Categoria: Recensioni

Titolo: Heidegger’s Way Through Phenomenology to the Question of the Meaning of Being
Serie: Orbis Phaenomenologicus, Studien, Bd. 39
Autore: Cyril McDonnell
Genere: Philosophy
Casa editrice: Königshausen & Neumann
Data di Pubblicazione: 2015
Formato: Paperback €49,80
Pagine: 386

The stops and starts leading up to Heidegger’s completion of his masterwork have occupied scholars going back some decades. While it is easy to hold up Being and Time in the abstract as solely a product of Heidegger’s sweeping philosophical vision, it has been long known that Heidegger is as much of a patchwork philosopher as any other major historical philosopher. For Plato and Aristotle, the pre-Platonic philosophers were key predecessors. For Kant, it was German metaphysics and the British empiricists, and so on. Being and Time is a product of re-formulations and re-castings of many other important philosophical theses of the period. One could say that a significant part of Heidegger’s accomplishment lay in synthesizing just the right combination of ingredients in the service of a larger inquiry.

Probably best-known in Anglophone scholarship is Kisiel’s mammoth text The Genesis of Heidegger’s Being and Time, which provides an exhaustive overview of the writings, lecture courses, and correspondence of Heidegger’s from the late 1910’s into the mid-1920’s. Kisiel’s definitive study traces Being and Time’s themes from the start of Heidegger’s career, laying out the smaller discoveries that later came to inform the much fuller vision of Heidegger’s masterwork.

Cyril McDonnell’s book, Heidegger’s Way Through Phenomenology to the Question of the Meaning of Being, takes a somewhat different approach than Kisiel. Whereas Kisiel’s book represents a thorough look at the buildup to Being and Time by way of dissecting the pre-Being and Time work that came from Heidegger’s own hand, as it were, what McDonnell does is examine in depth some of the influential sources that Heidegger grappled with as he matured from his study of phenomenology under Husserl and came to formulate his own vision of phenomenology. Thus, McDonnell’s book is a study of the sources that Heidegger appropriated in his formulation of the problematic regarding the meaning of being articulated in Being and Time, and specifically insofar as this work’s brand of phenomenology appropriates and transcends Husserl.

In McDonnell’s view, the chief philosophical commitments that most motivate Heidegger’s break with Husserl lay in the transcendental version of phenomenology formulated by Husserl in Ideas I, and in particular, Husserl’s account of the phenomenological reduction in that book’s central chapters. For McDonnell, the transcendental deduction of Ideas I represents the principal, decisive element of Husserlian phenomenology that cannot accommodate the phenomenon of factical, existing Dasein that is so central in Heidegger’s approach to fundamental ontology. In other words, the conception of finite, historical, lived experience as the early Heidegger understands it is at odds with Husserl’s reduction to pure consciousness. And this is because (as McDonnell argues) any phenomenological reduction (in Heidegger’s mind) will always be performed by and for factical, individual Dasein. According to this view, Husserl’s limitation is that he construes the transcendental reduction as an act performed by a history-less, abstract subject. So the difference between the two philosophers here stems from their competing views of philosophy’s starting point. For Heidegger it is the factical Dasein of today who philosophizes in and from the present; for Husserl philosophy starts from a suspension of the natural attitude, where one has distinguished consciousness of experience from consciousness of the object.

The individual chapters of McDonnell’s book provide a very thorough survey of the sources representing Heidegger’s encounter with and eventual response to these issues. The initial premise of the text as stated in the opening chapter is the lack of clarity regarding a claim Heidegger makes in the late essay “My Way to Phenomenology.” In that essay, Heidegger comments on his philosophical development to the effect that he “was brought onto the path of thinking about the question of being, illumined through the phenomenological manner of thinking” (3). McDonnell argues preliminarily that we must be able to follow Heidegger in this course through phenomenology to the question of the meaning of being in order to properly reckon with the task of Being and Time, particularly that book’s assessment and understanding of phenomenological philosophy. The point is not simply to unravel the meaning behind a casual statement made by the later Heidegger about his autobiography. Instead, McDonnell regards this quotation as posing a genuine question for Heidegger scholarship, namely, how are we to understand Heidegger’s encounter with phenomenology in the 1910’s and 20’s in its relationship to Heidegger’s eventual formulation of Being and Time’s guiding question? Is the guiding question something Heidegger discovers solely through his engagement with the Husserlian/Brentanian paradigm? Or does Being and Time’s guiding question develop out of some conflict with this school of thought? Above all, what continuity can be discerned in Heidegger’s appropriation of phenomenology from his teachers?

The central chapters of Heidegger’s Way Through Phenomenology take up various aspects of Heidegger’s philosophical development that speak to these questions. The first of the book’s five chapters examines the topics in Husserl’s Logical Investigations and Ideas I that most occupied the early Heidegger. It is well-known that the young Heidegger spent considerable time reading and re-reading the Logical Investigations; however, McDonnell makes a persuasive case that Heidegger’s eventual differences with Husserl’s conception of phenomenology stem from the transcendental idealism of the later Ideas I.

The middle chapters take up the alternate sources that, according to McDonnell, inform Heidegger’s own formulation of the task of phenomenology. Chapter Two presents a thorough, careful study of Heidegger’s encounter with Dilthey, with significant discussion of how Dilthey can be seen to figure into Heidegger’s lecture courses of the early 1920’s and his initial divergence from Husserl. According to the exegesis of this chapter, Heidegger appropriates from Dilthey the notion of lived experience, specifically insofar this notion becomes crucial for Being and Time’s starting claim that Dasein is always one’s own. In this light, the historical component of Dilthey’s notion of lived experience is to become the seed of what Heidegger will go on to label “facticity.” McDonnell also gives attention to Dilthey’s influence upon Heidegger’s interest in hermeneutics. Chapter Three takes up Heidegger’s appropriation of Kierkegaard’s philosophy of existence, although much of this chapter’s argumentation suggests that Heidegger’s existentialism is influenced by Augustine. In this light, McDonnell gives reasons supporting the notion that Heidegger is not an existentialist philosopher in the colloquial sense of the term. Chapter Four engages facets of Biblical hermeneutics. McDonnell suggests the issue of understanding the living word of God as it is encountered in the tradition of Biblical hermeneutics can be said to exhibit some parallels with understanding the meaning of being (as Heidegger would later come to describe this problem in Being and Time). McDonnell proceeds under the assumption that this development in Heidegger’s thought is influenced by Schleiermacher, but the treatment here is somewhat brief and still rooted very much in Dilthey. Of all the book’s chapters, this fourth chapter is perhaps the thinnest and most speculative in terms of the evidence it leverages for its position.

Chapter Five, the last main chapter, takes somewhat of a left turn.   This chapter gives a very long, though careful account of Heidegger’s conception of finitude as it appears in Being and Time. It considers the compatibility of this notion with Husserl’s view of phenomenology as expressed in the transcendental reduction. The approach of this chapter differs from the others in that McDonnell treats finitude – more precisely, Heidegger’s formulation of being-toward-death – as a concept principally of Heidegger’s own formulation. Whereas the previous chapters are more devoted to developing Heidegger’s appropriation of the thought of his predecessors from the side of these preceding sources. Thus, the fifth chapter reads more like an analysis of finitude in Being and Time posed against the question of whether finitude is has any coherence in Husserl. McDonnell’s primary motivation for this shift appears to be that, in his view, Dasein’s disclosure of its own finitude is the ultimate, definitive manifestation in which Heidegger’s phenomenology transcends the limits of Husserl’s reduction, especially vis-à-vis the alternative framework of human experience he appropriates from Dilthey and the Christian existentialists. McDonnell does not argue in favor of Heidegger against Husserl per se, but he does suggest that Heidegger’s brand of phenomenology can subsume Husserl’s transcendental reduction, whereas the reverse would not hold true.

This book genuinely shines in its extensive demonstration of secondary research and its broad survey of many important primary sources. McDonnell weaves together a vast array of material into an impressive, yet very accessible narrative. Readers who are interested in Heidegger’s pre-Being and Time development will find in this text a very readable, authoritative guide to a key period in Heidegger’s complex intellectual biography. It will also provide a very good complement to Kisiel’s book on the genesis of Being and Time; McDonnell’s book is more focused and contemplative in its examination of Heidegger’s influences without getting encumbered by the vast swath of primary writings from Heidegger that one could take up in such a study.

In terms of critical comments, my input is rather brief. On one hand, there is a definite need in Heidegger studies for careful examination of the influences on Heidegger’s thought during the 1910’s and 20’s. And given the extensive paper trail of published writings, lecture transcripts, letters and personal notes we have of Heidegger, Husserl, and others from this period, certainly there is ample material that can point the way toward unraveling the pre-Being and Time narrative. On the other hand, I believe where McDonnell’s book could succeed better is in demonstrating more correspondence between the historical sources he identifies, and the thought of Heidegger as exhibited in the published writings up to and including Being and Time. As written, this book’s exegesis comes across as somewhat speculative, with many moving parts. This issue is less prominent in the first two chapters, but it becomes more prominent from the third chapter onward. As a result, the connection of Heidegger with Kierkegaard, Augustine, and related figures comes across as incidental and under-defended. Occasionally in these contexts there is a noticeable lack of justification for why some sources are chosen as factually relevant to Heidegger’s development. Among the historic sources to which McDonnell ties Heidegger, Dilthey is the figure whose connection is illustrated best. This book may have been more successful if it were to focus just on Heidegger’s appropriation of Dilthey. In any event, the best antidote for these shortcomings would be a more rigorous analysis of how the historical influences figure into Heidegger’s writing, with more emphasis on primary sources in Heidegger. However, such improvements would require a much longer book or even a whole second volume. As it stands McDonnell’s book provides a great service to Heidegger studies.

Titolo: Beyond the Analytic-Continental Divide. Pluralist Philosophy in the Twenty-First Century
Serie: Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy
Autore: Jeffrey A. Bell, Andrew Cutrofello, Paul M. Livingston (Eds.)
Casa editrice: Routledge
Data di Pubblicazione: 2016
Formato: Hardback £90.00
Pagine: 334

This collection of papers, which covers a wide variety of philosophical topics, aims to go beyond a discussion of differences between analytic and continental philosophy. Instead, the collection purports to show the results of philosophers whose work combines both traditions – synthetic philosophy, as the editors call it. The aim is not just to mash together malleable work from the two traditions, but to consider philosophical projects in the light of a more fully fledged set of contributions than would be available if working from within one tradition only.

Questions about the overall aim of this project might include, first; will it result in new philosophical projects, perhaps crossing boundaries of the traditional philosophical sub-disciplines, such as epistemology, ethics and so on? Second, how will the success of these projects be assessed; both at an overall level and at the level of criticising and reviewing individual papers? In answer to the first, we should note that the collection came about through new collaboration on the internet. A paper on connections between Derrida’s deconstructive notion of ‘the undecidable’ and Kurt Godel’s formalization of that problem in arithmetic was the starting point for discussion, which drew in a number of participants. Technology thus makes it easy to establish a ready community of philosophers who are able and willing to take up the challenge of this sort of philosophy, and it is equally easy to imagine that new projects will be generated in this way. Judging the success of the resulting philosophy as a whole will be more difficult, at least initially. Presumably, it will require an established group of philosophers, who have been practising synthetic philosophy for a while to comment authoritatively on the overall output, rather than relying on specialists in individual philosophers or particular areas of study. The group will also need to reach critical mass, too, in order to avoid synthetic philosophy becoming yet another philosophical niche industry. Most contributors come from universities in the USA, and it would also be fruitful if the project were taken up elsewhere.

The collection is in four parts. I shall comment in detail below on the first part, Methodologies, since by its very nature it has a bearing on any synthetic philosophical project and therefore has a relevance to all papers in the collection, but I will deal briefly with the other parts here, mentioning only those papers which throw up something of interest for the overall project, rather than merely being of merit in themselves.

The second part, with four papers on Truth and Meaning, contains an important paper by David Woodruff Smith, titled Truth and Epoche, which uses Tarski’s semantic conception of truth to provide a phenomenological analysis of truth as it occurs in experiencing consciousness. Husserl and Tarski are not unexpected bedfellows (both mathematicians by training) and so a discussion involving both philosophers has a naturalness, which is perhaps not so true of another paper in the section, Metaphors without Meanings: Derrida and Davidson as complementary by Samuel C. Wheeler III. Derrida and Davidson are chalk and cheese; good examples of the ‘opposite poles’ of the continental and analytic tradition, and whilst Wheeler gets something out of the comparison, the paper feels slightly forced in an attempt at synthesis.

An example of a new question emerging from synthetic philosophy is the first paper in the third section, Metaphysics and Ontology: Why is Time Different from Space? by John McCumber. To explore the question, he starts by assuming that there was a situation when time and space were indistinct and that we may have experiences of that. Part of his paper revolves around the novel concept of ‘co-occupancy’ together with the idea that time and space originate in place, which is itself a dynamic set of ‘nearing and farings’. This is in danger of sounding fanciful to the analytic philosopher, but it is saved from obscurity by a wonderfully vivid literary example and illustration from Graham Greene. The second paper in this section, Wittgenstein Reads Heidegger, Heidegger Reads Wittgenstein: Thinking Language Bounding World by Paul Livingston, like the Husserl and Tarski paper, gives the impression of a very smooth comparative feel as the author basis his paper on actual quotations about each other by the two respective philosophers.

In part four of the collection, the first paper, Relativism and Recognition by Carol Rovane is a wide ranging discussion on how we should understanding relativism, taking in contributions from Axel Honneth, Bernard Williams and Habermas. The paper has the merit of stepping back from the narrow confines of discussing moral relativism and thinking about our position in different communities from a ‘world view point’. Revolutionary Actions and Events by Andrew Cutrofello in the same section is a less successful paper from the point of view of drawing in the analytic philosopher (and the reviewer is one such), mainly because Badiou is supposed to contribute to the interesting discussion of Arendt’s view on revolution and the nature of events, but it is hard to see how he does this, even on a sympathetic reading. The paper raises the problem of how some opaque continental philosophers can be treated in a way which will lead to a genuinely synthetic philosophy, rather than one which is lop-sided in favour of one or other tradition.

To sum up, the papers include happy pairings with productive results (Husserl and Tarski, Wittgenstein and Heidegger), a new question about time and space forged out of the synthesis, a wider perspective on an old problem and some papers which do not quite achieve synthesis.

The most successful part of the book overall is the first part which deals with methodologies. Despite the editors’ claiming to want to avoid old-style discussions of the analytic/continental divide, the first paper by James Conant represents something of a reprise of the theme of the origins of analytic philosophy and what it means to contrast analytic and continental philosophy. It does an excellent job in opening the collection. His analysis of how the ‘founding fathers’ of analytic philosophy described their philosophical enterprises provides a good insight to start the set of papers. Conant reminds us that the early analytic philosophers could not know that they were ‘founding’ anything; they were reacting to existing philosophy (Kant and Hegel and British Idealism, for example) and trying to establish how philosophy should be done. Is analytic philosophy determined by its content, method or style? Conant notes that some in the tradition, such as Williams, McDowell and Murdoch, come to reflect on the point that the way philosophy is done may establish, or at least constrain the content, for good or ill. Conant also notes the increasing trend to ‘excommunicate’ members of the analytic community when they show tendencies ‘to swim in the waters of rhetorical metaphysics’ (to borrow a phrase from Crispin Wright’s review of John McDowell’s Mind and World, quoted by Conant). Conant considers that what sparks such criticism might be both a slip into vices of style connected with continental philosophy (fuzziness, extravagance of metaphor and so on) and the fear that the sort of philosophy will lead others astray. Analytic philosophers have adopted some humility, however, and this is shown in their attitude to the history of philosophy. There is now a more sensitive approach to philosophers of the past, which goes beyond being forced to treat them as though they were present day contributors to Mind. Two very recent, exciting trends highlighted by Conant are first, the development of analytic studies of historical philosophers previously ‘banned from the canon’ such as Hegel and Marx; and secondly, the interest in the history of analytic philosophy itself. Historians of analytic philosophy must be philosophers as well as historians, as they challenge the current philosophical thought with their interpretations, he thinks. Philosophy, unlike science, is necessarily ill at ease with itself, Conant suggests, because it seems that some issues will never be resolved. There will just be different ways of discussing them. The historian of analytic philosophy has an important role in that he helps to establish the ‘tradition’ of analytic philosophy, and it is this concept of tradition which will give analytic philosophy its sense of self.

The second paper in this part, on Austin and Deleuze by Richard Eldridge and Tasmin Lorraine, rather neatly picks up the theme of history and the temporal perspective in philosophy. Austin’s reflection on language, where a word does not have a fixed meaning and consequently the study of philosophical concepts is more shaking and unsettling than some suppose, is linked with Deleuze’s insistence that we should take temporality into account in philosophical discussion. For Austin, concepts evolve; for Deleuze, they are ‘events’, perhaps best understood by his reference to cinematography or art. The paper makes no demand on the reader to change linguistic gear from the analytic to the continental style and, as such, is a successful representation of the synthetic philosophy promised in the collection.

The third and last paper in this section is an active realisation of Conant’s remarks about history and analytic philosophy, whilst at the same time garnering inspiration from Foucault. Catarina Dutilh Novaes is a historian of the philosophy of logic and her paper extols the merits of a genealogical approach to philosophical concepts. This is a historical approach focussed not on authors but on concepts such as logical form. By tracing the genealogy of such a concept we are able to appreciate various influential factors such as the straightforward historical context (how a concept is used at a particular time) and the ‘layering’ that takes place over time. The conceptual genealogy of philosophical concepts will provide us with an explanation of the historical shaping of such a concept through time, thereby widening the space of theoretical possibilities.

The impression at the end of the first section is that the papers are written with a view to justify the project of including continental philosophy in what are essentially concerns of analytic philosophy. Papers in the later sections come from contributors who are either situated in the continental tradition or who are happy to travel close to the borderland between analytic and continental philosophy. The whole purpose of the collection is of course to encourage the reader to jump beyond those boundaries and it is very successful in doing so.

Titolo: Phénoménologie de la vie animale
Autore: Florence Burgat, Cristian Ciocan (éd.)
Genere: Philosophie, Phénoménologie
Casa editrice: Zeta Books
Data di Pubblicazione: 2016
Formato: Paperback €18.00
Pagine: 279

Ce livre se propose d’aborder la question de l’animalité sous un angle original. Plutôt que de trouver racine dans une problématique éthique du rapport à l’animal qui consiste le plus souvent à se demander si une conduite éthique à son égard doit ou peut être motivée par le fait que l’animal est objet d’action éthique pour l’homme, cet ouvrage choisit de faire de la question de l’animalité un problème phénoménologique à part entière. Dès lors, il n’est plus ici seulement question d’interroger la nature du rapport de l’homme à l’animal ou de l’animal à l’homme, mais d’interroger la place de l’animal à l’horizon d’un monde de sens.

Chaque auteur participe brillamment à cette entreprise qui souffle un vent frais sur le domaine des études philosophiques concernant la question de l’animalité sans pour autant en ignorer l’héritage. Aussi, on ne manque pas de lire dès l’introduction que « [la phénoménologie] doit faire dès le début abstraction de toute compréhension traditionnelle de l’animal » (Burgat & Ciocan : 2016, 8).

Cet ouvrage se compose de trois sections distinctes. La première, intitulée « Apparence, Mouvement, Expressivité », se propose d’étudier l’animalité comme forme expressive de vie. Au lieu de partir du postulat selon lequel l’animalité constituerait un degré inférieur ou intermédiaire sur l’échelle d’un concept de vie subdivisé en trois grandes familles distinctes (le végétal, l’animal et l’humain), cette première partie considère la vie animale comme un niveau d’expressivité du vivant non moins dépourvu de sens que l’est le monde de l’homme.

Le premier article, écrit par Benjamin Berger, se propose d’examiner le problème de la vie comme manifestation dans les écrits de Raymond Ruyer et d’Adolf Portmann. Il en résulte une analyse de la valeur attribuée à la manifestation des apparences dans le règne animal prenant le contre-pied des approches strictement génétiques et conservatrices. Contrairement à l’idée Darwinienne selon laquelle la sélection naturelle entraîne la pérennité des formes, Berger argumente avec Portmann que c’est l’apparaître qui détermine l’apparence du vivant, et non pas un simple souci de conservation ou simple rapport au milieu. Ce n’est donc pas simplement la survie qui dicte l’apparaître du vivant mais l’apparaître du vivant lui-même qui conditionne et dépasse le rapport du vivant à son environnement : en ce sens, la lecture qu’offre Berger de Portmann, Ruyer puis Merleau-Ponty questionne le problème de l’intentionnalité animale qu’il appelle « autoprésentation ». C’est l’autoprésentation elle-même qui, dès lors, va conditionner le mode d’apparaître du vivant et non l’inverse : on ne peut donc lire, selon une logique néo-darwinienne, l’apparence que prennent les animaux comme un symptôme d’un rapport prédéterminé à l’environnement. C’est au contraire parce que l’apparaître animal est toujours déjà en excès des formes qu’il peut prendre qu’il peut nous apparaître surprenant. C’est en ce point précis que le concept d’apparition remplace celui de manifestation : si la perception humaine semble comprendre chez l’animal les symptômes d’une manifestation (et donc du déploiement d’un rapport au monde prédéterminé), le concept d’apparition montre que l’animal, en tant que vivant, dépasse ce cadre de prédétermination.

La seconde contribution, écrite par Josef H. Reichholf, poursuit la ligne tracée par la première et interroge la pertinence de la théorie darwinienne de l’adaptation pour expliquer l’expression de la beauté dans le règne animal. Là où cette dernière est traditionnellement perçue comme atout pour l’union, l’accouplement et la reproduction et mènerait à penser que la beauté de l’animal est signe extérieur de supériorité, Reichholf lecteur de Portmann avance au contraire l’idée que les formes encouragées par la sélection naturelle sont le fruit de mécanismes intérieurs. Ce n’est donc plus l’adaptation à l’environnement qui dicte la manifestation voyante de la beauté animale. Au contraire, cette dernière marque la possibilité d’une prise de distance et d’une autonomie de l’animal vis-à-vis de celui-ci. L’auteur démontre que c’est l’animal qui a s’est davantage montré capable de survivre dans un environnement dont il surmonte les contraintes (en affirmant une beauté ni strictement protectrice ou utile) qui remporte l’épreuve de la sélection sexuelle.

Le troisième article, écrit par Nicolas Zaslawski, se propose de dégager un niveau de sens commun à la chose naturelle, à l’organisme et à autrui en-deçà du concept de représentation de manière à montrer que le niveau de compréhension que chacun partage intervient avant intellection ou la saisie par le concept kantien. Aussi, c’est le concept de forme qui devient le dénominateur commun aux êtres naturels. Zaslawki complète sa lecture de Portmann avec celle de Merleau-Ponty et insiste sur le fait que l’animal doté de monde n’en requiert ni la connaissance, ni la conscience objective. C’est le rapport toujours ouvert entre un être animal et le monde qu’il habite – rapport qui précède toujours déjà la conscience – qui permet de penser le vivant comme horizon de sens en tant que corporéité.

Le dernier article de cette première section, écrit par Annabelle Dufourcq, étudie l’analyse du mimétisme chez Portmann à la lumière de Merleau-Ponty. Celle-ci permet de remettre en question l’approche scientifique de compréhension du mimétisme animal afin de comprendre que les cas de mimétisme observés chez les animaux sont autres qu’imitation du comportement humain. L’auteure s’appuie sur la lecture de Portmann par Merleau-Ponty pour montrer que l’animal est expression et communication d’un sens qui n’est pas celui que lui prête son observateur mais bien celui d’une intention liminaire propre à l’animal lui-même. C’est pourquoi l’auteure attire notre attention sur la dimension onirique qui peuple l’imaginaire humain à l’égard de l’apparence prise par certains animaux : le sens qui échappe à la rationalité humaine n’est pas strictement disqualifiant mais appartient à une expressivité animale primordiale qui excède toute compréhension anthropocentriste.

La seconde section de cet ouvrage, intitulée « Vie et Existence », met l’accent sur l’analyse du seuil supposé séparer l’existence animale de l’existence humaine d’un point de vue phénoménologique. Va-t-il de soi, comme on le dit souvent à la lecture de Heidegger, que les animaux sont pauvres en monde car ils évoluent dans un domaine de sens limité qui échappe à l’angoisse existentielle et à la possibilité d’une ouverture indéterminée ?

C’est dans cette perspective que le premier article, écrit par Christiane Bailey, se propose de remettre en question l’idée souvent trop vite reçue selon laquelle Heidegger a toujours refusé l’horizon d’un monde aux animaux. L’auteure s’appuie sur la proximité des lectures du jeune Heidegger (avant Être et Temps) et d’ Aristote (de De Anima notamment), pour montrer que le premier a développé l’analyse d’un rapport esthétique au monde qui précède la compréhension intellectuelle à laquelle il reviendra encore au Dasein d’échapper. Aussi, à regarder de plus près les écrits de jeunesse de Heidegger, Bailey nous montre que les animaux se meuvent dans un monde qui précède la compréhension intellectuelle et parviennent à faire sens en-deçà d’une rationalisation strictement humaine. L’auteure dégage donc un sol commun de compréhension partagé à la fois par l’animal et l’homme par lequel l’animal (au sens large) « s’y connaît », c’est-à-dire établit une rapport pratique, esthétique et immédiat dans le monde par le biais du mouvement.

Le second article, écrit par Dragoş Duicu, s’attaque à la question de la différence anthropologique au moyen du concept de « tendance » chez Patočka. Ce concept permet d’aborder la question de l’animalité du point de vue d’une phénoménologie dite « asubjective » : ce n’est plus l’ego qui fonde alors l’appréhension phénoménologique mais une appréhension phénoménologique dont le sujet n’est plus que le résultat. Ceci permet à la fois de séparer les conditions d’entrée dans l’apparaître du concept de subjectivité et de permettre en même temps à ce mouvement d’excéder le cadre d’une subjectivité déterminée. Ce mouvement de recul et de dépassement permet à l’auteur de trouver chez l’animal la possibilité d’un rapport au monde proprement phénoménologique. C’est l’animal, non limité par le carcan du rapport à soi, qui peut ainsi au mieux établir un rapport au monde avant et après toute compréhension rationnelle permettant tout en même temps son ouverture toujours maintenue.

Enfin, la troisième contribution à cette section, écrite par Florence Burgat, interroge la possibilité de rapprocher le concept d’angoisse de la condition animale. L’auteure commence par interroger le concept d’angoisse que la phénoménologie applique d’ordinaire strictement à la condition humaine. C’est l’homme qui, ne semblant pas avoir de place préétablie dans le monde qu’il habite, paraît toujours en excès de sa propre finitude. Burgat remet en question ce postulat reçu par la tradition en s’appuyant sur Husserl, Merleau-Ponty et Simondon. L’angoisse ne se situe plus simplement au moment de l’émergence d’une subjectivité proprement humaine mais au moment d’une individuation antérieure qui sépare le vivant de l’apeiron primordial. C’est la rémanence du pré-individuel qui, selon Burgat avec Simodon, permet de rendre compte des émotions. Or, cette rémanence pré-individuelle ne concerne pas uniquement la condition humaine mais aussi animale. Cette rémanence possède une dimension historique qui dépasse l’individu (animal ou humain) dont il est question, ce qui permet à Burgat, lectrice de Barbaras, de conclure que le désir n’est pas un donné proprement subjectif mais le mouvement du vivant qui s’individue.

Enfin, la dernière section de cet ouvrage, intitulée « Approche Analogique, Approche Empathique », pose le problème du rapport humain-animal non pas en de manière à en questionner la frontière, mais afin de dégager la possibilité d’un monde commun à l’homme et à l’animal à la fois malgré et au moyen de cette frontière.

Pour ce faire, le premier article écrit par Cristian Ciocan interroge la possibilité d’un champ commun de normalité pour soutenir le rapport humain-animal. Non pas que la normalité possède une réalité empirique a priori, mais qu’elle procède d’une projection transcendantale opérée par l’homme lui-même. Aussi, c’est l’homme, dans sa saisie de l’animal comme objet, qui établit la normalité de l’animal qu’il observe. Ce constat permet à Ciocan de poser la question d’un rapport au normal et à l’anormal au sein même de l’animalité proprement dite. Si la décision de normalité procède d’un rapport à une corporéité différente de celui qui perçoit (qu’il s’agisse d’une corporéité animale ou humaine), il devient possible de présumer que le rapport à l’anormalité se vit également au sein même de la sphère animale.

La seconde contribution de cette section, écrite par Nathalie Frogneux, pose le problème d’une ontologie du vivant chez Hans Jonas. Cette ontologie du vivant a pour caractéristique de saisir que l’animal occupe chez Jonas une place spécifique et décisive. L’animal, perçu comme syndrome, est à la fois signe et processus inachevé : il permet à la fois d’établir une continuité ontologique au sein du vivant (entre le végétal et l’humain) et de marquer ce qui n’est pas encore exprimé. Ainsi, l’animal est condition herméneutique du vivant (il permet de comprendre comment il dessine une trajectoire depuis les organismes primitifs) et ouverture d’un indéterminé : l’animal est l’exemple d’un gain ultérieur de liberté qui, s’il permet de penser une continuité ontologique du vivant, caractérise aussi une discontinuité phénoménologique propre à tout ce qui vit et vise à se dépasser.

Enfin, le denier article de cet ouvrage repose sur l’analyse philosophique d’une œuvre de fiction. A travers la lecture du roman Animal du Coeur d’Herta Müller, Laura Tusa-Ilea cherche à déterminer la nature de l’affect qui sous-tend les relations entre les hommes et les animaux. Parler d’affect, c’est refuser comme le fait l’auteure de se poser le problème de la continuité ontologique entre l’animal et l’homme. S’il s’agit pourtant de continuité, Tusa-Ilea la trouve dans un rapport primordial au monde, une « vie nue » qui apparaît dans les cas de solitude forcée par certains régimes totalitaires qui désolidarisent les hommes d’une cause commune. Paradoxalement, c’est cet isolement qui permet à l’auteure d’affirmer que l’homme qui renoue avec la vie nue d’animal isolé retrouve le sol commun que partage tout vivant. Or, il s’agit d’un sol commun qui ne repose pas sur le postulat biologique d’une vie nue (pour parler comme Agamben) mais sur le rapport à une altérité proprement distante et différente. Ainsi, l’auteure pense un commun extra-politique de la manière la plus originale qui soit : non pas le commun métaphysique fondé par la raison mais un commun phénoménologique qui fonde l’égalité par le concept irréductible de différence. Il n’est alors pas surprenant de constater que l’auteure cite Foucault et l’idée d’un rapport à l’altérité radicale (le fou) au-delà de l’exigence ontologico-politique de la co-appartenance au domaine connaissable de la raison.

 

Titolo: Philosophical Anthropology
Autore: Paul Ricoeur. Edited by Johann Michel and Jérôme Porée. Translated by David Pellauer
Casa editrice: Polity Press
Data di Pubblicazione: 2016
Formato: Paperback €25.53
Pagine: 304

This volume, much like its two predecessors, gathers Ricoeur’s miscellaneous papers and conferences; and this is all the more true for the French edition, as almost all the papers in this particular volume have already been published in English. The first volume in this collection is dedicated to psychoanalysis, and the second to hermeneutics. Subject matter is what unifies the papers in the first book, while in the case of the second the unity is predicated on the method. As for the third book, unification comes from its object, but what kind of object are we exactly talking about here?

In this publication’s introduction, the scope and limitation of the title chosen for this particular collection is explained as follows. On the one hand, Ricoeur rarely used the expression ‘philosophical anthropology’ to refer to his own work (ix) except in the essay that opens this book: ‘The Antinomy of Human Reality and the Problem of a Philosophical Anthropology’. In his intellectual autobiography, included in the series The Library of the Living Philosophers, Ricoeur refers to the Philosophy of the Will as a project of philosophical anthropology but adds that the program remains unfulfilled (ix-x). On the other hand, the major themes of Ricoeur’s philosophy seem to belong to a philosophical anthropology.

The book is composed of 16 papers, divided into three sections, representing the many stages in Ricoeur’s thought. Within each section, papers are arranged mostly by chronological order, though at times the editors chose to emphasize the thematic to the chronologic. This is the case of the first paper, which was selected as an introduction to the whole, and one of the rare ones to discuss, in an introductory paragraph, the project of a philosophical anthropology (1). Ricoeur’s claim is that there is urgency to the task of a philosophical anthropology because man is being pulled apart into the naturalized form prevalent in the sciences, the metaphysical retreat to ontology (possibly a reference to Heidegger), and the diagnostic of an alienated man in the criticism of modernity (possibly a reference to Marxism and to the theories of alienation). Nevertheless, the paper focuses on one issue, ‘both specific enough and revelatory enough to show what makes it a problem’ (2), the ambivalence in which man finds himself ‘tended between an infinite and a finite pole’. Ricoeur rejects the idea that finitude is the central concept for a philosophical anthropology, and suggests instead the triad ‘finitude-infinitude-intermediary’. Accordingly, we cannot start from something simple, such as perception, but from something double, perception and language, or maybe better, the prephilosohpical richness that exists in language, symbol and myth. But because philosophy can only partially elucidate this richness, a philosophical anthropology is a task that can never be completed (19).

The opening section, on Will, comprises four papers. The first one, on attention —Ricoeur’s first published philosophical work— is a revised and expanded version of a talk he gave in 1940, shortly before joining the army at the wake of WWII, during which he will be imprisoned in a German camp for the rest of the war. This paper is particularly interesting for its exploration of Ricoeur’s relationship to Husserl’s phenomenology, which is mentioned several times. But Ricoeur does not appear, at that time, committed to the phenomenological approach, which coexist with references to other thinkers and schools in the text (Wundt, behaviorism, William James, Gestalt psychology, etc.).

The second paper, on the phenomenology of the voluntary and the involuntary, is contemporaneous with Ricoeur’s doctoral thesis, published as Philosophy of Will, I. The Voluntary and the Involuntary (1950). Ricoeur states that the study of the voluntary and the involuntary moments of consciousness have to be guided by the ideal of the unity of the human person (53). This study has also the intention to address the big philosophical question of the relationship between nature and freedom by proposing a practical mediation between them (54). Ricoeur approaches the problem carefully, sidelining the ontological problem, engaging in a second-order reflexion on the reflexive aspects of the will.

This goes on in two additional papers focusing on the philosophy of Will, marking Ricoeur’s realization of the need to combine the phenomenological approach with an approach inspired by the analytical philosophy of language and with an hermeneutic approach, each having their own domains of legitimacy and justification (73). This is accomplished in the fourth essay in this section, which is devoted again to the relationship between phenomenology and philosophy of language.

The second section, on Action, opens with ‘The symbol Gives Rise to Thought’, which presents Ricoeur’s distinctive philosophical approach. Playing with the multiple meanings of the expression in French, Ricoeur claims that ‘the symbol gives; I do not posit its meaning; it is what gives meaning, but what it gives has to be thought, has to be thought through’ (108). The immediacy represented in the symbol is already mediated in Ricoeur’s approach, as he takes his examples from the domain of the history of religion, psychoanalysis, and poetics (110). This material is further refined in a three staged process, a phenomenological, a hermeneutical and finally, a properly philosophical one. His approach starts with symbols but steers clear of allegorical interpretation (120). Ricoeur explains this point with an example taken from his Fallible Man, published the same year. Ricoeur claims that in order to speak about guilt we need to have recourse to certain symbols (e.g., pollution, deviation, erring, hybris, etc.). According to Ricoeur, these symbols do not add to the original experience of evil, but are the experience of evil. The symbol truly opens and uncovers a domain of experience (121, and philosophy should ‘decipher human beings starting from the symbol of chaos, of intermixture, and of a fall’ (121). In this context Ricoeur refers to Kant’s essay on ‘radical evil’ (a recurring reference in other papers), and refers to his philosophical approach as a form of ‘transcendental deduction’ (122). But the ‘symbolic turn’ does not end at the anthropological and reflexive level. Ricoeur tasks philosophy with the challenge to surpass anthropology, and reintegrate human beings in a totality (123). He does not elaborate about the meaning of such totality, which does seem to point to a religious dimension.

The next two papers in this section, respectively on freedom and myth were written for the Encyclopaedia Universalis, a French offshoot of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. They illustrate Ricoeur’s combination of a philosophy of language and the hermeneutics of symbols.

In ‘The Symbolic Structure of Action’ Ricoeur argues that ‘there is no human action unless it has already been articulated, mediated, and interpreted by symbols’ (176). This is valid not only for social action but also for elementary actions, insofar as singular agents can confer meaning to them. Ricoeur proposes to postpone to a second stage the study of how an individual, a group, or a culture represents the symbolic conditions of its existence (representative symbolism), and to look first at symbolism as constitutive of action. He achieves it by temporarily bracketing the difference between symbol and signification. Signification is analytically present in action, insofar as we understand action as being different from an event. Action refers to intention, motives, agent, i.e., to the language game of action. The next step is to ask what it is exactly that the symbol adds to this signification. Ricoeur lists six features: (1) the term symbol accentuates the public character of the signifying; (2)the symbol introduces us to the structured character of action; (3)the symbol introduces us to the idea of a rule; (4) the symbolic order is ruled-governed, and the rule for rules is exchange, a notion that Ricoeur borrows here from Levy-Strauss; (5) A symbolic system provides a context for the description of particular actions; (6) Finally, we can speak of symbolism as a readability of action. But is it legitimate to speak of the symbolism of action as a discourse? Ricoeur underlines a few potential objections but concludes that, within a certain limit, it is possible speak of a culture as a discourse (186). The second part of the paper focuses on symbolism as representation of action. The problems exposed here concern the ‘representative gap’ between the symbolic order and the order of action. Citing a famous section of Marx and Engels’s German Ideology, Ricoeur suggests that the real problem is not the presumed gap between the material praxis and its imaginary representation, but ‘the passage from constitutive symbolism [in Marx’s text, ‘the language of real life’ MM]…to representative symbolism’, i.e., from one symbolism to another (188). This change does not preclude the existence of a gap between these two symbolisms, which Ricoeur studies briefly in the following sections on narrative fiction and on ideology. Ricoeur concludes his paper with a reflexion on the role of the philosopher in identifying and condemning the hijacking and perverse use of symbolism and discourse for a rhetoric of domination (194)

This section concludes with Ricoeur’s address to the 1988 World Congress of Philosophy. Entitled ‘Human Beings as the Subject of Philosophy’, this paper is probably the closest that Ricoeur comes to offering an account of his philosophical anthropology. This paper follows closely the argument which will be later presented in Oneself as Another, published in 1990.

Ricoeur begins by asking what kind of discourse on human beings is the philosopher’s own. He goes on saying that this restriction of the field reflects the linguistic turn adopted by most contemporary thinkers, but even from there it ‘cannot proceed in a direct…immediate and intuitive fashion’ (195). Rather, we would need to take a number of stages in an itinerary that starts with the almost neutral idea of a person, until we progressively reach the complex determination of the self. Ricoeur suggests here three levels: linguistic, praxeological and ethical. The linguistic level is itself divided into a semantic and a pragmatic level. At the semantic level, we can speak of an individual as just an entity we can refer to (197). It is only at the pragmatic level, a level that takes into account the context of interlocution, that the individual appears not only as something that can be spoken about but also as the one who speaks, as in the illocutionary act. But the self shown in the speech acts is still mired into paradoxes, which cannot be resolved at this level, without involving a form of pre-understanding, similar to the one presented in Husserl and Heidegger’s philosophy. According to Ricoeur, the relationship between the results of analytical philosophy and phenomenology is that of a ‘reciprocal implication’ (201).

The transition between the linguistic and praxeological level is somewhat abrupt. Ricoeur explains: ‘I propose to make concrete the characterization of the person as a self, by tying the notion of a speaking subject to that of an acting and suffering subject’ (201). Human action is action that is spoken about, but action cannot immediately be reduced to the philosophy of language. The theory of action has a certain degree of autonomy. This section concludes with a reaffirmation of the necessary entanglement between phenomenological approach and philosophy of language, already stated at the end of the prior section.

From the theory of action Ricoeur moves to the ethical level in the next section, which centers in the experience of moral imputation. Imputation, a judgment that a person is responsible for the consequences of his or her actions, presupposes not only the linguistic and practical aspects of the self previously accounted for, but also to consider the ‘logical, historical and teleological structure of action’. Ricoeur also refers to the need to elucidate the role of self-evaluation and to account for the potentially conflictual nature of action. Ricoeur ends his exposé with two methodological comments. In the first one, he explains his journey as a cumulative one, as a grafting procedure, whereas the ethical is added to the practical dimensions, as these were previously added to the linguistic ones. In the second one, he offers, in a few lines, a brief but stern defense of philosophy’s role elaborating the presuppositions of any empirical science of man (208).

The third section is composed of Ricoeur’s late papers. The first three focus on Ricoeur’s reworking of the analytical discussion of personal identity. A fourth paper explore a phenomenology of the uncanny, concentrating on the experience of the foreign or Other.. This last paper is followed by a conference talk, presenting a two-fold interest. First, it is one of the rare occasions in which Ricoeur addresses explicitly the question of religion in a philosophical context, as opposed to his many confessional writings; second, it is possibly the first time that Ricoeur uses the notion of the ‘capable man’, appearing first in the subtitle and then as the headline of the essay’s first section.

Ricoeur begins in agreement with the organizers, stating that what constitutes the modern understanding of religion is the shift from ontology to ethics. He goes on considering his contribution as the exploration of a region of human experience, the experience of the capable man, and of the way religion can be said to address this experience. In the short development that follows, Ricoeur presents the discourse of capability as a discourse that precedes the ethical discourse, while intimately bound to the hermeneutic of selfhood. Capability appears as the primary ground, reflecting different types of inabilities or incapacities. It also appears as the presupposition of imputability, defined here as the capacity of an agent to be subject to an imputation, and the capacity of an agent to submit his or her action to the requirement of a symbolic order (271) –the most important aspect of which is an agent’s capacity to place his or her action under the role of justice. Capability is not an ontological trait, but a belief that is more than an opinion (275). This belief coexists with its opposite, disbelief, where Ricoeur now places much of what he placed before under the umbrella of the fallible. Ricoeur then goes on presenting religion in its interaction with man as capable man, though we should note that he does so under the form of the ‘incapable’. Ricoeur lists several points to this interaction: (1) Religion touches man at the level of a specific incapacity; (2) Religion purports to bring help and liberate a buried capacity; (3) Religion brings about this regeneration by specific symbolic means that reawaken fundamental moral capacities (276).

Ricoeur here analyzes over several pages Kant’s notion of a radical evil, reframing the problem of evil from an ontological stance into an anthropological and phenomenological one; rendering evil as a crisis of attestation, one whose origin is inscrutable (286). But even if man is corruptible, there is hope insofar as man possesses also a good will. Here, hope is primarily mediated by religion, a mediation that includes also tensions that may develop between hope and its institutional and symbolic instances. Finally, Ricoeur states, together with Kant, that hope is beyond the alternative of ontology and ethics, it is the ‘opening to a dimension alien to the dichotomy’ (289). Ricoeur’s considerations certainly reflect his deep personal beliefs, but the reader may wonder if he is not inadvertently crossing the fine line between a phenomenology —albeit one instructed by a negative hermeneutics— of religion and theology here.

The epilogue of this compilation is a short text prepared by Ricoeur for the award of the Kluge Prize in 1994. Ricoeur’s paper examines the ‘bases of his humanism’ (290). In the first section Ricoeur describes the notion of capacities while developing a typology of basic capacities: capacity to say, capacity to act, capacity to recount, imputability and promising (291), presented from the morally neutral to the explicit moral pole, in which the capable subject attests to himself or herself as a responsible subject. The second section focuses on the correlative nature of these capabilities, where each of them requires a vis-à-vis. But this correlativity is not immediately mutual, nor is it without conflict, and this introduces the question of the struggle for recognition. In the final section, Ricoeur wonders if the social bond can be established solely in the basis of a ‘struggle for recognition’, or whether is not also based on a prior experience of ‘good will’, based on the resemblance of one person to another, on practices of compromise and of generosity. As it is always the case with Ricoeur, such possibilities are raised and carefully examined, but the question remains unanswered.

The conference talks and articles gathered in this volume offer an overview of the manifold aspects of Ricoeur’s work around the possibility of a philosophical anthropology. But this collection is not a propaedeutic for such a discipline. As stated in the ‘Translator Note’, the main objective of this series is to give the English reader access to Ricoeurs’s important ‘early texts or previously not widely known’. This has certainly been accomplished here.

Titolo: Martin Heidegger – Eine kritische Einführung
Serie: Klostermann RoteReihe 82
Autore: Peter Trawny
Casa editrice: Klostermann
Data di Pubblicazione: 2016
Formato: Kt 17,80 €
Pagine: 184

Die wichtigste Frage, die sich die momentane Heidegger-Forschung stellen kann, ist nicht, ob Heidegger Antisemit war. Die wichtigste Frage setzt dies als Annahme voraus. Stattdessen geht es darum, inwiefern Heideggers philosophisches Werk von diesen Überzeugungen beeinflusst wurde. Die Frage ist zentral, da die Angst besteht, etwas von Heidegger und seinen Schülern und Schülerinnen gelernt zu haben, das unvereinbar mit einer kategorischen Ablehnung von Rassismus und Antisemitismus ist.

Peter Trawny ist Experte für diese Frage. Er ist Mitherausgeber der Heidegger Gesamtausgabe und Verfasser mehrerer Bücher, die sich unter anderem mit Heideggers Verhältnis zum Nationalsozialismus beschäftigen. Dabei nimmt er eine Mittelposition ein. Er verteufelt nicht, aber er verteidigt auch nicht.

2003 veröffentlichte Trawny ein Buch mit dem Titel Martin Heidegger – Eine Einführung. Das war 10 Jahre bevor er die Veröffentlichung der sogenannten Schwarzen Hefte Heideggers bekannt gab, jene Denktagebücher, die lange Zeit als verschollen galten und die posthum die Heidegger Interpretation in den öffentlichen Diskurs katapultierten. Für viele Kommentatoren wird in diesen Schriften Heideggers Antisemitismus expliziter denn je. Auch Trawny fühlte sich veranlasst, seine ursprüngliche Einführung zu überarbeiten und sie in einer kritischeren Betrachtungsweise zu vervollständigen.

Das Ziel von Martin Heidegger – Eine kritische Einführung ist es, einen kurzen Überblick über Heideggers Themen zu geben. Kritisch wird dieser Überblick dadurch, dass angestoßen wird, inwiefern Heideggers Antisemitismus und Nationalismus auf die Bearbeitung dieser Themen gewirkt haben könnten.

Es ist wichtig zu betonen, dass mehr nicht versucht wird. Es findet keine tiefgehende Einführung, Interpretation oder Erklärung zu den einzelnen Begriffen oder Positionen Heideggers statt. So mancher Leser wird davon enttäuscht sein, denn gerade das erwartet man von einem Buch, dessen Titel eine kritische Einführung verspricht, so zweideutig diese Formulierung auch ist. Doch dazu gibt es keinerlei Verlangen bei Trawny. Jede Erläuterung ist zu skizzenhaft, um dem Anfänger das Gefühl zu vermitteln, immerhin das Rohgebäude von Heideggers Denkens verstanden zu haben. Passend dazu ist die Auswahl der Themen. Viele Themen, die normalerweise im Zentrum stehen, wie die Analyse des Seinsbegriffs, erhalten nicht mehr Aufmerksamkeit als Heideggers frühe theologische Anfänge.

Paradigmatisch für diese Kürze ist Trawnys Behandlung der, für Heideggers Denken wichtigen, ontologischen Differenz. Bereits im ersten Paragraph dieses Kapitels nimmt er, scheinbar kapitulierend zur Kenntnis, dass keine Einführung im Stande sei, diese schwierige Unterscheidung treffend auszuführen. Man fragt sich, weshalb es nicht wenigstens versucht wird. Platz ist genug bei gerade einmal 168 Seiten für einen Denker, dessen veröffentlichte Gesamtausgabe momentan über 80 Werke umfasst.

Die Verantwortung für ein bleibendes Unverständnis der skizzierten Positionen ist, laut Trawny, beim Leser zu suchen. Der Autor gibt einen Hinweis, darauf wie er sich sein Publikum vorstellt. Er wünscht sich „Studierende die etwas mitarbeiten wollen, aber auch Liebhaber des Philosophen“ (15). Aber was genau heißt hier mitarbeiten? Heißt es selber nachzuschlagen was ein Begriff bedeutet? Wenn man es immer noch nicht versteht, eine zweite Einführung zu konsultieren? Genau das heißt es. Positiv ausgedrückt: Anstatt den Leser mit ausschweifenden Interpretationen zu überwältigen, strahlt der Text Vorsicht aus. Vorsicht nicht zu sehr von dem eigentlichen Thema abzulenken. Vorsicht dieses Thema nicht zu schnell interpretatorisch zu bestimmen.

Diese Vorsicht ist trügerisch. Für eine Einführung in Heideggers Denken in Bezug zum Antisemitismus ist Trawny nicht vorsichtig genug. Ironischerweise ist sie dies gerade der Fall, weil sie zu oberflächlich und zu kurz bleibt. Kürze von einer Autorität wie Trawny kann missverstanden werden. Was nicht kontrovers ist kann, normalerweise, schnell als zum common ground gehörend übergangen werden und muss nicht näher beachtet werden – so bestimmt es die Pragmatik.

Zu kurz geraten ist vor allem die Frage, wie sich Heideggers antisemitischen Ansichten auf seine Philosophie auswirken. Diese wird scheinbar schon von Anfang an beantwortet oder immerhin in eine bestimmte Richtung gelenkt. Trawny beginnt seine Ausführen damit, darauf hinzuweisen, dass man Heideggers eigenem Aufruf folgen sollte und den Fokus weniger auf sein Werk sondern auf seinen „Weg“ legen sollte. Für Trawny und Heidegger ist Denken somit etwas Performatives, etwas das vom Leben nicht getrennt werden kann. Leben und Werk sind somit eng verflochten. Dass Heidegger so dachte, ist nicht kontrovers. Kontrovers ist jedoch was dies für die Heidegger Interpretation bedeutet. Genau diese Frage bleibt bislang ungeklärt.

Es ist sicherlich wichtig, diesen Grundgedanken, „Wege statt Werke“, in einer kritischen Einführung aufzugreifen. Doch die Leser, vor allem die Anfänger, müssen auch verstanden werden. Sie folgen unweigerlich der oben genannten pragmatischen Regel und können nicht einschätzen, wann und wo sie nachhaken müssen, wenn über Schlüsselprobleme zu schnell hinweggegangen wird. Dass Leben und Werk verstrickt sind, kann somit so verstanden werden, dass es klar sei, dass Heideggers Philosophie von seinem antisemitischen Denken beeinflusst sein muss. Gerade diese implizite Schlussfolgerung ist problematisch. Es bedarf eine gewisse Bekanntheit mit der Debatte, um dies einzusehen. Genau das sollte eine kritische Einführung vermitteln. Trawnys Einführung wird diesem Anspruch nicht gerecht.

Wie stark diese unangebrachte Kürze auf den Leser wirken kann, möchte ich im Folgenden illustrieren. Schon auf Seite 19 zitiert Trawny Heideggers Satz: „Unser Leben ist unsere Welt“. Dabei gebe es „’irregeleitetes Leben’ wie ‘echtes Leben’“ (20). Auf derselben Seite spricht Trawny selbst: „[…] wenn der Philosoph nur dann über sein Thema sprechen kann, wenn er dieses Thema ‘lebt’, dann muss die Frage nach der ‘Wissenschaftlichkeit’ von Philosophie überhaupt gestellt werden.“ Laut Trawny sei nach Heideggers eigener Philosophie eine von diesen „Verstrickungen freie Erkenntnis“ nicht möglich (21).

Das klingt plausibel. Doch genau ein solcher Satz am Anfang eines Texts, der diese Frage erst noch beantworten sollte, oder besser, offen lassen sollte, ist unangemessen. Geäußert als scheinbare Banalität von einer Autorität wie Trawny, kommt der mitarbeitende Anfänger kaum daran vorbei, ihn nicht als gegeben hinzunehmen und ihn automatisch mit Heideggers Antisemitismus in Verbindung zu bringen. Das Projekt des Buchs ist somit schon zu Beginn gefährdet, die zentrale Frage schon auf Seite 19 beantwortet.

Zumindest für Heidegger scheint also klar zu sein, dass man Heidegger nicht von seinen Handlungen und seinen, vor allem in den Schwarzen Heften ausgedrückten Überzeugungen; trennen kann. Doch was genau bedeutet das? Wo sind die Schnittstellen besonders offensichtlich? Wenn sie so offensichtlich sind, wie Trawny im ersten Kapitel implizit ankündigt, erwartet der Leser klare offensichtliche Hinweise in Heideggers Werk. Trawny macht dazu ein paar Vorschläge. Zum Beispiel spekuliert er, ob Heideggers frühe Religionsphänomenologie bereits antisemitische Einflüsse enthalten (31). Er legt nahe, dass Heidegger aus antisemitischen Gründen verlangt, Hebräisch und das Judentum aus dem Christentum und seinen Lehren zu verbannen. Das ist wieder skizzenhaft. Zwar wird durch die Knappheit zum Lesen der Primärtexte und weiterer Sekundärliteratur gezwungen, doch da dieses niemals explizit gefordert wird, kann man nicht vermeiden, dass zumindest manche Leser Trawny einfach beim Wort nehmen werden. Das wäre schade und sicher nicht in Trawnys Interesse.

Auch Heideggers Kritik des „Man“ und seiner Beschreibung der anonymen Massenkultur im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert wird mit einem Brief in Verbindung gebracht, in dem Heidegger von „der Verjudung unserer Kultur und Universitäten“ spricht (52). Trawny schlägt vor, dass das „Man“ für Heidegger „geradezu ein Beschreibungsregister der Verjudung“ sei (52). Der ungeübte Leser weiß wieder nicht, was er davon halten soll. Ist sein Antisemitismus also Grund für Heideggers Kritik an der Massenkultur oder erfüllt „das Judentum“ lediglich eine Rolle, die bereits für sie angelegt war? Nur wer aus anderen Quellen weiß, dass Trawnys Position besonders hier kontrovers ist, kann vernünftig „mitarbeiten“.

Es wäre jedoch ein Fehler Trawnys Buch auf dieses Thema zu reduzieren. Sein Überblick ist grob aber weitreichend genug, dass die Leser schnell zum Mitarbeiten, das heißt, zum Lesen des eigentlichen Textes, kommen müssen. Denn um diesen geht es Trawny. Das Ziel des Buchs ist somit als Wegweiser zu fungieren, trotz der anfänglichen Tendenzen. Dennoch wird Heideggers Verhältnis zum Antisemitismus und Nationalismus zu jeder Zeit im Text aufgegriffen. Es bleibt das zentrale Thema des Buchs.

Besonders klar wird dies in Bezug auf Heideggers Hölderlin Interpretation. Nur kurz geht es hier um Heideggers sehr wichtige und interessante Sprachphilosophie. Umso schneller wird zitiert. In diesem Fall, dass Hölderlin den „Deutschen ihre Sprache und Geschichte liefert“. Was bedeutet das nun wieder? Der Leser kann nicht anders als hier eine implizite Parallele zu ziehen, die im gesamten Buch auf- und abgegriffen wird: Hat sich Heideggers Sprachphilosophie aus einem romantischen Nationalismus entwickelt, der untrennbar mit seinem Antisemitismus verbunden ist?

Am stärksten wird der Zusammenhang im darauf folgenden Abschnitt gemacht, in dem Trawny einen Bezug zwischen Heideggers Philosophie und den, für den damaligen Antisemitismus wichtigen, Protokollen der Weisen von Zion herstellt. Trawny zeigt hier Parallelen zwischen diesem Text und Heideggers Antisemitismus auf, ohne zu behaupten, Heidegger habe diesen Text bewusst gelesen. Dass er dennoch von ihm beeinflusst war, lässt Trawny als Möglichkeit offen und beruft sich auf den bekannten Antisemitismusforscher Jeffrey Sammons. Dieser sieht den Ursprung des zeitgenössischen Antisemitismus in denselben Protokollen der Weisen von Zion. Wieder lässt Trawny aus, dass gerade dieser Zusammenhang in der heutigen Debatte höchst kontrovers ist. Aber gerade diese Information ist wichtig für jeden, der sich für eine Einführung interessiert.

Im Großen und Ganzen bleibt Trawny jedoch bei seiner Mittelposition und schließt, dass sich Heideggers besonders problematischen Notizen in den Schwarzen Heften nicht unbedingt auf Heideggers Gesamtwerk übertragen lassen, das aber dennoch ein hermeneutischer Verdacht bestehen bleibt. Trawny empfiehlt den Lesern Heidegger aufmerksam, das heißt nicht ohne Heidegger, zu lesen. Wie dies zu verstehen ist, fasst er in dem mit nicht wenig Pathos verkündeten Paradox zusammen: „Das Denken über und auch mit Heidegger muss von seinem Denken frei bleiben. Es darf sich weder von der Kraft seiner Sprache verführen lassen, noch darf es sich seine Sprache und seine Begriffe aneignen“ (14). Das scheint auch für den Autor nicht immer leicht zu sein.

Was Trawny überhaupt nicht erwähnt, ist, dass es sich bei seiner Einführung wirklich hauptsächlich um das Denken Heideggers in Verbindung zum Antisemitismus und dem Nationalsozialismus handelt. Andere problematische Stellen in seinem Denken, die ebenso durch die Schwarzen Hefte zum Vorschein gekommen sind, könnten nicht weniger Einfluss auf seine Philosophie gehabt haben. So werden zum Beispiel weder die häufig vergessenen, antidemokratischen Züge bei Heidegger erwähnt, noch sein Antiamerikanismus. Dies jedoch sollte in einer kritischen Einführung zumindest angesprochen werden.

Im Rückblick lässt sich zusammenfassen, dass Peter Trawnys Kritische Einführung zu kurz und umrissartig ist, um dem Anfänger das eine oder andere Konzept in Heideggers Werk näher zu bringen, geschweige denn zu erklären. Für einen solchen Zweck wäre eine spezialisierte Einführung zu zum Beispiel Sein und Zeit angebrachter. Wer jedoch einen kurzen Text sucht, der einen Überblick über Heideggers Gesamtwerk bietet und wie dieses sich womöglich zum Antisemitismus verhält, kann Trawnys Text als solide Ressource nutzen, dessen Thesen jedoch kritisch zu betrachten sind.

Titolo: Levinas' 'Totality and Infinity': A Reader's Guide
Serie: Reader's Guides
Autore: William Large
Casa editrice: Bloomsbury
Data di Pubblicazione: 2015
Formato: Paperback £13.49
Pagine: 168

Levinas’ ‘Totality and Infinity’: A Reader’s Guide is a recent book in Bloomsbury’s series of reader’s guides. It is written by William Large, who has also written a guide on Heidegger’s Being and Time. Large’ guide comes shortly after James Mensch’s guide on Levinas’ Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Both books are extremely helpful in introducing the reader to Levinas in general and his Totality and Infinity (henceforth, TI) in specific, though their approaches are slightly different. Both focus on providing an expository commentary that follows Levinas’ text, but Mensch’s exposition is longer (just under twice as long) and as a result more detailed. Mensch also focuses on the specific connection between Levinas and Heidegger in a way that Large does not, beginning with an introduction on how the two philosophers’ works are related. Large’s book, by contrast, is divided into three main chapters. The first provides a quick overview of the context and themes of TI, the second and largest chapter (roughly a hundred pages) is a reading of the text, and finally the book ends with a brief look at TI’s reception and influence. As a result, the two guides serve slightly different purposes. Mensch’s book is more helpful for more advanced readers, Large’s is better for nonspecialists and students aiming to approach Levinas’ work. In particular, the brevity of Large’s book makes it a great text to assign along with TI. It helps students understand the text without being too distracting or time consuming, even if the guide has some drawbacks.

The need for Large’s (but also Mensch’s) guide is easiest to appreciate if one has tried to read TI without introduction. As a reader of Levinas coming largely from the analytic tradition, it is hard to overestimate how opaque Levinas’ writing can seem, particularly if one is not familiar with phenomenology. Even with a phenomenological background, TI remains daunting. Before one can approach the position Levinas develops over the course of the book through various distinctions, arguments, and observations, one is confronted with the book’s language and organization. In the first two pages, Levinas introduces some of his central themes, which include ideas like the philosophical understanding of being as war, the ‘eschatology of messianic peace’, infinity, and the connection Levinas sees between his position and Descartes’ proof of God in the third meditation. These ideas are initially obscure, seem to break with the phenomenological tradition, and sound deeply theological (with a cursory glance ahead only seeming to confirm this suspicion). Section I, which follows TI’s preface, is also one of the densest. It attempts to encapsulate the book’s argument using the full terminology that Levinas only develops in the subsequent sections. Compounding these difficulties is Levinas’ style, which often seems more focused on being poetic than precise, despite the clarity of his position (at least for the most part) once the book is understood.

Large’s text helps immensely with these problems. The first chapter prepares the reader by quickly looking at the connections between TI and ethics, phenomenology, and judaism. The first connection is central to Levinas’ project, since TI reinterprets metaphysics as a relation to another person, rather than as a relation to a noumenal world beyond the phenomena (e.g. see TI’s sections Ia and IIe). In this sense, Levinas seeks to replace traditional metaphysics with ‘ethics’. Large primarily focuses his discussion on contrasting TI’s view with traditional ethics. While traditional ethics begins with the subject who acts ethically by deliberating on principles that lead to action, Large argues that Levinasian ethics begins with the concrete experience of the other, rather than with any principles that govern the subjects’ encounter.

Though this captures the basic idea in TI, the discussion in this introductory chapter might have benefitted from more explicitly pointing out that Levinas is more interested in providing a metaethical position than a normative ethical one. Levinas does not explicitly say this, but it is clear that his focus is on the confrontation with the other as a source of moral obligations, rather than as a way of determining a particular theory of obligations.^[i] For Levinas, by contrast to the silent world, which one can interrogate, but which cannot answer that interrogation (or as Levinas put it “To ask what is to ask as what: it is not to take the manifestation for itself.”^[ii]), others are ‘self-presenting’; they have a face (e.g. Levinas writes “What we call the face is precisely this exceptional presentation of self by self”^[iii]). While Levinas thinks the face has a sort of nonconceptual impact on us, the face’s significance is clearest when we appeal to the other’s use of language. Because another person can speak for herself, she can provide a way of comprehending her and her world. Her self-presentation also serves to interrupt the subject’s thinking or conception of the other, and indeed of her own world. The result is that the subject, insofar as she is already amidst others, finds herself in a situation in which these others make demands, and foremost moral demands, on her.

The other’s self-presentation serves many different purposes in Levinas’ argument, but one thing it seems to imply is a commitment to moral noncognitivism, the view that there is a reality to moral discourse despite the absence of moral truths in the world (Levinas’ way of putting this is to say that the face cannot be grasped through representation e.g. in TI section IIIb1). More specifically, Levinas’ view seems to be a form of prescriptivism, where moral judgments express a subject’s prescriptions e.g. ‘Murder is wrong’ becomes ‘Let no one commit murder’, with priority given to the pronouncements of the other.^[iv] Though much of what Large goes on to discuss in the book’s main chapter makes Levinas’ interest in metaethics clear, stating this explicitly would have helped better locate TI amongst contemporary discussions. It would also eliminate the confusion in Levinas’ own use of ethics, and prevent readers from looking for a normative theory in what he says.

The second connection Large focuses on is that between TI and phenomenology. Large’s discussion helpfully highlights how Levinas’ work breaks with Husserl’s and Heidegger’s, while also noting the importance of Plato and Descartes to TI. These connections and others are also further developed in the close reading of TI (in chapter 2). However, one limitation of this early discussion is that Large focuses exclusively on these philosophers’ treatment of alterity. Though this reflects Levinas’ own emphasis, Large’s discussion might have benefitted from beginning with a general overview of how TI provides an alternative to Husserl’s representation-heavy phenomenology and Heidegger’s phenomenology of practical engagement. Understanding that Levinas emphasizes receptivity (what he calls ‘sensibility’, which allows us to stand in the relation of ‘living from’) over theory (i.e. Levinas’ ‘representation’) or practice (i.e. Levinas’ ‘labor’) is helpful if one is already familiar with transcendental and existential phenomenology, or if one is trying to understand the relations between different phenomenologists.

Finally, Large considers a charge sometimes made against Levinas, that he is providing a distinctively Jewish philosophy. This discussion is supplemented by another in the book’s final chapter, where Large discusses criticisms of TI’s religious (even if not specifically Jewish) terminology. Large’s discussion on both these issues explains many of the important points in a simple way, making it easy to follow why TI is not fundamentally Judaic or religious. This is particularly important because one’s interest in the work might vary with whether one understands it to be religiously committed or not. It is also important because the text calls for this type of clarification. Levinas’ language undoubtedly sounds theological (e.g. Levinas calls the separation of the subject ‘atheism’), and sometimes specifically Judaic (e.g. in the use of ‘the stranger, the widow, and the orphan’^[v]). But Large makes it clear that this language remains religiously noncommittal. On the one hand, he argues that to read Levinas as a Jewish philosopher is at worst ad hominem, and at best does not clearly recognize the hermeneutical features of the text. On the other hand, throughout his reading of the text, Large defines Levinas’ religious concepts, explains why Levinas uses them, and shows that on a straightforward reading these concepts do not commit us to any God or religion. Indeed Levinas’ view, coupled with his choice of words (e.g. infinity as an idea arising from the other person), might seem to altogether undermine traditional conceptions of religion or God as transcending human community. Whatever one might think of Levinas’ own commitments, or the fruitfulness of reading TI as part of a theological or Judaic philosophical canon, TI certainly does not assume a traditional theological framework.

This brings us to the central chapter of Large’s book, which is a reading of the text largely following TI’s sections and subsections. Large begins with Levinas’ dense preface, in which Levinas asks “whether we are not duped by morality”^[vi], and to which his initial answer is that “being reveals itself as war to philosophical thought”. This ‘truth’ is what Levinas seeks to overcome in the remainder of TI’s four sections. In the first, Levinas presents a complete overview of his answer, beginning with the reinterpretation of metaphysics as a relation between one separated being and another (i.e. the ‘face to face’ relation), and concluding with the claim that truth presupposes justice, as a way of overcoming the ‘truth’ of history. In the second section, Levinas provides his account of the separated person. He argues that the phenomenological subject is foremost an enjoying being, one whose enjoyment (and therefore freedom) depends on an uncertain world (Levinas’ ‘the element’), which can only be overcome through the home, labor, and representation. This account also grounds Levinas’ critiques of existential (but also transcendental) phenomenology, which he sees as mistakenly beginning with radical freedom (e.g. in Sartre), reducing life and its enjoyment to bare existence, and mistakenly assuming the priority of representation (e.g. in Husserl) or labor (e.g. in Heidegger). In the third section, Levinas turns to the relation with others, arguing that unlike the world, which can be dominated and comprehended by sight and touch (which he associates with representation and labor), another person remains a separated being, genuinely accessible only through the face-to-face encounter, and ultimately speech. In the fourth and final section, Levinas turns to various related issues that go past the relation to the other. These include the issue of death (which arises first at the end of the third section) and the way it is overcome through the birth of subsequent generations, the erotic relation to another, and a sketch of political relations that begin from within the family rather than the state. As Large points out, these sections do not always seem to clearly fit with the rest of the book, and certainly seem more like sketches than fully worked out positions.

Large’s overviews, definitions, and explanations of these sections of TI are all simple to read and very informative. They help clarify TI’s organization, its language, and its content. Large sticks to writing in a simple and conversational tone, making his reading of the text easy to follow, and ideal as secondary reading for students learning Levinas. Large also does a nice job of locating Levinas’ position in the history of philosophy, he looks at the connections he discusses in the preface in more detail, but also further connections to other philosophers (e.g. Kant and Hegel). His approach is also critical in some places. For instance, although he preserves the distinctions Levinas makes using these concepts, he does not defend Levinas’ questionable use of ‘woman’ and ‘the feminine’ in the text. He also highlights the difficulties in the final section of the text, though his discussion of those sections is brief, and does away with the section by section reading of the text. The main drawback of this otherwise informative chapter is that Large sometimes sticks too closely to Levinas’ terminology and metaphors, which can be less helpful when one is confused about what Levinas is saying. For much of the text, however, Large’s guide will be valuable for a wide range of audiences.

This brings us to Large’s final chapter which considers TI’s critical reception. Large focuses on four main problems that emerge out of TI, but only introduces them, without going into details (each discussion is less than two pages long). The problems are those concerning the immediacy of speech, the lack of a substantive political theory, Levinas’ use of the feminine, and the difficulties that arise out of TI’s religious language. The first problem, developed by Blanchot and Derrida, concerns Levinas’ privileging of the other, and specifically her speech, as immediate in a way that e.g. her writings or other works are not. The second is that TI seems to provide a space for ethical relations between subjects who encounter one another directly, but seems to leave out more indirect relations to others such as those that arise in politics, or which concern justice amongst others.^[vii] The third problem is Levinas’ use of the concepts of ‘woman’, ‘female’, and ‘feminine’ to designate relations that falls short of being the ‘ethical’ face-to-face relation (though they do not preclude it) in both his discussions of the ‘intimacy’ of the home, and the transcendence possible through the birth of future generations. And the final problem is that raised by the religious terminology. Given their brevity, these discussions only serve to point the reader in a direction of enquiry, or alert students to difficulties within the text. My own preference would have been for a slightly longer final section, as in many cases these critiques are interesting for readers not familiar with the phenomenological tradition and its aftermath. Overall, however, I thought Large’s book an extremely helpful read, and I would not hesitate to recommend it, particularly for beginning readers of TI.

Bibliography

Large, W. (2015). Levinas’ ‘Totality and Infinity’: A Reader’s Guide. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Levinas, E., & Lingis, A. (1969). Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Duquesne University Press.

Levinas, Emmanuel. 1989. “Ethics and Politics.” The Levinas Reader. Ed. Seán Hand, 289–97. Oxford: Blackwell.

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^[i] It should, however, be noted that Levinas does focus on one particular obligation which he thinks is grounded by the face. This is the obligation to not commit murder. The reason for this is that murder eliminates the other, and thus undermines the very source of moral obligation.

^[ii] TI 1969 p. 177

^[iii] TI 1969 p. 202

^[iv] Another possibility is that Levinas endorses norm expressivism, the view that moral judgments involve the subject’s acceptance of a moral norm. To decide whether TI endorses prescriptivism or norm expressivism would require a longer discussion.

^[v] It is worth pointing out that Bettina Bergo’s (2011) Stanford Encyclopedia entry on Levinas provides an interesting philosophical understanding of ‘the stranger, the widow, and the orphan’.

^[vi] TI 1969 p. 21

^[vii] This is exemplified, for instance, by the distinction Levinas has to make between two notions of the other in responding to the Sabra and Shatila massacres in an interview published in ‘Ethics and Politics’ (1989).