. 32), es wird jedoch nicht klar, weshalb. Die Frage nach dieser sogenannten Eigengesetzlichkeit der Religion ist somit zugleich die Frage, weshalb die Religion zunächst stets an ihren eigenen und nicht ihr äußerlichen Maßstäben gemessen werden sollte (S. 141). Zwar mögen die konkurrierenden naturalistischen Ansätze selbst nichtbesonders sinnvoll oder überzeugend sind.Dennoch könnte Schaefflers Abhandlung durch eine Beschäftigung mit diesen Denktraditionen und einer detaillierteren Kritik an naturalistischen Ansätzen profitieren. Die fehlende Auseinandersetzung mit theoretischen Erz-Opponenten schmälert Schaefflers ansonsten sehr klare und lohnenswerte methodologische Abhandlung. In diesem Sinn erhält eine unbegründete Ablehnung des Reduktionismus, sollte sie auch korrekt sein, einen unnötigen dogmatistischen Beigeschmack. Daher wäre gerade für das erste Kapitel noch die Beschäftigung mit Naturalisierungsstrategien als weitere, siebte Methode der Religionsphilosophie interessant.

  1. Forschungsliteratur

Der vorherige Punkt deutet auf ein allgemeineres Problem hin: das Literaturverzeichnis und die Referenzen. Schaefflers Buch ist von einer beeindruckenden Kenntnis religiöser Primärtexte gekennzeichnet. Jedoch bezieht Schaeffler sich größtenteils auf ältere Forschungsliteratur. Die jüngste Publikation, die er nennt, ist eine Monographie von Hermann Usener von 1996 (Schaefflers eigene Texte ausgenommen); die nächst-jüngere ist eine Monographie von Ingolf Dalfert von 1984. Nun ist es freilich nicht so, dass der Bezug auf aktuelle Forschungsliteratur ein Garant für Qualität ist. Es stimmt auch nicht, dass der fehlende Bezug auf solche Literatur einen Gedanken falsch oder eine Abhandlung schlechtmacht. Es ist jedoch der Fall, dass Schaefflers Darstellung und Argument für die Phänomenologie als rechte Methode der Religionsphilosophie durch einen breiter gefächerten Bezug auf Forschungsliteratur weiter an Überzeugungskraft gewinnen würde. Im Mindesten könnten solche Referenzen es für den geneigten Leser einfacher machen, Schaefflers Ausführungen in die derzeitige Forschungslandschaft und Debattenstruktur einzubetten.

Verwandt mit diesem Ausbleiben ist auch das Fehlen anderer phänomenologischer Autoren. Husserl ist der phänomenologische Held dieses Buches – Schaeffler stellt seine Abhandlung an mehreren Stellen durch direkten Bezug auf Husserls Vokabular in diese Tradition. Eine Beschäftigung mit weiteren großen Figuren der Phänomenologie wie Heidegger oder Merleau-Pontywäre hier jedoch auch interessant. Insbesondere die Frage, inwiefern Heideggers Transformation der Phänomenologie in Sein und Zeit, speziell durch den Begriff des Mitseins, nicht schon Schaefflers Kritik eingeholt hat, dass die Phänomenologie Husserls zur Individualisierung der Erfahrung neigt, welche er in seiner eigenen Abhandlung vermeiden möchte (S. 33). In diesem Punkt zumindest scheint die Phänomenologie teilweise schon weiter entwickelt zu sein als Schaeffler suggeriert.

  1. Religionsphilosophie und Religionswissenschaften

Da es nicht Gegenstand von Schaefflers Erklärungsziel ist, lässt sich folgender Punkt nicht direkt als Kritik verstehen, sondern eher als angeregte Nachfragen im Anschluss an seine Ausführungen. Es stellt sich die Frage, wie in Anschluss an Schaeffler das Verhältnis von empirischer Religionswissenschaft (und Ethnologie) und phänomenologischer Religionsphilosophie zu denken ist. Eine zentrale Gefahr scheint mir hier in einem Abgrenzungsproblem zu bestehen. Empirische Religionswissenschaft, zumindest die hermeneutisch geprägte, priorisiert nämlich allzu oft die Eigengesetzlichkeit und Nicht-Reduzierbarkeit der von ihr untersuchten Phänomene. Dies ist aber ein zentrales Merkmal, das Schaeffler für die Religionsphilosophie beansprucht. Nun ist es nicht ganz eindeutig, obes als Abgrenzungskriterium genügt zu behaupten, dass empirische Religionswissenschaft einzelne Religionen oder religiöse Praktiken untersucht und die phänomenologische Religionsphilosophie die allgemeinen Begriffe solcher Praktiken. Zumindest besteht die Gefahr, dass sich Religionswissenschaft hermeneutischer Prägung und Religionsphänomenologie zu ähnlich werden. Soll stattdessen die „Magd“ Religionswissenschaft der Religionsphilosophie Zuarbeit leisten (oder andersherum)? Soll die Religionsphilosophie im Sinn eines methodologischen Fundamentalismus den Religionswissenschaften ein begriffliches Vorverständnis liefern? Solche Fragen wären in Anschluss an Schaeffler zu klären.

  1. Transzendentale Vernunftpostulate – Das Projekt einer profanen Vernunft

Direkt auf das fünfte Kapitel, das sich noch mit dem Begriff Gottes als Thema der Religionsphilosophie befasst, folgt etwas unvermittelt Schaefflers Ausblick. Dieser Ausblick enthält vier Thesen und ist mit zwei Seiten vergleichsweise kurz geraten. Dennoch finden sich in diesem Ausblick die wahrscheinlich spannendsten philosophischen Punkte des gesamten Buchs. Im Folgenden werde ich Schaefflers stark kondensierten Projektentwurf rekonstruieren und im Ansatz kritisch einschränken.

Im Ausblick geht es Schaeffler um die Frage nach dem rechten Verhältnis von Religion und säkularer Vernunft in der Moderne, also um Religion als gelebte Praxis im Zeitalter des naturwissenschaftlichen Weltbilds, in dem Gott (wie man so meint) „tot“ sei (Nietzsche 1971, §108, §125). Ihm scheint es in der ersten These zunächst noch um eine Einschränkung der Religion gegenüber der säkularen Vernunft zu gehen: religiöse Argumente haben nicht in jedem Bereich Geltungskraft.

In Thesen zwei bis vier stellt Schaeffler nichts Geringeres als die ambitionierte These auf, dass die transzendentale Bedingung für Einzelerfahrung überhaupt in sog. Vernunftpostulaten besteht. Diese Vernunftpostulate „entdecken“ in den Einzelerfahrungen den Anspruch, mit dem „Gott uns seine Aufträge (‚Gebote‘) anvertraut“ (S. 209). Diese Vernunftpostulate haben den Status einer „in transzendentaler Hinsicht notwendige[n] Hoffnung: die Hoffnung, dass die Vernunft im Durchgang durch ihre Dialektik in verwandelter Gestalt [nämlich zur profanen Vernunft, TJS] wiederhergestellt werde, ohne dass die Art dieser Wiederherstellung aus Prinzipien a priori deduziert werden könnte“ (S. 210). In diesem Kontext wählt Schaeffler die an Kant (1911) angelehnte Formulierung: Postulate ohne religiöse Erfahrung sind leer; religiöse Erfahrung ohne Postulate ist blind. Die religiöse Erfahrung sichere, dass diese Vernunftpostulate kein bloßes Wunschdenken seien (denn sie seien ja mit religiöser Erfahrung unterfüttert). Im Gegenzug sicherten die religiösen Vernunftpostulate der religiösen Erfahrung eine Allgemeinheit, die sie von dem Verdacht, Teil einer „‚religiösen Sonderwelt‘ einer ‚Sondergruppe in der Gesellschaft‘“ zu sein,freisprechen soll (S. 210).

Diese Vernunftpostulate sind laut Schaeffler notwendig, da sich die säkulare Vernunft ohne sie in eine Dialektik aus Dogmatismus und Skeptizismus verheddere, welche in letzter Instanz die Vernunft selbst aufhöbe. Dabei bestehe der Dogmatismus in einem Dogmatismus der Wissenschaft, also einem Szientismus (nicht Schaefflers Wort), der nur die (Natur-)Wissenschaft als genuinen Weltzugang zulässt, und der Skeptizismus in einem Skeptizismus, der „jede Art von Geltungsanspruch auf die willkürliche Wahl einer unter mehreren möglichen Perspektiven erklärt“ (S. 209). Somit geht es Schaeffler hier doch darum, im Fluchtpunkt nachzuweisen, dass säkulare, i.e. nicht-religiöse, Vernunft die religiöse Vernunft und damit scheinbar den Verweis auf Transzendentes doch zur notwendigen Vorbedingung hat. Die säkulare Vernunft werde damit zur profanen Vernunft, die in der Erfahrung den Gott der Religionen wiedererkennt. Die Idee scheint zu sein, dass richtig verstandene transzendentale Phänomenologie das Verhältnis von naturwissenschaftlich-technischen Zivilisation (Tetens 2014) und der Religion neu auszurichten vermag als eine Form des nicht-reduktiven Nebenhers, bei der die religiöse Vernunft als transzendentale Notwendigkeit für alle Bereiche der Erfahrung verstanden wird.

Dieses Projekt ist in der Tat hochgradig interessant. Es ist daher umso mehr schade, dass uns Schaeffler nicht mehr Einzelheiten bereitstellt, sondern uns nur diese Denkanstöße zur eigenen Ausführung an die Hand gibt. In diesen sehr kurzen Überlegungen bleiben nämlich notwendigerweise zentrale Punkte unklar. Es bleibt beispielsweise unklar, weshalb genau die nicht-religiöse Vernunft sich in die Dialektik (oder meint Schaeffler eher „das Dilemma“?) von Dogmatismus und Skeptizismus verwickelt. Darüber hinaus wird es ohne eine Art Meisterargument für nicht schon Überzeugte nur schwierig einzusehen sein, wie eine profane Vernunft in der gewöhnlichen Erfahrung Gott zu erkennen vermag. Muss der Schritt in den Glauben erst vollzogen worden sein, um von der säkularen in die profane Vernunft überzutreten? Lässt sich dieser Schritt selbst allein durch die Vernunft vollziehen oder brauch es einen Kierkegaardschen Sprung in den Glauben? An dieser Stelle ist schon unklar, welche Art von Argument es zur Begründung von Schaefflers ambitionierter These bräuchte. Das ändert jedoch nichts daran, dass dieser Ausblick tatsächlich Grundlage für ein spannendes Anschlussprojekt sein kann.

Schaefflers Abhandlung demonstriert einen gewaltigen Kenntnisschatz, der sich im Laufe einer langen Karriere angesammelt hat. Das Buch liefert eine übersichtliche, nachvollziehbare und lehrreiche phänomenologische Kartographierung zentraler Grundbegriffe des Phänomens Religion. Diese Kartographierung der Grundbegriffe der Religionsphilosophie hat hier vor allem einen wichtigen exemplarischen Charakter. Anhand dieses Buches lässt sich ablesen, wie die phänomenologische Methode angewandt auf einen konkreten Begriffsbereich aussehen kann. Das Exemplum regt zum Nachmachen an. Es ist in seiner Nachvollziehbarkeit und methodologischen Grundsätzlichkeit für Studierende der Philosophie, Religionswissenschaft und Theologie geeignet, kann aber durchaus auch von Fachexperten dieser mit Gewinn gelesen werden.

Zusammenfassend: Schaefflers Überlegung krankt an fehlender Ausführlichkeit und Tiefe in der Auseinandersetzung mit konkurrierenden Positionen. Das führt unter anderem dazu, dass die phänomenologische Ausführung des Projekts in Kapitel zwei bis fünf teils im luftleeren Raum zu schweben scheinen und eben bloß als Exemplum der Anwendung der phänomenologischen Methode verstanden werden können, ihr Beitrag zur genuin philosophischen Debatte nicht ganz klar erkennbar ist. Ebenso bleibt das im Ausblick angelegte sehr interessante Projekt der Darlegung einer transzendentalen Grundlegung der säkularen Vernunft durch die religiöse Vernunft unkonturiert insofern nicht klar ist, welche Form ein solches Projekt nehmen könnte. Trotz dieser Defizite ist Schaefflers Phänomenologie der Religion gerade im eingangs skizzierten Widerstreit zwischen Philosophie als Erklärung versus Philosophie als Beschreibung ein wertvoller Beitrag zur Bildung eines Gegengewichts gegen eine Orthodoxie der Erklärungs-Philosophie im kontemporären intellektuellen Klima.

Literaturverzeichnis

Dilthey, Wilhelm (1984): Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Heidegger, Martin (2006): Sein und Zeit, zuerst veröffentlicht 1927, Tübingen: Niemeyer.

Hegel, G.W.F. (1980): Phänomenologie des Geistes, Gesammelte Werke Bd. 9. Hg. Rheinisch-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Hamburg: Felix Meiner.

Kant, Immanuel (1911): Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Akademieausgabe, Bd. 3, Erstpublikation 1787, Berlin: Königlich Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Leiter, Brian (2004) (ed.): The Future for Philosophy, Oxford: University Press.

Nietzsche, Friedrich (1971): Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft, Werke, Bd. 2, Frankfurt.

Rorty, Richard (2010): “Naturalism and Quietism”, in Mario De Caro & David Macarthur (eds.), Naturalism and Normativity, Columbia University Press, 55-68.

Schaeffler, Richard (2018): Phänomenologie der Religion, Grundzüge ihrer Fragestellung, Freiburg/München: Karl Alber Verlag.

Tetens, Holm (2014): “Der Glaube an die Wissenschaft und der methodische Atheismus. Zur religiösen Dialektik der wissenschaftlich-technischen Zivilisation”, Neue Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 55 (3),271-283.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2002): Philosophische Untersuchungen, Werkausgabe, Bd. 1, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Sophie Loidolt: Phenomenology of Plurality: Hannah Arendt on Political Intersubjectivity

Phenomenology of Plurality: Hannah Arendt on Political Intersubjectivity Book Cover Phenomenology of Plurality: Hannah Arendt on Political Intersubjectivity
Routledge Research in Phenomenology
Sophie Loidolt
Routledge
2018
Hardback £88.00
290

Reviewed by: Maria Robaszkiewicz (Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Paderborn University)

A book analyzing Hannah Arendt’s phenomenological background thoroughly is long overdue. Arendt’s biographer, Elisabeth Young Bruehl, mentions one of very few occasions, when Arendt spoke about her method (Young Bruehl 1982, 405), revealing her inclination to phenomenology: “I am a sort of phenomenologist. But, ach, not in Hegel’s way – or Husserl’s.” What sort of phenomenologist was Arendt then? Many scholars struggle with her methodology and it even worried one of her greatest mentors, Karl Jaspers, who complained about the ‘intuitive-chaotic-method’ of her writings. But could it be that there was a consistent methodological framework behind an ostensible chaos? Is it possible that Arendt not only was ‘a sort of phenomenologist’, but a fully fledged representative of the second generation phenomenologists after Husserl and Heidegger – whose members include Sartre, Fink, Merleau-Ponty, Patočka and Lévinas –who transformed phenomenology? In her new book, Sophie Loidolt makes a strong case for an affirmative answer to both of these questions. Phenomenology of Plurality: Hannah Arendt on Political Subjectivity is a very challenging read but it is also a very rewarding book.

Loidolt aims to draw a phenomenology of plurality from Arendt’s work and to illuminate consequences of a politicized approach to phenomenology by doing so. A further objective of the book is to rethink Arendt’s connections to phenomenology, positioning her in the broader context of traditional and contemporary phenomenological discourse (2). Both these aims interweave in Loidolt’s book, where she reconstructs basic phenomenological notions in Arendt, referring mainly to classical accounts of Husserl and Heidegger. The result is a novel account of the phenomenon of ‘actualized plurality’ in Arendt’s writings. Loidolt connects actualized plurality to the activities of acting, speaking and judging, which through their actualization evoke different spaces of meaning, where multiple subjects can appear to each other. The book brings Arendt into dialogue with numerous phenomenologists, most notably Merleau-Ponty and Lévinas. Further, Loidolt places her reflections in the broad context of Arendt-scholarship, although she distances herself from some prevalent paradigms present in the contemporary debate: the line of interpretation informed by the Frankfurt School (Habermas, Benhabib, Wellmer, and others), the poststructuralist approach (Honig, Villa, Heuer, Mouffe and others), as well as from the treatment of Arendt’s oeuvre from a purely political perspective, hence ‘de-philosophizing’ her (4) (Disch, Dietz, Canovan, Passerind’Entrèves, and others). In contrast, Loidolt aspires to rediscover the philosophical dimension in Arendt, not by depoliticizing her work, but rather by emphasizing the coexistence of both aspects and the connections between them. This inclusive gesture resonates with Arendt’s unwillingness to belong to any club and, consequently, with the difficulty to ascribe her to one academic field rather than to another.

Loidolt begins her book by invoking her intention to illuminate the philosophical dimension of Arendt’s work without distorting it by ignoring its other dimensions and deriving from it her goal to unveil the philosophical significance of Arendt’s work through a phenomenological examination of the notion of plurality. Many texts within Arendt-scholarship simply adopt Arendt’s language – often full of beautiful and meaningful expressions – without supplying a deeper analysis of its content and context. This is not the case with Sophie Loidolt’s book. She does not just ‘talk the talk’, she also delves deep into the meaning of Arendt’s language. Loedolt’s expertise in phenomenology allow her to achieve this goal, which also contributes to the achievement of her broader aim to familiarize both phenomenologists with Arendt and Arendtian scholars with foundations of phenomenology. The complexity of Loidolt’s book lies in this twofold focus: at first glance, it seems that the reader should have an extensive background both in Arendt and in phenomenology – a combination, which, as the author admits, is uncommon (2 – 8) but Loidolt does not demand so much of her readers. She draws numerous parallels between Arendt’s theory and those of other philosophers, whose status as phenomenologists is less contested, and she also continually draws readers’ attention to methodological elements that lie at ‘the heart of the phenomenological project’ (e.g. 25, 75, 125, 176). This way, she completes the task of introducing Arendt to phenomenologists and of introducing foundations of phenomenology to the Arendtians masterfully. Although this approach means that the book is not an easy read, it is definitely worth the effort.

The book consists essentially of two parts: in the first part, Transforming Phenomenology: Plurality and the Political, the author elaborates on the relation between Arendt’s account and phenomenology, whereas in the second part, Actualizing Plurality: The We, the Other, and the Self in Political Intersubjectivity, Loidolt develops her own phenomenological interpretation of Arendt’s philosophy of plurality. Each part comprises three chapters, divided into numerous subchapters, which makes this complex text more reader-friendly. The book is easy to navigate: every chapter begins with a very neat summary of the previous contents and a preview of what is tofollow. As such, each piece of theory that we encounter in subsection is approachable and easy to situate within the overall framework of Loidolt’s study. The only potential editorial refinement that comes to mind would be to number subchapters and to list these in the Contents, especially since the author often refers to subchapters by its number (e.g. 3.2), but these are not to be found in the current layout of the book.

In the first chapter, Loidolt lays the foundation for her investigation by drawing on the primordial event of the emergence of plurality. She sets off by reconstructing Arendt’s critique of Existenz Philosophy and classical phenomenology, based mostly on her early writings from the ‘1940s. The author sketches Arendt’s argument against (or at least relativizing) phenomenological accounts of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, as well as her take on Jaspers, who represents ‘all that is good about Existenz Philosophy’ (35). Through these moves of association and distinction, says Loidolt, Arendt formulates what can be described as ‘new political philosophy’ (39-40) – even if Arendt herself would have considered this a contradiction in terms. Arendt had good theoretical reasons to renounce philosophy altogether, but since Loidolt aims at recovering the philosophical profundity of her thought, this term seems to be acceptable in this context. The key elements of the new political philosophy would then be a focus on the being-with dimension of human existence (42), a refusal to engage in the project of mastering once being (26, 44), and hence also underlining the fragility of the realm of human affairs (46). These elements resonate with central categories of Arendt’s account of the political: plurality, freedom, and natality.

After having ‘provided a point of departure for a phenomenology of plurality’ (51), in the second chapter Loidolt puts actualizing plurality in a space of appearance in the center of her reflection. She emphasizes its active character as a contingent, non-necessary event and identifies it as a core phenomenon of Arendt’s new political philosophy. The chapter consists of an analysis of three central notions that indicate Arendt’s affinity to phenomenological approach: appearance, experience, and world. Each section traces one of the aforementioned notions back to its origins and shows its relevance for the project of the new political philosophy. First, Loidolt explores the notion of appearance, establishing, with Villa, its status as constitutive of reality (55). Through illuminating this ontological status of appearance in Arendt, Loidolt proves her to be a phenomenologist at heart: Arendt insists on exclusive primacy of appearance, an idea that she gets primarily from transforming Husserl’s and Heidegger’s phenomenological accounts and not, as Villa and Beiner argue (55), from Kant. Following Cavarero’s claim that Arendt’s political theory implies a radical form of phenomenological ontology, Loidolt retraces Arendt’s project of pluralization of appearance (64) and unfolds its consequences for her understanding of reality, self and world, referring in the course of her analysis to Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. Additionally, the author supplies a table relating respective concepts in Husserl, Heidegger, and Arendt that allows readers to follow the depicted transition at a glance. The second section focuses on the notion of experience. Loidolt offers a short overview of phenomenological-hermeneutic takes on Arendt’s notion of experience, but also investigates the deeper level of her engagement with experience, which goes beyond Arendt’s ‘techniques’ of narration, interpretation, and storytelling and concerns the very structure of experience (76). In the subsection devoted to this deeper level, she links Arendt’s historical hermeneutics to the phenomenological tradition, evoking not only Husserl and Heidegger, but also Lévinas, Merleau-Ponty, Patočka and Fink, and points at the interconnected notions of intentionality and subjectivity, which constitute the structure of experience. She shows how experience in Arendt is being actualized and pluralized, so that experiencing subjects can be conceived as ‘essentially existing as enactment’ in their multiplicity, hence transforming them into a moment of actualized relation (84, 93). The third section discusses Arendt’s concept of the world. Loidolt draws our attention to three notions of the world present in Arendt’s writings: the appearing world, the objective world, and the with-world (93). In her phenomenological analysis (turning again to Husserl and Heidegger), Loidolt displays the interrelation of these three notions and how they build upon one another. Indeed, the notions of the world as the space of appearance and the space of the political (with-world) are often used interchangeably in the literature. Loidolt’s phenomenological perspective contributes greatly to a more nuanced understanding of the difference between the two, which proves to be quite fundamental. Throughout the three sections, Loidolt  constructs the ‘pluralized and politicized’ phenomenological account that Arendt, according to her, had in mind. By doing so, she reaches out to both her target groups: Arendt-scholars and phenomenologists. She shows, on the one hand, that a phenomenological perspective can provide a better and more thorough understanding of Arendt’s theory, without ‘transcendentalizing’ it too far á la Husserl, and, on the other hand, that Arendt’s writings have a vast potential for contemporary social ontology, as pursued by phenomenologically oriented scholars.

In the third chapter of her book, Arendt’s Phenomenological Methodology, Loidolt focuses on two aims. First, she examines human conditionality, referring to a famous (and, as Loidolt shows, easy to misinterpret) systematization of activities from The Human Condition and emphasizing the enactive character of Arendtian conditions. Second, she develops an original interpretation of Arendt’s theory by applying the concept of ‘spaces of meaning’. The first subchapter criticizes approaches that tend to essentialize and solidify different activities and their respective conditions. These are often naively understood analogically to a baby shape sorter: just as every wooden block fits into a particular hole in a box, every human activity correlates to one of three categories. Loidolt, on the contrary, presents labor, work, and action as a dynamic structure, where all conditions are interconnected: “Since all conditions are actualized simply by human existence, i.e. by being a living body, by being involved in the world of objects/tools and by existing in the plural, being human means to dwell, however passively, in all of these meaning-spaces at one and the same time.” (116). In the second section, she presents what amounts to one of the most interesting moments of the book: the articulation of Arendt’s background methodology in terms of “dynamics of spaces of meaning” (123). According to this interpretation, every activity that takes place develops its particular logic, which can be described as a space of meaning. These spaces of meaning stand out as worlds with specific temporality, spatiality, a specific form of intersubjectivity, and an inner logic of sequence, rhythm, and modality (128). Loidolt adds a transformative dimension: a shift in meaning takes place when an activity and its space part (126). In this context, she takes up a controversial discussion about normative character of the private, the political, and the social space in Arendt and joins advocates of “an attitudinal rather than content-specific” interpretation of this distinction (145, cf. Benhabib 2003: 140). With her notion of meaning-spaces, Loidolt offers a vivid image that helps us to comprehend the structure of human existence as presented by Arendt in its full complexity. It also shows us how to avoid interpretative pitfalls resulting from attempts to essentialize human activities and ascribe them to a clear-cut realm, be it the private, the political or the social. Her main effort is directed towards emphasizing the activating element in Arendt’s account: the whole picture awakens before our very eyes.

Chapter 4, which opens the second part of Loidolt’s book, addresses plurality as political intersubjectivity. The author begins with an overview of different interpretations of plurality in various fields: political theory, social ontology, and in Arendt-scholarship. She presents a strong argument for political interpretation of plurality, which she describes as a plurality of first-person perspectives. Such a plurality forms a certain in-between, an assembly of those who act together, which provides a ground for any politics (153). When discussing plurality accounts within political theory (Mouffe, Laclau), Loidolt focuses primarily on post-foundational discourses and praises these for granting plurality ontological relevance. At the same time, she emphasizes that within this approach the first-person perspective gets lost. This, in turn, leads her to phenomenology. She positions her “phenomenological investigation into the social-ontological dimensions of plurality as a political phenomenon” (154) within the area of phenomenology, which addresses the “moral, normative and especially political dimensions of the ‘We’” (154, cf. Szanto& Moran 2016: 9). Subsequently, she sketches a broad context of Arendt-scholarship about plurality and draws our attention to the fact that a suitable answer to one fundamental question often remains a desideratum: What is plurality actually? (156) Loidolt develops an answer to this question in further sections of this chapter. She does so by, first, referring to Husserl and Heidegger – the move we already know from previous chapters. In what follows, she displays her phenomenological interpretation of plurality as ontologically relevant condition of beings as first-person perspectives, who exist in plural. As such, plurality has a fragile status: it can be actualized or not (175). This is one of the most philosophically dense parts of the book, where Loidolt formulates a number of illuminating theses to support her aim. She refers to well-known motives linked to plurality, such as uniqueness, the “who”, multiple points of view, web of relations, but she also evokes some new constellations, such as theorizing acting, speaking, and judging, as three equal-ranking modes of actualizing plurality (183). This chapter paves the way for the two that follow.

Chapter 5, “Actualizing a Plural ‘We’”, focuses on the question of actualization of plural uniqueness. Loidolt emphasizes the crucial problem of the fragility of plurality in terms of such an actualization: plurality can, but does not have to be, actualized. Arendt herself was aware of this fragility, not only in view of great catastrophes of the 20th Century, such as the rise of totalitarianism, but also in terms of human existence in a community in general. Plurality is the central condition of action, which facilitates an emergence of a public space. But ‘acting in concert’ – bringing multiple “who’s” into a common space of the political, is, as Arendt states, a rare event (Arendt 1998: 42). This might seem counterintuitive, since most of us are surrounded by other people on an everyday basis. But, for Arendt, not every human interaction is genuine action. To refer to a notion coined by Loidolt: the respective space of meaning must occur. According to the author, the three activities through which an actualization of plurality takes place are acting, speaking, and judging. As Loidolt herself admits, this constellation of activities is not a common move in interpretations of Arendt’s work (212). Indeed, Arendt counted judging among faculties of the mind. But to anyone familiar with Arendt’s work, Loidolt’s justification for bring the three together will be apparent. In the three sections of the chapter, she pursues a phenomenological inquiry of each of these activities with respect to their potential to actualize plurality. First, she brings Arendtian speaking together with Heidegger’s ‘being-as-speaking-with-one-another’ (195). She then presents acting as praxis or performance and points to its inherent connection to plurality: acting always appears within a web of relationships (200). Finally, Loidolt approaches judging not only in political terms, but she also draws our attention to its reflective dimension (213 – 218). However, judging differs from the other two activities because, while it seems capable of actualizing plurality as intersubjectivity, it does so in a slightly different space of meaning, which is not a space of appearance per se. Loidolt addresses the issue of public appearance directly in the course of this chapter, emphasizing that ‘actualized plurality needs the visibility of an in-between’ (225). The question of how this can refer to the faculty of judgment remains somewhat vague. It is clear that our “who” does not appear to others in judging in the same way, as it appears on what Arendt calls ‘the stage of the world’ (Arendt 2007: 233, 249. Arendt uses this expression only in the German version of the text). The community of judgment is an imaginary one, so we may only speak of appearance of the “who” in a metaphorical sense. Thus, Loidolt’s argument here calls for further investigation. This, however, does not jeopardize her overarching argument for an ethics of actualized plurality (230).

The question of normative potential of Arendt’s theory and its alleged ‘lack of moral foundations’ (233, cf. Benhabib 2006) is the theme of the last chapter of Loidolt’s book. As the author argues, a phenomenological inquiry shows that “ethical elements are inherent within Arendt’s conception of the political qua actualized plurality” (233) and do not need to be imposed on it from outside. The aim of this chapter is hence to provide the readers with an intrinsic ethics of actualized plurality (235). Loidolt begins with an analysis of thinking in Arendt. She does not follow interpretations “investigating the inner tension between the bipolar ‘moral self’ and Plurality”, but tends, rather, to maintain the specific separation of the political and the moral (234 – 235). This comes as a surprise, since Loidolt presents a convincing case for ‘pluralization’ of so many other phenomena throughout her book. Thinking, on the contrary, appears as a ‘solitary business’ and a ‘lonely experience’. This is a one-sided interpretation of Arendt’s concept of thinking. Obviously, it fits Loidolt’s argumentation at this point, but it also neglects the pluralistic aspect of thinking as an inner dialogue and its implications for the emergence of the ‘who’. As Arendt says, “And thought, in contradiction to contemplation with which it is all too frequently equated, is indeed an activity, and moreover, an activity that has certain moral results, namely that he who thinks constitutes himself into somebody, a person or a personality” (Arendt 2003: 105), even if she directly clarifies the difference between activity and acting. Loidolt takes a different path and describes thinking as a ‘derivative phenomenon’ (235) that cannot be a point of departure for an ethics of actualized plurality. Granted, this corresponds to the conditions of actualization of a “we”, which she identifies as: directedness/intentionality, authenticity, and visibility. At least visibility was not her concern in case of judging, though, while it seems to be decisive when it comes to denouncing thinking as a lonely enterprise. This, however, is my only criticism of Loidolt’s analysis. Overall, she presents a convincing account that integrates a particular normative – or rather proto-normative (234) – element into Arendt’s concept of plurality. She shows the fragility of the space created by action and plurality, but not only to emphasize its unsteady status. More importantly, she transforms this fragility into an asset: action follows its intrinsic logic, which means that it can be interrupted and taken up again, hence it is open to redefinition and reinterpretation by multiple interpreters (237). Through faculties of forgiving and promising, we establish relations between persons, which bring an element of the ‘empowerment through others’ into play (139). Loidolt then discusses ethical demands, which intertwine with domains other than the political: life, truth, and reason. Here, as she argues, actualized plurality is ethically relevant to addressing current global challenges of totalitarianism and biopolitics (234). Loidolt closes this illuminating chapter by reaching out to Lévinas and his ethics of alteritas and by presenting benefits of interrelating both theories (252).

Loidolt rightly contests the common belief that Arendt’s methodology was eclectic and random (52). Through her thorough and deep phenomenological investigation of Arendt’s political thought, she makes a successful attempt to display its overall methodological framework (which may not even have been fully evident to Arendt herself, considering her lack of interest in a methodological self-analysis). Husserl and Heidegger play a major role as references in Loidolt’s study, which is methodologically and historically comprehensible. It is an additional benefit of the book that she brings other phenomenologists from the ‘second generation’ (7) into play, which further underlines the potential for Arendt’s work to guide contemporary phenomenological inquiry. Loidolt also draws our attention to a particular feature of Arendt’s corpus: she wrote many of her texts first in English – a foreign language to her and not the one in which she received her philosophical education – then rewrote them in German herself. (12, 265). Loidolt, a native German speaker, observes that she found phenomenological traits to be omnipresent in the German versions of Arendt texts. She was surprised to discover that these traits were either much less apparent orabsent entirely from the English versions. This, I would argue, is one of the reasons why Arendt’s potential for phenomenology is not universally recognized and also why phenomenological takes on Arendt remain outside of the mainstream of Arendt scholarship, at least within the Anglophone reception. Another reason lies probably in the difficulty involved in comprehending Arendt’s particular phenomenological approach. However, Loidolt suggests that doing so is the only way to fully understand Arendt. I am not convinced that this claim can be supported without restrictions. First, there are multiple very appealing interpretations of Arendt that completely abstract from her bonds to phenomenology. Second, it seems to be quite far away from the Arendtian spirit to assert that there is only one perspective on a story. Loidolt herself emphasizes that she does not want to force Arendt into any club (2). Nevertheless, through her impressive study, Loidolt advocates her case very convincingly. It is possible to see Arendt’s work through multiple lenses, but it is indeed very difficult to ignore the phenomenological lens, since once it has been applied what has been seen cannot be unseen. Therefore, due to its comprehensiveness and the depth of Loidolt’s analysis, the book has great potential, not only to inspire a new, phenomenologically-oriented appreciation of Arendt’s work but also to become a crucial contribution to Arendt scholarship.

References

Arendt, Hannah. 2007. Vita activa. München/Zürich: Piper.

Arendt, Hannah. 2003. Some Questions of Moral Philosophy. In: H. Arendt, Responsibility and Judgment. New York: Schocken.

Arendt, Hannah. 1998. The Human Condition. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Benhabib, Seyla. 2006. Judgment and the Moral Foundations of Politics in Arendt’s Thought. In: Garrath Williams (ed.), Hannah Arendt: Critical Assesment of Leading Political Philosophers, Vol 4., pp. 234 – 253. London/New York: Routledge.

Benhabib, Seyla. 2003. The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt. New Edition. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Szanto, Thomas & Moran, Dermot (eds.). 2016. The Phenomenology of Sociality: Discovering the ‘We’. London/New York.

Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth. 1982. For Love of the World. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Suzi Adams (Ed.): Ricoeur and Castoriadis in Discussion: On Human Creation, Historical Novelty, and the Social Imaginary

Ricoeur and Castoriadis in Discussion: On Human Creation, Historical Novelty, and the Social Imaginar Book Cover Ricoeur and Castoriadis in Discussion: On Human Creation, Historical Novelty, and the Social Imaginar
Social Imaginaries
Suzi Adams (Ed.)
Rowman & Littlefield International
2017
Hardcover £80.00
236

Reviewed by: Angelos Mouzakitis (University of Crete)

It is with great pleasure that I welcome the publication in English of the conversation between Castoriadis and Ricoeur that took place on 9 March 1985 on the radio show Le Bon Plaisir on France Culture.  Being one of the rare occasions where the two thinkers crossed swords publicly, this dialogue is a source of inspiration for everyone interested in their works and in the specific domains of being that they set as their task to explore. The dialogue was already published in French by Johann Michel in 2016, but the English edition is much more than a reproduction of the French one. The book is divided in two main parts, while it comprises also short biographical notes on Ricoeur and Castoriadis and a comprehensive index.  Four texts are printed prior to the book’s officially described ‘first part’, which is nothing less than the textual version of the original encounter between the two thinkers.  These texts are no less important than the rest of the contributions and they are the following: First, Suzi Adams’s short “editor’s forward”, followed by Johann Michel’s “Note to the French Edition” and “Preface to the French edition” and Johann P. Arnason’s “Preface: Situating Castoriadis and Ricoeur”.

As I have already reviewed the French edition of the dialogue I will refrain from commenting on the book’s “first part” and on Johann Michel’s preface, although a word of appraisal for Scott Davidson’s excellent translation of the original texts in English is certainly in place.

As the subtitle of the book clearly suggests, the radio discussion between Ricoeur and Castoriadis focused primarily on the impact of imagination on history and the same holds for the essays of the distinguished scholars that comprise the second part of this publication, rendering it a genuine contribution to philosophy and social theory on its own.

Johann Arnason’s preface to the English edition complements perfectly Johann Michel’s preface to the French edition and is in many ways also complementary to Arnason’s second contribution to the volume. In the ‘Preface’ Arnason unravels in a concise yet comprehensive manner the complex set of elective affinities and stark differences between the projects of the two thinkers, as well as their attitudes towards politics and religion, but he wisely refuses to directly attribute the former to the latter. Apart from a shared critique to ‘orthodox’ Marxism, Arnason traces interesting convergences between Ricoeur and Castoriadis in areas least expected: Indeed, Arnason establishes a shared understanding of history qua praxis and creation and a common indebtedness to Aristotle’s “thesis on the multiple modes of being” (xxviii), without disregarding the—apparent both in the dialogue and the respective oeuvres—differences in accent between Ricoeur and Castoriadis on these issues. Moreover, it is Ricouer’s emphasis on metaphor that in Arnason’s view brings him closer to Castoriadis’s understanding of history as creative praxis and Castoriadis’s essay on the revolutionary project in the Imaginary Institution of Society that reveals a hermeneutic aspect in Castoriadis’s approach- more precisely, Arnason identifies three hermeneutic ‘steps’ in Castoriadis’s critique of Marxism in this text  (xxiii-xxvi).  Importantly, Arnason also shows that Castoriadis’s concept of institution has deep roots in French sociology and especially in the writings of Durkheim and Mauss (a theme that re-emerges in his second contribution). He furthermore argues that Castoriadis partly endorses Durkheim’s conception of religion as he follows Durkheim in identifying the ‘sacred’ as forming the kernel of religion but unlike Durkheim sees in religion nothing more than heteronomy. Ricoeur’s approach to religion is less unequivocal according to Arnason and the Judeo-Christian tradition is ever present in his works, as he explores both the areas opened up by “philosophical critique and religious hermeneutics” (xviii). What is more, Arnason attempts to draw some analogies between Ricoeur’s treatment of religion and Castoriadis’s “invocation of Greek beginnings” and suggests that Castoriadis’s account of Greek mythology might provide us with a more fecund perspective on the relationship between myth and reason (xxx).

Arnason’s second contribution has the title “Castoriadis and Ricoeur on Meaning and History: Contrasts and Convergences” and focuses more explicitly on the problem of the nature of imagination and its importance for the way in which history is both understood and made. Here Arnason attempts to establish a certain convergence between Ricoeur’s defense of ‘productive’ imagination and Castoriadis’s radical, creative understanding of this human faculty, by focusing on the Fichtean background that informs Ricoeur’s approach to imagination and Castoriadis’s later attempt to counterbalance the hyperbolic assumption of creation ex nihilo with a concept of creation that pays heed to the always already conditioned character of human praxis (59). Arnason underlines Ricoeur’s and Castoriadis’s common opposition to structuralism and traces affinities between Castoriadis’s critique of identitary logic, Elias’s concept of figuration, Mann’s concept of network and Ricoeur’s own treatment of pre-figuration, configuration and re-figuration (62-63). Arnason’s essay concludes with a reassessment of Castoriadis’s notion of signification which aims at revealing dualities that emerge when we think of imagination in both its transforming and containing capacities. It is then Ricoeur’s work on Ideology and Utopia that in Arnason’s view provides a bridge between the two thinkers in regard of the workings of imagination in socio-historical contexts. Admittedly, apart from the challenging interpretation of the works of the two thinkers that it offers, the charm of Arnason’s contribution lies in the fact that he brings his own groundbreaking research in the discussion.

George H. Taylor’s essay “On the Cusp: Ricoeur and Castoriadis at the Boundary” is a clearly argued and thought-provoking attempt to think across the boundaries that at once separate and conjoin their philosophical projects. The great merit of Taylor’s contribution lies in the fact that he is able to construct a quite convincing argument (especially concerning Ricoeur) by reading together Ricoeur’s Lectures on Ideology and Utopia and his still unpublished—but eagerly awaited—lectures of the same period on imagination. Indeed, Taylor advances the rather bold claim that if the radio conversation between the two thinkers had taken place a decade ago, Ricoeur’s response to Castoriadis’s defense of a radical, creative force inherent in imagination might have been radically different (35). Indeed, the passages from Ricoeur’s Lectures on Imagination that Taylor cites seem to clearly support his argument, although admittedly one has to wait until the whole text becomes available to the public before one passes a more definitive judgment on the issue. In any case, on the one hand Taylor points to Ricoeur’s conception of utopia in the homonymous lectures as ‘the possibility of a nowhere’ with regard to a given socio-historical state-of-affairs, while underlying the passage from a conception of productive imagination based on the reconfiguration of a given reality to a more radical understanding of this process in terms of transfiguration (38). Finally, in order to bring the two thinkers together Taylor—like every other contributor to the volume—has to emphasize the contextual aspect of Castoriadis’s understanding of creation ex nihilo, as creation that does not take place in nihilo or cum nihilo.

Suzi Adams’s paper “Castoriadis and Ricoeur on the Hermeneutic Spiral and the Meaning of History” offers a refreshing and imaginative perspective on the dialogue, as it focuses from the outset on the difference between creation and production that seems to be the pivotal point of disagreement between the two thinkers in the radio discussion. The section of the paper that confronts the problem of creation ex nihilo bears the telling title “Much ado about Nothing: Creation or Production?” (112).  It is as difficult to miss the Shakespearean reference here as it is to decide to what extent it is used to indicate a parallel between the series of misunderstandings taking place in the homonymous play and the possible misinterpretations Castoriadis’s concept has received. Adams is also interested in bridge building. She argues about an indelible hermeneutic dimension present even on the most originary level of signification (131) and presents us with the metaphor of the “hermeneutic spiral” as a way out of the hermeneutic circle that both thinkers attempted to surmount in different ways. Importantly, Adams argues that the substitution of the hermeneutic circle with the hermeneutic spiral extracts the hermeneutic experience from the level of mere understanding and it “incorporates critical and productive/creative dimensions” (129). Her essay shows the different attitudes the two thinkers entertained in relation to the conception of chaos, the relation to tradition and the emergence of radically new forms of collective life (or radical discontinuity)  in history. Adams gives center stage to Gadamer’s notion of historically effected consciousness, although she confronts this aspect of historical life from Ricoeur’s perspective, not Gadamer’s in an attempt to dissociate it from traditional hermeneutics. Adams’s invocation of Assmann’s concept of cultural memory and of Nikulin’s distinction between collective memory and collective recollection as guiding threads for any current attempt to understand tradition merits the reader’s attention and invites further elaboration.

Being an established Ricoeur scholar, Jean-Luc Amalric offers his invaluable insights on Ricoeur and Castoriadis in his paper “Ricoeur and Castoriadis: The Productive Imagination between Mediation and Origin”, which focuses primarily on the way the two thinkers conceptualized imagination and historical praxis, while it also addresses their critique of structuralism (77-78). Amalric argues that despite their differences Castoriadis and Ricoeur share the “diagnosis concerning the occultation-discreditation of imagination in the philosophical tradition”, as well as the conviction that the “renewal of the theory of imagination” has to focus on the “central function of imagination in human action and its foregrounding” (81). Amalric argues that Ricoeur’s emphasis on the role of productive imagination and Castoriadis’s critique of Marxism and his very idea of creation reveals a “common critique of structuralism” (84) and “an essential agreement… on the originary and constituting status of the social imaginary” (89-90). According to Amalric, one crucial difference between the two thinkers concerns their stance towards ontology: Castoriadis’s approach is said to be an “ontology of creation” (93), a thesis somewhat reminiscent of Habermas who in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity argues that a fundamental ontology operates behind Castoriadis’s concept of society as a ‘collective subject’. Ricoeur is seen as conscientiously refraining from ascribing to ontology the status of primary philosophy, while treating it as ‘a promise land’ within his horizon of philosophical expectations (94).  Amalric draws on an impressive number of Ricoeur’s writings and key-concepts like metaphor and mimesis, in order to arrive at a theory of imagination that links imagination and praxis from the perspective of an ever-present oscillation between “a revolutionary pole and a reformatory pole” (102). He even seems to prefer Ricoeur’s indirect conception of autonomy based on the ‘dialectic’ of ideology and utopia to that of Castoriadis, most probably because of his preference for a philosophical discourse that is less bound by ontological concerns than Castoriadis’s project. However, it has to be reminded that Castoriadis’s understanding of autonomy is not only —admittedly—tied up to the idea of (permanent) revolution as Amalric (102) rightly observes, but it also emerges from an ineradicable oscillation between (a fundamental) heteronomy and the possibility of a radical alteration of this heteronomous state-of-affairs, where autonomy presents itself as a ‘moment’ or an event, to use the phenomenological parlance. The relationship (I would not dare say dialectic) between autonomy and heteronomy in Castoriadis’s works is arguably somehow reminiscent of—though not identical with—Ricoeur’s ‘dialectic’ between ideology and utopia and it might well be a fruitful  area for further research.

Last but definitely not least, let me briefly address Francois Dosse’s excellent contribution entitled “The Social Imaginary as Engine of History in Ricoeur and Castoriadis”, which is finely supported by Natalie J. Doyle’s smooth and subtle translation.  At the first part of his paper Dosse follows Ricoeur’s path to the formulation of a unique stance on imagination through his appropriation of Sartre’s theory of imagination, which Ricoeur extends so as to account not only for its negating but also for its productive forces, his indebtedness to Bachelard and the parallels the understating of imagination in The Symbolism of Evil exemplifies with the treatment of imagination in Merleau-Ponty’s The Visible and the Invisible, the latter being a source of influence also for Castoriadis. Drawing on Amalric’s book Paul Ricoeur, L’ Imagination Vive, Dosse shows how Ricoeur escapes the “aporias of solipsism” with the introduction of a collective imaginary dimension that “is not the opposite of action, but it can lead to it in a creative way” (143). Dosse stresses the tangible involvement of imagination in socio-historical praxis pointing to Ricoeur’s explicit linkage of action with imagination and his treatment of ideology and utopia as “imaginative practices”, or as the “operator of choice at the intersection of will and desire” in Fallible Man (145). Dosse also explores Ricoeur’s work on metaphor and his opposition to structuralism, focusing on his use of livid metaphor as a means to open up the question of tradition from a perspective that refuses to think of tradition as a reified relic (148).  It goes without saying that his treatment of Ricoeur does not neglect to take into account his lectures on ideology and utopia and the conceptual couplet ‘mimesis-figuration’. Dosse sees Castoriadis’s attempt at constructing a theory of imagination as premised on an antithesis between chaos and institution. Dosse discusses Castoriadis’s break with the Lacanian conception of the symbolic and argues that Castoriadis shows the “double dimension of the symbolic, which pertains to a logic both ‘enseidic’ and imaginary” (158).  Moreover, Dosse argues that the enseidic/imaginary couplet in Castoriadis’s thought finds a counterpart in Ricoeur’s distinction between “the semilogical level of rationality and the hermeneutic level, which refers to interpretative plurality” (158).  Dosse also traces other important convergences in the works of Ricoeurand Castoriadisthat allow him to conclude his essay arguing for the existence of a “real proximity” between the two thinkers.

Although the high quality and the complex structure of every single paper contained in this book, as well as the fecundity of the actual encounter between Ricoeur and Castoriadis makes the task of adequately assessing this little volume almost impossible, I hope that I did not fail to at least convey the ‘spirit’ underlying each contribution and the book as a whole. I have to congratulate Suzi Adams for her immaculate editorial work and I cannot help but think that although one could hardly imagine a better start for the launch of the “social imaginaries” series than this quite important collective volume, there are even more exciting things to come in the near future.

Viorel Cernica (Ed.): Studies in the Pre-Judicative Hermeneutics and Meontology, First Volume

Studies in the Pre-Judicative Hermeneutics and Meontology, First Volume Book Cover Studies in the Pre-Judicative Hermeneutics and Meontology, First Volume
Viorel Cernica (Ed.)
Bucharest University Press
2016
Paperback
200

Reviewed by: Andrei Simionescu-Panait (Romanian Society for Phenomenology)

This volume engages with Pre-judicative Hermeneutics, a phenomenologically- and hermeneutically-oriented framework that rose to prominence in Romanian-speaking academic circles in 2013 with Viorel Cernica’s Judgment and Time: The Phenomenology of Judgment (Judecată şi timp. Fenomenologia judicativului). Like Cernica’s monograph, this volume is in Romanian. A second volume in the series has just been published. These publications are driven by scholars at the University of Bucharest.

Cernica’s idea of a Pre-judicative Hermeneutics is intended as a counterpart to Husserlian phenomenology. His point of departure is constitutive phenomenology; the brand of phenomenology that focuses on the ways in which judgments are constituted from an otherwise pre-reflective level of experience. For Cernica, there are certain aspects of judgment that are not constituted and cannot support constitution. He has attempted to account for these aspects of ‘non-judicative’ experience.

The starting point for such an account is a process of ‘de-constitution’. According to this process, the hermeneuts’ job is to engage with quasi-objectual pre-judgment and prevent it from reaching a constituted judgment. This may remind some readers of the illustrative charioteer metaphor that Plato invokes in his Theaetetus. Focussing on an impulsive pre-judgment reveals its inherent behavior and promotes a better understanding of both judgment and its correlates.

The volume brings together five texts plus an extensive introduction by Cernica. A reader familiar with more traditional approaches to phenomenology may find it useful to commence with Oana Șerban’s contribution. Cernica’s chapter is more of a straight-to-business type of philosophical text and less of a pedagogical introduction. Of the remaining chapters, two use Cernica’s phenomenologically inspired method of inquiry regarding pre-judgments. A third can be contrasted with the first two in both terminology and scope. The last contribution attempts to explain why meontology is a natural match for Cernica’s brand of hermeneutics. On the one hand, these contributions are the results of an intersubjective phenomenological effort (what Herbert Spiegelberg’s calls‘symphilosophizing’). Indeed, Mihai-Dragoș Vadana and Remus Breazu’s respective chapters have emerged from lengthy seminar discussions. On the other hand, the reader should not expect a single, consistent and coordinated approach on behalf of the contributors.

When it comes to Cernica’s introduction, he focuses on the concepts of pre-judgment and non-judgment. Cernica believes that the constitutive nature of traditional phenomenology forfeits the possibility of making sense ofthe pre-judicative level of experience. According to the de-constitutive process, not only do I have to suspend judgment, it is more interesting to try to understand how I can roll back my instinct to judge in a certain way. A more traditional phenomenologist may argue that rolling back my instinct to judge is a constitutive process in itself, so any sense of de-constitution is actually a way of constituting a portion of the world in a different way altogether. According to Cernica, one cannot deny that every experience (in the broadest sense of the word) is constituted. What one can deny is the idea that every experience encompasses all previous experiences such that they bloom into full judgments. Not all experiences result in object fulfillment indicative of judgment because they are cases of de-constitution. At a phenomenological level, such cases refer to moments of experience where the order of the lifeworld is bothered by something I cannot really place my finger on (no matter what I do). This persistent yet elusive bothering is the non-judicative gateway towards the permanently tense pre-judicative sphere of experiencing that is the focal point for pre-judicative hermeneutics.

Vadana attempts to marry ideas from Cernica’s method with those of Romanian philosopher Mircea Florian. He underlines the contrast between constitutive judging and regulative judging, which revolves around being configured by judgment’s formal structure (subject-predicate) – in the case of constitutive judging – or not – in the case of regulative judging. Vadana proceeds from this distinction in order to explore the non-formal origin of regulative judging. He finds a similar conceptual behavior in both regulative judging and the notion of recessivity. The basic formulation of recessivity involves the distinction between emerging and the source of the emergence. For instance, culture recedes from nature, objects of consciousness recede from acts of consciousness, and so on. By analogy, Vadana sees that regulative judging recedes from regular constitutive judging. In a certain sense, thisreflects the de-constitutive move made by Cernica. In order to express the similarities, Vadana focusses on Aristotle’s account of post-predicaments – those stable characteristics that inevitably occur with judgment. Vadana thinks that the study of post-predicaments is, in fact, the study of the phenomenon of pre-judging;one studies consequences to know what one can always expect.

Breazu’s contribution concerns the distinction between absurdity and non-sense. Absurd judgments are problematic but still respect the basic formal requirements of judgments. Even though some arguments are dominated by absurdity, they still make sense and can sometimes develop into convincing philosophical arguments. For instance, for a phenomenologist, the idea of a thing-in-itself is absurd. Rather, phenomenologists acknowledge that things are things one intends in a certain manner. On that basis, phenomenologists can acknowledge that one is able to constitute absurd judgments. Breazu distinguishes between logical absurdity and objectual absurdity. Whereas logical absurdity is something that can be constituted, objectual absurdity is defined by the inability to have full constitution in the field of consciousness. Breazu describes this inability as non-sensical. Appropriating Cernica’s framework, he suggests that something does not make sense if the non-judicative clashes with the formal territory of judgment; if a syntactic slip results from otherwise sound judgments. This can be compared to a case where a quasi-object of consciousness, which has never been constitutively fulfilled (e.g. seeing a mirage under the full summer sunlight), is violently adapted to the formal rigor of the sharpest HD camera. Indeed, it makes no sense to experience a crystal-clear mirage. Breazu shows that Cernica’s focus on de-constitution (as opposed to constitution) can, in fact, enrich phenomenological discourse. It is still unclear whether Cernica interprets his hermeneutics as a species of phenomenology.

Oana Șerban’s chapter provides an assessment of the compatibility of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy and pre-judicative hermeneutics. With regards to Merleau-Ponty’s account of perceptual belief, Șerban focusses on the concept of pre-reflection, which is conceived as a guarantee for belief that does not enter the field of judgment. She argues that perceptual belief must rely on the concept of pre-reflection. She traces the roots of Cernica’s concept of pre-judgment in Merleau-Ponty’s concept of pre-reflection. Thus, Șerban’s exegesis adds a supplementary layer of meaning to some of Cernica’s ideas.

Cornel Moraru discusses the idea of meontology in the context of Cernica’s framework. He explores the concept of questioning by applying the idea of de-constitution. He holds that serious questions (as opposed to ironic and rhetorical ones) constitutively rely on a certain nothingness, or absence, without which there could be no questioning. Furthermore, he argues that affectivity is configured by such an absence. Moraru refers to the study of de-constituted questioning as meontology.

This volume’s particular strength relies in its novel ideas and its use of classical philosophical terminology. These innovative ideas will provoke phenomenologists that are interested in the experiential aspects of judgment constitution and de-constitution. However, the volume’s unifying thread does not surface easily; the last two texts are only minimally connected to the theme of pre-judicative hermeneutics. Furthermore, the volume only partially delivers on what it promises, that is, to clarify the meaning and nature of pre-judicative hermeneutics.

Hans-Helmuth Gander: Self Understanding and Lifeworld: Basic Traits of a Phenomenological Hermeneutics

Self-Understanding and Lifeworld: Basic Traits of a Phenomenological Hermeneutics Book Cover Self-Understanding and Lifeworld: Basic Traits of a Phenomenological Hermeneutics
Studies in Continental Thought
Hans-Helmuth Gander. Translated by Ryan Drake and Joshua Rayman
Indiana University Press
2017
Hardcover $65.00
430

Reviewed by:  Douglas Giles (University of Essex)

Gander’s declared aim in Self Understanding and Lifeworld is to build on the untapped potential of Heidegger’s hermeneutical phenomenology of the lifeworld and the self-forming experience of reality. The book is a long and closely argued exploration of how a human being develops an understanding of oneself as a self within a social lifeworld.

Gander spends perhaps a little too much time beating the dead horse of the Cartesian self but he does correctly emphasize the importance of the self not as a self-certainty but as a fluctuating play of unfolding human experiences in the historical world. The historicity of the individual is important to Gander, who focuses on the self-understanding as a to-and-fro between present experiences and progressive-anticipatory self-confirmation. To the contrary, Gaander says, the human self is historicized, meaning that the self cannot be identified as an ahistorical transcendent ago, but needs to be conceived as a historical self in the current of history. As human individuals, our task is to have to incessantly identify our self from within our self within the lifeworld.

Gander’s primary task in Self Understanding and Lifeworld is to set forth a phenomenology of the human self that describes what it means to be a unified human self in the current of life history. In response to the philosophical need to critically discuss self-understanding within the lifeworld, Gander argues that the Husserlian conception of the phenomenology of consciousness is inadequate for answering the problem of history in the hermeneutics of the self-understanding of human beings in the world. Each of us, Gander says, is what we are only through what we have become, and thus, the hermeneutical question of the self-understanding takes shape in Heidegger’s project of a hermeneutics of facticity.

In Part One, Gander interprets the human being’s facticity as similar to the writing and reading of a text. Gander’s analogy is to compare self-understanding with understanding a text. Our knowing is an interpretation, including our knowing of ourselves, allowing us, Gander argues, to compare the understanding of our self with the understanding of a text. The move Gander makes here is one with which the reader may or may not agree, and the reader may or may not find Gander’s defence of it—a blending of Dilthey, Foucault, and Gadamer—convincing. In short, if I understand Gander correctly, his argument is that in a text, there is a space in which the writing subject disappears and since a human being’s self understanding is a historical consciousness—a kind of text being written and read—we as a knowing subject of our self-understanding disappears. The textual analogy rests largely on seeing the historicity of the individual as a kind of reading of the individual’s cultural traditions. We enter into the text (the “book of the world”) of our tradition and in reading and interpreting that text, our individual self-persuasion forms itself. Gander says that “the human self- and world understanding underlies and forms itself from out of the force field of the particular historical-cultural tradition.” (55) That individuals develop their understandings of self and world from their cultural tradition is uncontroversial, but whether we gain philosophical understanding of this process by applying the textual analogy is open to question. Gander’s argument is certainly plausible, but it is not clear that it is an advance on other philosophical approaches.

Regardless of how we view the self-formation of the human self, we are left with the problem of the lifeworld. This is a philosophical problem because the constitution of the self and the possibility of self-experience are connected to the self’s history in the world. Gander turns to the problem of the lifeworld in Part Two. The field of reality, Gander says, opens itself to the philosopher in the language the philosopher speaks and the meaning of its concepts which are set out in historical context. The approach needed, therefore, is a hermeneutical interpretation of concepts that is related to human situatedness in everyday experience. (79-81) Gander then enters a lengthy exposition against Descartes’s philosophical method and the self-certainty of the self within Descartes’s method, little of which will be new to the reader.

When Gander returns to the problem of the lifeworld, he observes that life and thus the lifeworld can no longer be considered something over and against the subject as in Descartes. (116) He then turns to Husserl’s discussion of the lifeworld, interpreting Husserl’s task as a project of “lifeworldly ontology.” (140) Gander adopts Husserl’s task, but also finds Husserl’s approach wanting. The individual’s facticity in the world is carried out in the historical and cultural horizons of the lifeworld. The “concrete lifeworld” is a variable, changing historical-social-cultural world and the lifeworld is more than a mere preliminary to the transcendental sphere of reason. For this reason, Gander says we must take leave of Husserl’s narrow approach to a theory of perception and begin anew the task of an ontology of the lifeworld as outside the transcendental horizon. Gander criticizes Husserl as bypassing the factically concrete lifeworld in its historicity in favor of what Gander calls “an intended final sense by means of the transcendental epoché…[and] takes the sting out of his diagnosis.” (163) By claiming the singularity of the lifeworld, Husserl, Gander says, cuts himself off from existentiell factical contingent experience and the plurality of lifeworlds. At no point does there arise a central perspective from which the human relation to self and world, therefore, Gander rejects Husserl’s approach, adopting in opposition the approach that “the ground of the natural lifeworld, with the experiences of contingency encountered everywhere and at each moment, remains a significant, indeed a necessary corrective against intellectual flights of thinking.” (167)

Gander expands on his claim that Husserl has neglected the historical and factical life in Part Three. And it is here that he gets to the main point of his book:

I experience myself only in the midst of the world—and that means in the midst of time and history—so this relatedness always already implicates the self-constituting experience of difference in its ontological presupposition. The self-relation generates and determines itself accordingly through and as difference, yet does not spilt in the Cartesian sense, but rather in that I experience myself qua difference as essentially open to the world; the self always already transcends itself beyond me to the understanding possible for me as historical horizon. (184)

Our finite self-relation is constituted by both transcendence and difference, Gander argues, and though our phenomenological approach to the problem of the lifeworld benefits from Husserl’s epoché, it also benefits from the early Heidegger’s critique of Husserl—specifically the former’s view to the structure of care. Gander sides with Heidegger in rejecting Husserl’s empty certainty and in accepting instead the understanding that science should be posited as knowing comportments of human beings. Human knowing is a specific mode of being in the world and taking this into account allows our phenomenological approach to include the unexpressed effective background beliefs that form humans’ presuppositional horizon. The proper things of philosophy, Gander concludes, following Heidegger, are not experiences of consciousness taken through the transcendental and eidetic reduction but the phenomena of the human ontological condition of the care for life. Heidegger grasps facticity, Gander says, as the existentiell situation of the individual—one’s own concrete, particular context of life. (196) Self-understanding is therefore experienced in one’s particular facticity within an historical horizon constituted by both transcendence and difference regarding one’s orientation to oneself and to the world.

Having argued for the preference of Heidegger over Husserl, Gander turns back to the issue of a hermeneutics of the self-understanding of human beings in the world. He begins by approaching the pretheoretical life. The human is enmeshed in factical life in such a way that the self as activity constitutes itself in the lifeworld. What we call “life” is known through and in a hermeneutically interpreting active knowing of the having of life itself. (212) Life in itself is always my own life and what it means to be a self is to experience the self-world that is there for us in every situation. Our phenomenological approach must look at the factical experience of life that is always lived out in a lifeworld which is centered in the self-world of comportment to oneself. (214) Gander’s hermeneutical ontology of facticity considers the world-relation as self-relation and constructs an historical ontology of our ourselves based on the conception that experience fundamentally refers to self-relation that is always already situationally related or bound. We make experiences only in situational connections, and situations create in themselves possibilities of experience for me.

Self Understanding and Lifeworld is perhaps longer of a book than it needs to be. One could also argue that it covers well-worn paths of material. As a contribution to Heideggerian studies, Gander’s book has value in how he relates several concepts in Heidegger to other twentieth century philosophers. Any writings concerning this subject matter are, almost by necessity, opaque and complex, and Self Understanding and Lifeworld is definitely those things. Gander’s differentiation of everyday experience as an historical life is a difficult read but worthwhile for the reader who is interested in new applications of Heidegger for the study of the self.