Guido Cusinato: Periagoge. Theory of Singularity and Philosophy as an Exercise of Transformation

Periagoge. Theory of Singularity and Philosophy as an Exercise of Transformation Book Cover Periagoge. Theory of Singularity and Philosophy as an Exercise of Transformation
Philosophy as a Way of Life, Volume: 4
Guido Cusinato. Translators: Rie Shibuya and Karen Whittle
Brill
2023
Hardback

Reviewed by: Emilia Barile (Università di Bologna - Dipartimento delle ARTI)

Used by Plato in the cave myth of Politeia, the term periagoge (from which this book takes its title) corresponds to the moment the prisoner ‘turns’ his neck. In diverting the gaze away from the used world, periagoge signifies a total ‘conversion’ of the freed prisoner to an entirely new perspective on reality. The subtitle, Theory of Singularity and Philosophy as an Exercise of Transformation, clarifies how this happens, and its consequences for the constitution of the human being. In human existence, this ‘turn’ often occurs by means of the experiences of crisis and fall, thanks to which the human singularity assumes its unique form. However, this does not happen in isolation but with others, through practices of emotional sharing, particularly in relationships of care. This second moment becomes explicit thanks to the force of exemplarity.

Based on a first Italian edition[1], the book is almost entirely new, encompassing four main focus areas: 1. The ontology of singularity and its arising in human beings; 2. the constitutive function of emotion and feeling in this process; 3. the key role of philosophy (understood as an exercise of transformation) for the meaning of existence; 4. a final proposal for building up a new axis of social  transformation.

A peculiarity of this volume is the constitutive role of images, with the help of which it has been grown: Starting with the iconic prisoner of the Platonic cave, other meaningful images surround Cusinato’s philosophical analysis. The second image is The Wave by the painter Hokusai: The typical curving of the crest of the wave at the center of this image, breaking the equilibrium, represents the process through which the human singularity assumes form in the experience of crisis and fall of one’s own certainties. Furthermore, two different depictions of the Annunciation (Botticelli’s and Titian’s) are shown: The anthropogenic process of formation does not stop after the impact of crisis or fall, but proceeds further. Concerning this second moment – which becomes explicit thanks to the force of exemplarity – relationships of caring for others and practices of emotional sharing are particularly crucial, thus involving the social feature.

The originality of this work mainly consists in rethinking the traditional question of the meaning of human existence, and in particular the conditions that are needed for it to arise, as a task that is closely interwoven with the anthropogenic process of formation.

 

Over more than 300 pages, Cusinato scrutinizes a number of different topics, as organized in the original structure of the book. Most of them remain pertinent in the contemporary philosophical debate: Self/person distinction, emotion/feeling relationship, social transformation in the era of narcissism and of ‘liquid society’, etc. Nevertheless, the author accepts some terms in a peculiar (and, sometimes, even idiosyncratic) way, so that sometimes it can be difficult to compare his own understanding with other approaches to the same topics (see, for ex., ‘self’, ‘person’, ‘feeling’, etc.). As such, the glossary introducing the volume turns out to be very useful. In the following, I will propose an analysis of some of the most interesting but also controversial terms.

 

The first of these is ‘person’ or ‘personality’, which is already much disputed. We mainly take ‘person’ for granted, understood as a very intuitively grasped concept: However, as soon as we address it more analytically, it suddenly turns out to be much more difficult to describe. As in Augustinus’s discussion on ‘time’[2], we know what it is only until we are asked for a definition. Beyond the approaches emphasizing the social role as an interchangeable ‘mask’[3], we usually consider personal ‘identity’ – understood as having moral as well as legal responsibility – as also exemplifying the definition of ‘self’ or consciousness.

Nevertheless, in order to indicate this concept of the ‘person’ that is acknowledged «as the self-referential subject that says ‘I’» (p. 3), Cusinato links it to what he calls the «little self»[4] (also identifying the dominant culture of narcissism as based on the very lack of distinction between ‘person’ and the ‘little self’). More precisely, personal «singularity» (as he defines it, rather than personal ‘identity’) is understood as the «result of a process of transcending one’s own little self» (p. 4). Under the impact of a crisis, the past horizons of the ‘little self’ turn out to be unable to give a form to her own new existence: So, she searches for further growth in the encounter with the other. Nevertheless, this ‘self-transcendence’ – which is intended as an immanent process, as part of the world – is a transcendence of the ‘little self’, and should not be confused with the existence of an otherworldly dimension (p. 6).

This definition, however, sounds somewhat puzzling for the reader used to the still ongoing debate about ‘self’ and ‘I’. First, in order to discriminate amongst the different levels at which we can deal with ‘subjectivity’, however understood, some approaches prefer to adopt the impersonal term ‘self’ rather than the personal ‘I’. Additionally, in the time sequence of biological evolution, personal identity is neither the principal nor the first organizational level, either phylogenetically and ontogenetically. Neurobiologically, this level corresponds to the so-called «autobiographical self»[5]: Its functioning requires a capacity for memory, for projecting into the future and into the past, starting from the present, within a social and linguistic context. Biologically understood, the autobiographical self can thus be identified with the reflective self that says ‘I’: This level is typically human and requires a language and the exercise of memory in order to be remembered. It is also the only level so far able to ‘witness’ the neural processes themselves, since it is endowed with self-reference, the ability to think about itself  thematically. At a complexity level immediately below sits the so-called «core consciousness», or «core self», the preverbal core: Its neural basis is in the subcortical nuclei of the thalamus, and it is neurally configured as a transient coherent construction of a pattern, formed following the onset of any relationship between the body and an object/event of the world[6]. The so-called «proto-self», meanwhile, is the structure at the deepest level of stratification, at the base of all subsequent constructions. Forerunner of all the higher organizational layers of complexity, both phylogenetically and ontogenetically, «the proto-self is the steppingstone required for the construction of the core self. It is an integrated collection of separate neural patterns mapping, moment by moment, the most stable aspects of the organism’s physical structure»[7]. Much deeper — in the footsteps of the researches of the last 25 years, collected by Tsakiris and De Preester[8] — the physiological underpinnings of subjectivity can be recognized at the physiological level of the interoception proper, as distinguished from proprioception[9], into which it is usually assimilated.

On the other hand, philosophy (mainly phenomenology) also seems to accept this ‘nesting principle’ structuring the different layers of ‘self’. Several phenomenologists nowadays understand subjectivity as based on ‘bodily self’ as its core dimension, and, eventually, on the «minimal self» hypothesis[10]. The perception of the body involved is the qualitatively distinctive experience of the body from inside, the ‘lived’ body [Leib] or the body-subject[11]. In between phenomenology and psychiatry, Fuchs has recently offered a detailed definition and taxonomy of self-experience as relevant for therapy of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, depression or borderline personality disorder (BDP). In James’s footsteps, Fuchs acknowledges ‘self’ as a «process» rather than a «mere construct or model concept»[12]. In opposition to Metzinger[13], he maintains that «selfhood is not a construct, but our fundamental reality»[14], whose disruption has pathological effects. Even if recognizing that we have still no shared definition of ‘self’ and that it is a difficult concept to grasp, he defines it, very broadly, as «a pole of experience contained in every experience, which centers the field of consciousness on a subject and establishes the unity of experience over time»[15]. The term ‘ego’ or ‘I’, which is traditionally used, thus has to be replaced by the narrower, lower and grounding dimension of ‘self’, that is bodily, unconscious and earlier developed in childhood. «The ego could therefore also be described as ‘the reflective self’»[16].

Following Gallagher’s ‘pattern theory’[17], Fuchs acknowledges ‘self’ as a ‘pattern concept’, grasping a multidimensional process developing at several levels in different periods of life. In a nutshell, Fuchs’s model recognizes two main levels of self-experience, i.e., the so-called «basal self» (basal, vital bodily, affective, social self, also acknowledged by Damasio[18], Gallagher[19], Zahavi[20], Rochat[21]) — which is primary, pre-reflective and always present at further levels – and the so-called «extended self», which is reflexive, narrative, existential and personal proper. These two main layers can be further distinguished in other sublayers: The basal self comprises the physical self, the ecological self, the primary social self; on its side, the extended, personal self includes the reflective self, the narrative self, the existential self[22]. When pathologically affected, different layers of self imply different therapeutic approaches as more appropriate. That’s why a working definition of ‘self’ is not only a sophisticated theoretical need, but, much more, a strong clinical urge.

Having said that, however, it is quite difficult to identify which of these understandings of ‘self’ or ‘person’ are shared by Cusinato in his book.  Up to now the «little self» he deals with seems to be identified neither to any ‘minimal self’ nor to the personal self-referential subject sic et simpliciter. Going beyond the so-called myth of personal identity (marked by ‘continuity’, howsoever understood), the author makes his proposal compatible with a radical Humean perspective. He rather interprets «singularity» as self-transcendence and incompleteness of the starting condition of the so-called ‘little self’. Even if associating it with the personal level, which is understood «as the self-referential subject that says ‘I’» (p. 3), I would say that the author idiosyncratically uses the term (little) ‘self’, which is instead mainly adopted as an impersonal item in literature.

Cusinato further deepens the difference between the concept of individuality and identity and the peculiar singularity of human existence. This singularity listens to the voice of the daimonion of its own individual vocation, independent of biological and environmental factors. His definition is thus intended to leave behind the immunitarian, self-referential and the substantial and confessional conceptions of person. Reborn in the space offered by an exemplarity, once her own ‘little self’ has been transcended in taking care of the other, she herself becomes a space to be offered for the growth of the other. Distancing himself once again from the usual meaning of words, the author understands ‘exemplarity’ as the providing of a concrete testimony to the successfulness of an expressive pathway of self-transcendence and detachment from the ‘little self’ (an exemplarity can be a teacher like Socrates, a testimony to the successfulness of an act of self-transcendence out of the ‘little self’). Since the personal singularity assumes form in detachment from the ‘little self’, it is a ‘non-self’, in the literal sense of the term. To be more precise, it is a «personal non-self» (p. 46). The process of transformation [Umbildung] Cusinato describes is intended as a «transformation», understood as a discontinuous and irreversible process thanks to which an  organic, social, or personal system creates a new equilibrium, giving a form to a being that is born without existential form. Anthropogenesis is thus understood as the process of formation that characterizes human beings, through practices of emotional sharing.

 

Connected to personal ‘singularity’ is the constitutive emotional aspect, which is another key insight of the book. ‘Self’, ‘person’, ‘emotion’, ‘feeling’ turn out to be closely intertwined: Along with the recognition of the fundamental role of affectivity, Cusinato outlines the importance of emotional sharing practices, particularly care and desire, in the process of anthropogenesis described. Amongst affective states, feeling is particularly significant: However, this term too is adopted in a very peculiar sense.  Especially (but not only) in psychology, ‘feeling’ is mainly understood as the subjective component of emotions (emotion as it is ‘felt’), as distinct from the so-called ‘public’ dimension of emotion, i.e., posture, mime, facial expressions and behaviour. Although functionalist approaches à la Frijda[23], for ex., recognize ‘feeling’ as a mere epiphenomenon, the private dimension of an emotion can hardly be eliminated in the analysis as easily as the author suggests.

Cusinato understands ‘feeling’ not as referring to a subjective activity that remains confined to the psychological or mental level, but, more broadly, to «the ability of a living being to interact with the expressive level in such a way as to remain connected with the life of the biosphere» (p. 8). Along an enactive view[24], living and feeling imply each other: A similar perspective is also supported by Fuchs, outlining the very continuity – i. e., not identity (in Lewis’s[25] understanding) – between the organic ground of life [Leben] and the phenomenal level of experience [Erleben], as not just etymologically grounded. In his view, this continuity lies in the very double-faced description of the body as Körper and as Leib[26]. Furthermore, the most recent enactivist approaches, focussing on the affective dimension[27], endorse an integrated approach to the organic ground of ‘aliveness’ and the phenomenal level of ‘experience’ right from the start[28]. The reason for these multiple views lies in the fact that feeling too is a poorly defined concept: Yet despite this, psychologists, neurobiologists, philosophers etc. make broad use of it, in the most widely varying ways. As a result, they often use the same term to refer to very different phenomena. That’s also why the glossary proposed by Cusinato at the very beginning of the book turns out to be very useful, as well as stating explicitly in which sense the term is understood in the context analysed.

In my view, if we wish to work out a shared definition of ‘feeling’, we must not consider ‘feeling’ as related to emotions only. Emotion, in fact, is just one of the possible ‘felt’ states: Probably, not even the most interesting one. ‘Feelings’ are connected not only to emotions, but also needs[29], motivations, desires, etc.: All of these states include a hedonic component (at different levels of complexity) and feedback from the perception of the overall condition of the body. Moreover, the debate[30] on the definition and the classification of emotions seems to have arrived at a theoretical impasse: There are still no unified and shared taxonomies of emotions[31]. We go around in circles: Defining an emotion in a specific way implies a certain kind of classification following, and vice versa. In summary, the different theoretical views can be grouped as: Neuroscientific approaches[32], emphasizing the role of the physiological reactions (in the footsteps of the James-Lange theory[33]), and logocentric views[34], underlying the role of the cognitive evaluation (considered as primitive and antecedent to the physiological reactions). However, the emotion/cognition relationship is much more blurred than it is simplistically supposed to be: Even the most orthodox cognitivist views nowadays have to admit that emotions cannot be just ‘ignored’ or reduced to cognitive states.

Considering ‘feeling’ as mainly associated with ‘emotion’ probably derives from a typical overlapping in the English language, which often employs the terms ‘feeling’ and ‘emotion’ as synonyms. In contrast, the Romance languages distinguish these terms in a more refined way: The Italian language, for example, differentiates the term ‘emotion’ [emozione] from ‘feeling’ [sentire, provare] and from ‘sentiment’ [sentimento]. Cusinato acknowledges this, underlining the same distinction made in the Italian language between feeling as a noun [sentiment] and feeling as a verb [sentire]. He also proposes adopting the nominalized infinitive ‘il sentire’ in translating ‘feeling’ as that state «through which a living being remains connected to the biosphere, to emotions» (p. 8). Nevertheless, as I have suggested elsewhere[35], we can understand ‘feeling’ as distinguished not only from ‘emotion’, but also from ‘sentiment’: The last is defined as a mental state proper, always aware, following an emotion, or, more precisely, a combination of emotions. A complex sentiment like ‘friendship’, for example, is not simply a consciously perceived emotion: It is a long-term state, involving a set of emotions[36]. That’s why I share Cusinato’s preference for the Italian translation of ‘sentire’ instead of ‘sentimento’ and I also accept the term ‘feeling’ to refer to the entire set of states that can be ‘felt’ (like emotions, but also ‘needs’, ‘drives’, ‘motives’ etc.).

 

Amongst the different layers of feelings, the author focuses in particular on a specific kind of feeling, i.e., the so-called ‘primordial feelings’. Cusinato writes: «(…) There are different levels of feeling: from primordial feeling, through which a living being remains connected to the biosphere, to emotions, which represent feeling that orients the movement of an animal organism endowed with a body schema, a social self, or a personal singularity» (p. 8). At the biosemiotic[37] level, he recognizes at least three ramifications of primordial feelings: The feeling of the living body, the feeling of the social self and the feeling of the personal singularity (p. 156). However, ‘primordial feeling’ is not a notion that can be taken for granted either: It is not at all a shared object in our conceptual armoire.

Amongst other scholars, particularly Damasio (and also Colombetti[38]) recognizes ‘primordial feelings’ in the taxonomies of affective states: Examples of these basic feelings are the feeling of ‘existence’, the feeling ‘of the body’ or the feeling ‘of life’, the feeling of ‘being alive’[39]. Over recent decades, Damasio’s conceptualizations have become very popular in the affective sciences community, including outside neuroscience. Philosophers such as Ratcliffe[40], Slaby and Stephan[41], Varga and Krueger[42], psychologists such as Stern[43] and also psychiatrists such as Fuchs[44] acknowledge his organic portrayal of feelings as the neurophysiological counterpart of their philosophical/psychological concepts. However, in my view Damasio’s conceptualizations have been often misinterpreted[45], especially in the equation of the affective layer of ‘primordial feelings’ and the previously recognized layer of «background feelings»[46], to which these scholars usually refer. Even if the relationship between background feelings and primordial feelings is intimate[47], these concepts cannot be simply equated. Background feelings – such as a (felt) ‘tension’ or a (felt) ‘edginess’ – are discrete feelings (i.e., different kinds of feelings, such as «edginess», «wellness», «malaise», etc.[48]), while «the feeling of being alive» or the «feeling of existence», classed among the so-called ‘primordial’ feelings, concern the overall feelings of the body[49]. Primordial feelings provide the overall ‘sense of the body’: They originate from a number of different sources, such as interoceptive and proprioceptive maps of the body as a whole.

Damasio recognizes that, in essence, his definition of ‘primordial feeling’ can be traced back to Panksepp, in particular to his notion of «early feelings»[50]: Both feelings share the characteristic of preceding any interaction with the world, or any feeling arising from the emotions. Nevertheless, there are also some differences: Panksepp relates the primary consciousness emerging from primordial feelings mainly to motor activities in structures of the brain stem, while Damasio emphasizes the role of sensory structures[51]. Moreover, concerning interaction with the world, Damasio is somewhat incoherent: He underlines that Panksepp’s views differs in that ‘early feeling’ appears to be necessarily related to external events in the world[52], while for Damasio, in theory, primordial feelings occur «regardless of whether the protoself is engaged by objects and events external to the brain. They need to be related to the living body and nothing else»[53]. Later on, in the same book, he maintains that «Panksepp also gives emphasis to the notion of early feelings, without which the process of consciousness cannot proceed. The detailed mechanism is not the same, but I believe the essence of the idea is. More often than not, treatments of feeling assume that they arise from interactions with the world […] or as a result of emotions. But primordial feelings precede those situations, and presumably Panksepp’s early feelings do too»[54].

This point is also controversial in Cusinato’s understanding of primordial feelings as the feelings «through which a living being remains connected to the biosphere» (p. 8), thus revealing an intrinsic relationship to the world that is in line with other phenomenological views (cfr. Ratcliffe’s «feeling of being» — i.e., the feeling of being-in-the-world[55]). Moreover, he defines ‘primordial feeling’ enactively, recognizing it in every living being: «Sunflowers feel light at the level of primordial feeling and so follow the movement of the sun. This is a process of expressive positioning» (p. 129).

In contrast, Damasio’s primordial ‘feeling of life’ (understood as the feeling ‘of the body’) turns out to be a feeling ‘of the body’ from ‘inside’[56], so to speak, and not the feeling of the body as ‘being-in-the-world’. This does not mean that the body is not in the world: It cannot exist in isolation, of course. In my view, Damasio’s view does not presuppose a different ontology: He just focusses on the body rather than the intentional relationship with the world, as in standard intentional feelings, from which the primordial feelings such as the feeling of being alive differs[57]. According to him, the ‘feeling of being alive’ (and the other primordial feelings to which it belongs) is independent of any connection to any object in the world. This, I believe, is explicitly clarified in the following: «There is some deeper feeling to be guessed and then found in the depths of the conscious mind. It is the feeling that my own body exists, and it is present, independently of any object with which it interacts, as a rock-solid, wordless affirmation that I am alive»[58]. Damasio’s primordial feelings entail a relationship to the body, as a whole[59], and not a relationship to the world, as a whole[60] – even if the body is in the world anyway, and does not exist in isolation. Moreover, concerning the questionable intentionality[61] of the feeling of being alive described as ‘the feeling of the body’ as a whole, some further explanations need to be added.

First, regarding the ‘independence’ of any connection to any object in the world[62]: Even if the interrelation provided cannot be a kind of standard intentional relationship from the body to the world, in my view there has to be something like a body-world interrelation that is not intentional. Otherwise, the question of how the body might be able to experience itself as a whole[63], without any contact with the world as a kind of ‘other’ or border of the organism, seems hard to explain[64].

Second: To be ‘objectless’ (that is, the main feature of ‘background’ states as background feelings, as well as primordial feelings) does not mean not being-in-the-world. In my view, it is rather a matter of ‘focus’. Damasio underlines that, while standard emotional-feelings focus on the specific/aspecific object of emotions rather than on the body, background feelings (such as «tension» or «surging») or the primordial feeling of being alive, for instance, reveal an intrinsic relationship to our own body as a whole – so, coming into the foreground. In contrast, in feelings connected to emotions or other more cognitively structured states, the body always stands ‘in the background´, unattended.

In contrast to this view, and adhering to Scheler’s Gefühlsdrang[65], Cusinato defines ‘primordial feelings’ as «the most elementary way in which the organism interacts with the expressive level thanks to the laws of biosemiotics» (p. 113, my emphasis [NoA]).

 

In sum: The first part of Cusinato’s book offers a new ontology of personal singularity as a result of the anthropogenic process. Seeking to separate the problem of ‘singularity’ from that of personal ‘identity’ (marked by continuity, howsoever understood), the author goes beyond the ‘myth’ of personal identity and interprets singularity as self-transcendence and incompleteness of the starting condition of the so-called ‘little self’. This process of antrophogenesis comprises practices of emotional sharing (particularly, care and desire): The book thus highlights the interconnection between the antrophogenic process and the affective dimension (emotions, feelings, and the ‘phatic’). Cusinato supports the hypothesis that emotions and especially feelings (and their particular order) guide the expressive process by which our existence assumes form in the world through society, culture, and language.

The second part of the book assumes philosophy as an exercise of transformation. This periagogic turn is conceived as the starting point for the arising of personal singularity. The periagogic conversion – changing the order of priorities and allowing an entirely new perspective on reality, beyond common sense and common feeling – coincides with a philosophy understood as an exercise of transformation. However, there is a difference between the transformation concerning the ‘little self’ or the singularity. In the case of the ‘little self’, the transformation implies a process of pain and suffering: The earthquake fault is experienced only as crisis, severance, separation. In contrast, for the singularity, transformation can additionally involve very intense positive emotions, since it does not necessarily coincide with suffering or pain, but it also includes a kind of ‘rebirth’. The cultivation of emotions as desire represents a way of transformation of human beings that is primarily based on the plasticity of feeling.

In this process, philosophy plays a key role. Since human existence has no pre-stated meaning, but only possibilities of meaning, human beings need to do philosophy: They lack a pre-determined existential form. Since this process is connected to emotions and feelings as its drivers, identifying the most effective techniques for promoting a maturation of all affective layers should be placed today at the center of philosophy. Once reawakened, the new order of feelings themselves will produce orientation and a horizon of meaning, thanks to practices of emotional sharing and the force of exemplarity

This is significant not just at an individual level, but also at a social level: The last section of the book is devoted to this aspect. Starting from an analysis of the failure of social transformation in the era of narcissism, Cusinato ultimately proposes a new axis of social transformation, based on a reorientation of emotions in the public sphere.

 




[1] Guido Cusinato, Periagoge. Teoria della singolarità e filosofia come cura del desiderio (Verona: QuiEdit snc di Fill & C., 2014).

[2] Augustinus, Confessiones [400].

[3] Carl G. Jung, “Two Essays on Analytical Psychology”, in The collected Works of C.G. Jung, vol. VII (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 264.

[4] My emphasis [NoA].

[5] Antonio R. Damasio, Self Comes to Mind. Constructing the Conscious Brain (New York: Pantheon Books, 2010).

[6] Damasio, Self Comes to Mind, 22 – 23.

[7] Damasio, Self Comes to Mind, 190.

[8] Manos Tsakiris & Helena De Presteer, The Interoceptive Mind. From homeostasis to awareness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).

[9] Charles S. Sherrington, “On the proprioceptive system, especially in its reflex aspect”, Brain 29, 4 (1907): 467-482.

[10] Dan Zahavi, Subjectivity and selfhood: Investigating the first-person perspective (Boston: MIT Press, 2005).

[11] Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie II: Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution (Nijhoff: Den Haag, 1952); Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la Perception (Paris: Gallimard, 1945).

[12] Thiemo Breyer and Thomas Fuchs, eds., Selbst und Selbststörungen (Freiburg:  Alber, 2020), 34.

[13] Thomas Metzinger, “Precis: Being No-One”, PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 11 (2005): 1—30.

[14] Breyer and Fuchs, eds., Selbst und Selbststörungen, 34.

[15] Breyer and Fuchs, eds., Selbst und Selbststörungen, 31.

[16] Breyer and Fuchs, eds., Selbst und Selbststörungen, 33.

[17] Shaun Gallagher, “A Pattern Theory of Self”, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7 (2013). DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00443.

[18] Antonio R. Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and emotion in the making of consciousness (Harvest edition, 1999).

[19] Shaun Gallagher, “Philosophical conceptions of the self: implications for cognitive science”, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4, 1 (2000): 14 – 21.

[20] Dan Zahavi, Self-awareness and alterity: A phenomenological investigation (Northwestern University Press, 1999).

[21] Paul Rochat, “The emergence of self-awareness as co-awareness in early child development”, in The Structure and Development of Self-Consciousness, Zahavi, Parnas, Gruenbaum, eds. (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2004).

[22] Breyer and Fuchs, eds., Selbst und Selbststörungen.

[23] Nico H. Frijda, The Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

[24] Francisco J. Varela, “Organism: A meshwork of selfless selves”, in Organism and the Origin of Self, ed. A. Tauber (Kluwer, 1991): 77–107.

[25] David K. Lewis, “An Argument for the Identity Theory”, The Journal of Philosophy 63, 1 (1966): 17-25.

[26] Thomas Fuchs, “The feeling of being alive”, in Feelings of Being Alive, eds. Marienberg & Fingerhut (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012): 149.

[27] Durt, Fuchs, Tewes, eds., Embodiment, Enaction, and Culture: Investigating the Constitution of the shared World (Cambridge (MA): MIT Press, 2017); Giovanna Colombetti, The Feeling Body: Affective Science Meets the Enactive Mind (Cambridge (MA): MIT Press, 2014).

[28] Evan Thompson, Mind in Life: Biology, phenomenology, and the sciences of mind (Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 2007).

[29] Cristiano Castelfranchi, “Affective Appraisal versus Cognitive Evaluation in Social Emotions and Interactions”, Affective Interactions. IWAI 1999. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, ed. A. Paiva (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2000), vol. 1814. https://doi.org/10.1007/10720296_7.

[30] Anthony Hatzimoysis, ed., Philosophy and the Emotions (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

[31] Julien DeonnaFabrice Teroni, The Emotions: A philosophical introduction (London: Routledge, 2012). https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203721742.

[32] Jaak Panksepp. Affective Neuroscience: The foundation of human and animal emotions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Jacques E. LeDoux, The Emotional Brain: The mysterious underpinnings of emotional life (Simon and Schuster, 1998); Antonio R. Damasio, Descartes’ Error. Emotion, reason and the human brain (New York: Quill, 1994). 

[33] William James, “What Is an Emotion?”, Mind 9 (1884): 188-205. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mind/os-IX.34.188; Carl G. Lange, The Emotions (Baltimora: William & Wilkins, 1885). 

[34] Nico H. Frijda & Jaap Swagerman. “Can computers feel? Theory and design of an emotional system”. Cognition and Emotion 1, 3 (1987): 235-257; Ortony, Clore, and Collins, The Cognitive Structure of Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022); Martha C. Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought: The intelligence of emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

[35] Emilia Barile, Minding Damasio (Roma: Ledizioni, 2016).

[36] Barile, ‘Dare corpo alla mente’. La relazione mente/corpo alla luce delle emozioni e dell’esperienza del ‘sentire’ (Milano: B. Mondadori, 2007).

[37] Guido Cusinato, Biosemiotica e psicopatologia dell’«ordo amoris». In dialogo con Max Scheler (Milano: FrancoAngeli, 2019).

[38] Colombetti, The Feeling Body.

[39] «I now introduce this fundamental feeling as a critical element of the ‘self’ process, which I had not deemed necessary to note in earlier approaches to this problem. I call it primordial feeling, and I note that it has a definite quality, a valence, somewhere along the pleasure-to-pain range. It is the primitive behind all feelings of emotion and therefore is the basis of all feelings caused by interactions between objects and organism» (Damasio, Self Comes to Mind, 185).

[40] Matthew Ratcliffe, Feelings of Being: Phenomenology, psychiatry and the sense of reality (Oxford: Oxford University, 2008); Ratcliffe, “The phenomenology of existential feeling”, in Feelings of Being Alive, eds. S. Marienberg & J. Fingerhut (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012): 23–54.

[41] Jan Slaby & Achim Stephan, “Affective intentionality and self-consciousness”, Consciousness and Cognition 17 (2008): 506–513.

[42] Somogy Varga & Joel Krueger, “Background Emotions, Proximity and Distributed Emotion Regulation”, Rev. Phil. Psych. 4, (2013): 271-292.

[43] Daniel N. Stern, Forms of vitality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

[44] Fuchs, “The feeling of being alive”.

[45] Barile, “Are Background Feelings Intentional Feelings?”, Open Journal of Philosophy 4 (2014): 560-574.

[46] Antonio R. Damasio. Looking for Spinoza. Joy, sorrow, and the feeling brain (Harcourt, 2003); Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens.

[47] «Prominent background feelings include: fatigue; energy; excitement; wellness; sickness; tension; relaxation; surging; dragging; stability; balance; imbalance; harmony; discord. The relation between background feelings and moods is intimate: drives express themselves directly in background emotions and we eventually become aware of their existence by means of background feelings» (Damasio, Self Comes to Mind, 125).

[48] Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens, 286.

[49] «There is some deeper feeling to be guessed and then found in the depths of the conscious mind. It is the feeling that my own body exists, and it is present, independently of any object with which it interacts, as a rock-solid, wordless affirmation that I am alive» (Damasio Self Comes to Mind, 22, 185) .

[50] Panksepp, Affective Neuroscience.

[51] Damasio, Self Comes to Mind, ch. 1, note 17 (my emphases [NoA]).

[52] Barile, “The Interoceptive Underpinnings of the Feeling of Being Alive. Damasio’s insights at work”, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-023-09900-7.

[53] Damasio, Self Comes to Mind, ch. 1, note 17 (my emphases [NoA]).

[54] Damasio, Self Comes to Mind, ch. 8, note 3 (my emphases [NoA]).

[55] Matthew Ratcliffe, “The Feeling of Being”, Journal of Consciousness Studies 12 (2005): 52.

[56] «Primordial feelings [to which the feeling of being alive belongs] result from nothing but the living body and precede any interaction between the machinery of life regulation and any object» (Damasio, Self Comes to Mind, 101; my emphases [NoA]).

[57] Barile, “The Interoceptive Underpinnings of the Feeling of Being Alive. Damasio’s insights at work”.

[58] Damasio, Self Comes to Mind, 185 (my emphases [NoA]).

[59] Damasio, Self Comes to Mind, 76.

[60] Ratcliffe, “The Feeling of Being”, 52.

[61] In my view Damasio’s formulation of the deepest level of primordial feelings (2010) definitely endorses a nonintentional account of this kind of non-emotional feelings, at least in the standard meaning of intentionality. Following his latest analysis, both according to the meaning of «aboutness» and the meaning of «directedness» (in Goldie’s (2002) understanding), Damasio’s background feelings – and above all the primordial feelings on which they are based – turn out to be not intentional (see Barile, 2014).

[62] Damasio, Self Comes to Mind, 185.

[63] Damasio, Self Comes to Mind, 76.

[64] Barile, “The Interoceptive Underpinnings of the Feeling of Being Alive. Damasio’s insights at work”.

[65] «I have developed this concept while thinking of the one proposed by Scheler in 1926 by means of the term “primordial impulse of feeling” (Gefühlsdrang). Cf. GW VIII, 336; in GW VIII, 443, he also speaks of “exstatische[m] Gefühlsdrang”» (Cusinato, Periagoge, 113, note 6).

Hernán Gabriel Inverso, Alexander Schnell (Hrsg.): Crisis and Lifeworld: New Phenomenological Perspectives, Karl ALber, 2023






Crisis and Lifeworld: New Phenomenological Perspectives Book Cover




Crisis and Lifeworld: New Phenomenological Perspectives




Phänomenologie (Band 35)





Herausgegeben von Hernán Gabriel Inverso, Alexander Schnell





Karl Alber




2023




Paperback 59,00 €




230

Daniele De Santis: Edmund Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations






Edmund Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations: Commentary, Interpretations, Discussions Book Cover




Edmund Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations: Commentary, Interpretations, Discussions





Daniele De Santis (Ed.)





Karl Alber




2023




Hardback




521

Reviewed by:  Stefano Franchini (University of Pisa)

The importance of the volume Edmund Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations. Commentary, Interpretation, Discussions can be found in its aim: providing a study of the Cartesian Meditations (henceforth CM) in its entirety. Against the tendency to reduce the CM to some of its parts – mostly intersubjectivity or transcendental idealism –, this Commentary attempts to offer a unified view of the text. As the editor De Santis in the Introduction recognizes, CM are not only »Husserl’s second attempt at systematizing his philosophy after the so-called »turn« to a transcendental form of thought« (p. 9) but are also the key to understanding Husserl’s late phenomenology. The editor states that the motivation of this book can be found in the necessity to seriously deal with the text in which Husserl highlights the importance of the »concrete ego«, which provides also a teleological-practi­cal ontology. Regarding the goal of this book, it is important to notice that the three parts CommentaryInterpretation, and Discussion are bounded by each other’s, and it is possible to find some frameworks strictly related to the Commentary and also to the other sections. The development of the Commentary is completed and expanded in the following sections, Interpretation and Discussion, but these parts are not secondary to the others.

The volume is divided into three sections, as the title states. The first part, Commentary (§1-6) provides detailed analyses that stick to Husserl’s publication of the text. The latter two, Interpretation (§7-14) and Discussion (§15-20), intertwine both the commentary and the interpretation. The editor De Santis claims (p.16) that the first part can be regarded as a commentary only if we accept »commentary« in a broad sense. Starting from the CM, the authors develop reflections that go deeper than a simple reconstruction of Husserl’s passages. As is well known, one of the main problems of CM’s reception is the tendency to overlook most of the content of the text (p.12). While in Interpretation the authors emphasize how some philosophers have been dealing with CM, in Discussion the authors spotlight some core problems of Husserl’s CM and reflect on them with other frameworks of phenomenology. For this reason, Interpretation and Discussion both aim to compare CM with Husserl’s phenomenology and with Scholars’ reception of this text, as well as to investigate some of the themes of CM that are central to all Husserl’s phenomenology.

The goal of understanding CM as a whole can be found also in the internal links that can be found. Regarding this, it’s important to notice Daniele De Santis’ §4 on Fourth Meditation with Witold Płotka’s §8, Aurélien Djian’s commentary on Second Meditation with §9 written by Ignacio Quepons and §15 by Emanuela Carta and §5-6 on Fifth Meditation made by Sara Heinämaa (§5) and Alice Pugliese (§6) with Stefano Bancalari’s work on Levinas (§10) and Saulius Geniusas’ contribute on Paul Ricoeur. This allows both a mutual confrontation and a thematic deepening – although internal references are not always present in the text. But it is also possible to further interweave internal references and compare e.g. Landgrebe and Husserl on the account of the idea of Erste Philosophie – these topics are respectively discussed in §9 concerning Landgrebe’s remarks on CM and in §19 §20, specially here on Husserl’s »first« and » universal« and »second« and »last« philosophy. Thanks to the in-depth sections, it is therefore possible to compare the theoretical outcomes of the MC’s with Husserl’s latest phenomenology – e.g Andreea Smaranda Aldea in §17 claims that »Husserl’s emphatic call for a higher-order critique in the Cartesian Meditations as anticipating his Crisis call for radical self-reflection« (p. 453) and Alice Pugliese who compares the Fifth Meditation also with Husserl’s Grenzprobleme der Phänomenologie.

It is important to note that Interpretation and Discussion are not appendixes of the Commentary. Alongside a reading accompaniment, the authors shed light on issues that are often overlooked. For this reason, it seems to me that rather than exhausting the research, the importance of this volume is to be a forerunner for even more in-depth studies of MC. For example, Witold Płotka in §8 goes far beyond just a simple reconstruction of Roman Ingarden’s remarks on CM. Namely, even if these remarks »are an historical document of phenomenological movement« (p. 216), the author stresses the importance of Ingarden’s work also in respect to the Fourth Meditation and to some unjustified presuppositions. In this respect, also Danilo Manca researches in §7 the Hegelian motifs of MC which Fink highlights. Specifically, Manca focuses on the »transition from the natural to the transcendental attitude« (p.193), on the Gespaltung of the Ego after performing epochē and the thematization of unconscious dimension of constituting life which that phenomenological method makes possible. Based on Fink’s reflections and stressing Hegel’s use of »Aufheben« (p. 197), the author shows the continuity between the natural and transcendental attitude. Regarding MC, the author deals with Fink’s remarks on §32 – in which the ego in is understood as a »substrate of habitualities« and with the dialectic between the two I, the natural and the transcendental one. In a passage of Fourth Meditation, Husserl claims that his CM are for the »nascent philosopher the genuine introduction into a philosophy«[1]. The same thing does not completely fit with Edmund Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations. Commentary, Interpretation, Discussions. In some parts the content discussed by the authors presupposes a good knowledge of Husserl’s philosophy – not just of MC – and for a non-specialist reader it might be difficult. Especially §14 Meditations on Purity: Edmund Husserl and Hans Kelsen wrote by Federico Lijoi and §18 Lavigne’s Objection to Phenomenologica Idealism: Critical Remarks with the Help of the Cartesian Meditations by Agustín Serrano de Haro are only fully clear to readers that already are familiar with the phenomenological milieu and, in the second case, with Logic Investigation. For this reason, the »broad sense« of the Commentary includes discussions of problems that are not limited to the text commented on here and investigate some core problems of Husserl’s phenomenology. Nevertheless, these chapters are certainly an opportunity to explore these issues.

Certainly, the Commentary’s part offers a detailed discussion. Claudio Majolino in the first part of Commentary (§1) clarifies the meaning of »Cartesian« and »Meditations« and he researches for the Motive – both in its German meanings (p. 27) – why Husserl took Descartes as a reference. This part is longer than the other and it deals both with Husserl’ Introduction and Fist Meditation. Since the earliest reviews many criticisms emerged against Husserl’s approach towards the figure of Descartes (p. 14-6), investigating this point is a good key to start. Claudio Majolino works on Husserl’s so-called Cartesianism and understands it in terms of »repetition and variation« (.p 22). Using some insights from Hua VII / VIII and Husserliana Materialen IX Claudio Majolino stresses the threefold meaning of Descartes’ Meditation recognized by Husserl: the eternal meaning, the importance of CM for the present and finally the meaning of Descartes’ Meditations for the present. The author approaches this problem by pointing out the way Husserl had already discussed Descartes (Socrates and Plato) in his previous Lectures. Regarding this point Claudio Majolino claims that “[Descartes] embedded the skepsis within the innermost core of genuine and radical philosophy itself” (p. 35). If on the one hand, Descartes took some arguments from Skepticism, on the other, on several occasions he points out the differences between his doubt and skepticism[2]. The boundness between the grounded knowledge and responsibility, well discussed in §1, from another point of view, is also investigated by Leonard Ip (§20) using the distinction between »Second« and »Last« Philosophy in Husserl. The reference to Descartes allows Husserl to link knowledge to responsibility, but it also poses some problems: first and foremost, that of the route into phenomenology. In §16 Rosemary Jane Rizo and Patron de Lerner points that out and discusses Husserl’s Cartesian way to reduction. Starting from a discussion of Begründung and Fundierung (p. 405-10) two terms used by Husserl to describe the foundational problem, the A. than discusses the main theme regarding CM. It is important to notice that Rosemary Jane Rizo and Patron de Lerner highlight two antithetical demands in Husserl’s thoughts about science: the interest in a mathematical theoretical foundation and the interest in transcendental subjectivity, which is connected to the Lebenswelt and gives it a foundation. The focus on the Husserl-Descartes link finds another insight in §17. Here, Sergio Pérez-Gatica in his The Distinction between »First« and »Universal« Philosophy in Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations: On a Basic Precondition for the Trasformation of Philosophy into a Rigorous Science points out that while »philosophy« means »universal philosophy« – in terms of Platonic and Cartesian idea of universal science –, Husserl uses »first philosophy« in a technical way to stress the basic method for a rigorous philosophical knowledge. Considering the lack of rigor in philosophy at his time, Husserl uses the Cartesian path to draft the real goal for its phenomenology: providing a fundamental epistemology. (p. 483). In conclusion Sergio Pérez-Gatica highlights the connection between logical and ontological requirements in Husserl’s philosophy and the reflections contained in MC on the idea of rigorous grounding philosophy. Regarding Cartesian way, another insight comes from §9. Here Ignacio Quepons points out that Landgrebe stresses the same problem of the Cartesian way to reduction declared by Husserl itself in Crisis. It’s also important to observe that even if Husserl criticizes the Cartesian way, nevertheless, the other ways do not reject the first one, but complete it by revealing other possibilities (p. 239-40). Another attempt to focus also on Husserl’s so-called Cartesianism can be found in §13 Jan Patočka on Descartes and Husserl’s Cartesianism wrote by Hynek Janoušek and Wojciech Starzyński. The authors discuss Patočka on epochē and reduction from Husserl. While »Patočka accepts Husserl’s method of epochē as a major breakthrough in modern philosophy […], he rejects Husserl’s idea of reduction as leading to the unwarranted subjunctivization of the phenomenal field of appearances« (p. 344). This chapter seems to me to be successful because it relates Patočka with Descartes and Husserl.

Following the Commentary, in §2 Aurélien Djian points out how Husserl repeats and varies – using Caludio Majolino’s words – Descartes to introduce its own transcendental phenomenology. The author stresses specifically the horizon, synthesis, and intentionality notions. Aurélien Djian shows that transcendental subjectivity should not be conflated with the psychological ego because it only can be grasped through epochē (p. 68). The conclusion of §2 discusses a passage of MC §9 and it has a very specific purpose: showing the problems related to Husserl’s »ranking the horizon among the universal principles of phenomenology« (p. 88) and the need for apodicticity of the ego. In §3 Lilian Alweiss asks: how is it possible to do Ontology after Kant? To answer this question the author considers »two different ways of referring to non-being« picked up by phenomenological descriptions: one linked to »possibilities which have not yet been fulfilled, the other to possibilities which have been dashed« (p. 96). Then Lilian Alweiss traces a connection between Husserl and Kant regarding the answer to Hume’s circle. This passage is fundamental to understand why this chapter states that Husserl traces the limits of being from within, with the notion of evidence and through imagination. De Santis’ §4 investigates the role of transcendental idealism in MC, the only place where it has an »exoteric systematic presentation of this doctrine« (p. 115 mod). This comment connects the focus on Husserl’s idioms to the philosophical content in them. Namely, the author points out Husserl’s use of Unsinn, not just in MC but also in Ideas I, and compares it to the occurrences of Wiedersinn. The goal of this chapter is to show that each sense is grasped with respect to transcendental subjectivity, which must be regarded as a monad. De Santis claims also that the monad is »subjectivity constituted by the correlation between the surrounding world (or the world as it appears to me) and the »personal character« (p. 117). Since Husserl’s fifth meditation is longer than the others, the Commentary is divided into two sections: §5 written by Sara Heinämaa and §6 by Alice Pugliese. The first one deals with MC § §42-54, the second one with §55-64. Sara Heinämaa starts considering that »some forms of critique are thematic and reject Husserl’s descriptions of our experiences of other persons or other human beings, while other lines of critique are methodological and question the adequacy of the conceptual tools used in the analysis« (p.141). Then the author points out the role of these chapters within MC as a whole. As Sara Heinämaa states, »with the supposed failure of Fifth Meditation then, with the failure of its account of the constitution of the sense of another self, much, if not all, of Husserl’s phenomenological project would collapse« (p. 143). The main topic of this contribution is to explain the concepts of verification, analogical apperception, and empathy. This chapter faces the transfer of »sense problem« and stresses Husserl’s strategy already adopted in his previous texts. Namely, Husserl uses scientific and philosophic standard terms without their standard meaning – e.g Husserl’s »empathy« is different from Stein’s or Scheler’s use of the same word (p. 157). Alice Pugliese addresses the last part of MC »using one of the most consistent and ancient questions of metaphysics as a hermeneutical key: the dialectic of unity and multiplicity« (p. 171). More in detail, the author claims that the unity-multiplicity problem leads the empathy problem. This strategy completely fits MC, especially considering that »the monad is a unity that includes multiplicity« (p. 178). This reading is further confirmed if we consider »the core of the egological and monadic intuition« which stands for unity and the »the daily work of science and knowledge« as multiplicity (p. 186). The problems of Fifth CM discussed in the Commentary are taken again by Stefano Bancalari, who in §10 discuss The influence of the Cartesian Meditations on the thought of Emmanuel Levinas. If on the one hand, the 5th MC provided Levinas the intersubjective problem, central for his work, on the other, it determined the rupture with Husserl’s phenomenology (p. 260). Considering Levinas’ thought nearly in its entirety, Stefano Bancalari points out how Levinas used his »intersubjective reduction« to overcome the problems related to Husserl’s Cartesian way to reduction. Regarding the aim of this book this contribution is important because it thematizes Others’ constitution problem. Stefano Bancalari also shows why the lack of the Others’ gaze in the analogical apperception for Levinas is a problem (p. 271). Another perspective on the intersubjectivity problem comes from Jakub Čapek, who discusses Merleau-Ponty’s lecture of CM in §11. The author shows how from an initial critique to the ego Merleau-Ponty then  uses Husserl’s analysis, and in particular the idea of appresentation, »to face the objection that his theory makes individual perspectives vanish into a monism of a supra-individual corporeity« (283). As Jakub Čapek recognizes, Merleau-Ponty goes further and in the end of Phenomenology of perception claims the return to the ego – albeit transformed. The author states that for Merleau-Ponty the main problem of Husserl’s account of intersubjectivity is the transposition from the I to the Other because it is based on the immediate self-knowledge. On the contrary, for Merleau-Ponty our self-knowledge is »a practical task yet to be accomplished« (284). Although in §11there is no reference to Merleau-Ponty’s receipt of Ideas II, this contribution further enriches some of the problems seen in the previous chapters. In §12 Saulius Geniusas in his Paul Ricoeur’s Husserlian Heresies: The Case of the Cartesian Meditations points out that MC are the core not only of Ricœur’s reading of Husserl, but also for his philosophy itself. The author approaches the topic using three questions: how Cartesian are Husserl’s MC?  How descriptive is Husserl’s descriptive phenomenology? How egological is Husserl’s egology? Saulius Geniusas claims that »Husserl secularizes Descartes and interprets the Cartesian cogito as the transcendental subject, conceived of as the ultimate origin of all meaning« (p. 305). Additionally, if on the one hand, the author bounds both Descartes and Husserl on the problem, on the other he stresses that Husserl’s radicalization of Descartes does not address God. Regarding the second question, Saulius Geniusas stresses that »for Ricoeur, Husserl’s phenomenology is not sufficiently descriptive because it does not constrain its own descriptions from gliding into transcendental idealism» (315). It is important to notice that this chapter bounds itself both with Daniele De Santis’ §4 and Stefano Bancalari’s §10. Regarding the problem of evidence, Emanuela Carta in §15 reconstructs scholars’ discussion of Husserl’s evidence understood as Theory of justification (Standard View) and proposes a new interpretation of the theme where evidence justifies belief. Fallibilist Thesis claims »What is evidently given to one can be false« and it is related with The Corollary Thesis: »It is possible for one to have justification to believe a false proposition« (379). After criticizing the metaphysical realism of scholars, the author discusses Husserl’s notion of »idealism«. Here a footnote on De Santis’ work in this text could have been useful. Finally, Emanuela Carta provides an alternative to the Standard view, claiming the correlation between absolute truth- adequate evidence and relative truth-inadequate evidence (p 393). Thanks to that it is possible to reject both Fallibilist Thesis and The Corollary Thesis and to argue that evidence justifies belief because it shows what is true, even if in an open and perfectible way. A Discussion that shows the unity of the late Husserl’s thought is that of Andreea Smaranda Aldea, Self-Othering, Self-Transformation, and Theoretical Freedom: Self-Variation and Husserl’s Phenomenology as Radical Immanent Critique. Specifically on this topic the author links the self-critique of the self-variation with Crisis’ zig-zag method. Namely, self-variation clarifies both the goal of inquiries and itself. For this reason, if we consider the Besinnung as a Rückfrage, it is possible to regard self-variation »as methodological tool central to phenomenology as a whole« (p. 453). In his conclusion, following the sense of Besinnung, Andreea Smaranda Aldea claims that self-variation is not just a simple method related to self-constitution, but »a central method at the core of phenomenology itself functions as a necessary condition for the possibility of this radical self-critique« (455).

Before concluding this review, I would like to focus on another goal of the volume: if on the one hand the volume presents itself as a unique volume, on the other the richness of the contributions also allows a specific selection of some parts of it. This means that Edmund Husserl’s Cartesian Meditation. Commentary, Interpretation, Discussions is not only aimed at specialists of Husserl, but also at all those who, across the board, have to deal with MC. In sum, this volume marks a notable achievement. The broad sense of the Commentary completely full fits the goal of the editor. Additionally, it should not be read merely as commentary. Edmund Husserl’s Cartesian Meditation. Commentary, Interpretation, Discussions is a collection of contributions which gives a rich and broad view of the Cartesian Meditations as a whole. All the various parts move in different, often intertwined, directions and show the richness of Husserl’s work. The volume’s conspicuous number of pages proves how urgently an entire study dedicated to MCs was needed.


[1] Edmund Husserl, Cartesian meditations (translated by D. Cairns), p. 88.

[2] See René Descartes, Œuvres de Descartes, 11 voll. (Vrin, 1996).

Ian Angus: Groundwork of Phenomenological Marxism: Crisis, Body, World






Groundwork of Phenomenological Marxism: Crisis, Body, World Book Cover




Groundwork of Phenomenological Marxism: Crisis, Body, World




Continental Philosophy and the History of Thought





Ian H. Angus





Lexington Books




2021




Hardback $155.00 • £119.00

Reviewed by: Talia Welsh (University of Tennessee Chattanooga)

Introduction

Ian Angus’ Groundwork of Phenomenological Marxism: Crisis, Body, World is not a light book, both literally and figuratively, at 537 pages of dense analysis of two of the most discussed thinkers in the last few hundred years. Not many contemporary works have tried to integrate Marxism and Husserlian phenomenology. While perhaps everything in the life of the mind is ultimately connected, the project laid out by Husserl and that by Marx seem to point in quite different directions with very different methodologies. Subsequent works by famous thinkers who were influenced by both, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Herbert Marcuse, and Jan Patočka, did not seem to penetrate deeply into the scholarship of the side they are less famous for—that is, contemporary theorists of Marx do not go to Merleau-Ponty to discuss Marx, nor do phenomenologists routinely discuss Marcuse. Angus’ book truly does provide a groundwork to facilitate more work that does not neatly subsume the thoughts of one thinker under that of the other. While Angus notes his main textual supports will be Husserl’s Crisis and Marx’s Capital I, he also embraces a range of scholarship.

One generic challenge to phenomenology is that it struggles to critically engage with complex structures in our societies that exceed examination from the first-person perspective. Perhaps we are not just molded by our social, cultural, economic, and historical place in time, perhaps even what the idea of subjectivity is itself merely a momentary reverie and thus there is no ground from which to properly phenomenologize. A generic one to the Marx of Capital I-III is that the force of his understanding of capitalist logic creates a world in which things are happening with or without individual investment. We are all swept up in the force of history. Not only does the critic point out what Marx thought would come from capitalism has not transpired, but the idea of a self-enclosed system that will either end in ruin or revolution seems to ignore the manifold possibilities that have arisen, for better or worse, as capitalism spreads over the world. While both critiques can of course be argued against as misrepresntations, I bring up these challenges as a way to situate Angus’ impressive text as taking seriously both the analysis of capitalist logic as well as the importance of subjectivity. I read him as arguing that one can do a critical phenomenology in a capitalist world without reproducing bourgeois sentiment in a new form. In particular, his use of the idea of fecundity, ecological thinking, and Indigenous thought help explore places where capitalist logic fails to entirely dominate the lifeworld and places from which we might consider a robust contemporary phenomenological Marxism.

Overview of the Book

Part I: Phenomenology and the Crisis of Modern Reason & II: Objectivism and the Recovery of Subjectivity

In the first two chapters, Angus lays out the crisis of the modern sciences in order to set the ground for his later discussion of the lifeworld. The crisis of the sciences frames the entry into Husserl’s phenomenology and its relevance for the integration of Marx’s work. Husserl asserted that the crisis of the sciences is that they have become abstracted from their origin in human life, and thereby lost their meaning for humanity. The development of the modern sciences initiated the institution of the mathematization of nature. While mathematization of the modern sciences is not called into question as wrong, Angus notes that the issue becomes when the mathematization becomes “sedimented” and sciences assume “their validity has become an available tradition that further researchers use without investigating.” (43) Sciences thus use their symbolic systems, such as mathematization, as if it were full of human value even though it, by necessity, is abstract from human meaning. If we come to assume that only that which is objectively demonstrable by mathematization is “real,” then we are adrift in a world with reality devoid of meaning. The human world of intuition, tradition, sensuous nature, language, culture, and embodied experience cannot be mathematized. When objectivity found from abstract mathematization becomes “true” and subjectivity mere opinion, we find a crisis of reason. “This is the crisis: reasonproceeds without meaning for human life, while value loses its sustenance in reason.” (46) Angus says that the “healing power of phenomenology” is how phenomenology can uncover this historical sedimentation of mathematical reason and recover value.

Chapters three takes up the idea that one aspect of the crisis is the instrumentalization of the lifeworld. To begin, Angus uses Herbert Marcuse’s discussion of Husserl and deepens the manner in which the crisis of the sciences affects the lifeworld. Marcuse, like Husserl, is concerned with the manner in which instrumental reason cancels out the validity of subjective experience. What Angus draws out is how Marcuse draws attention toward the way in which the lifeworld becomes, under the reign of instrumentalism, merely a thing to be used by various techniques and technologies. It is natural to use technologies and associated technical practices to obtain ends; it is only when we have no other means to think of our lives that they become “emptied out.” “The emptying-out that treats a type as a formal ‘x’ removes the technical end from any relationship to other ends as experienced in the lifeworld and theorizes it strictly formally, that is to say, without any consideration if such an end is valid, good, or just.” (101) If human life is merely how we can as living objects use technologies and techniques to obtain certain pre-determined ends, say more money, more production, we merely become things. Moreover, we become things that cannot determine value ourselves since we are seen only as a means to a pre-determined end.

In chapter four, the discussion of technology is drawn into the 21st century. Angus considers how our contemporary digital technological culture is an extension of the instrumentalization of the lifeworld. While digital culture pervades our lives and determines the character of our self-understanding, we do not actually experience the digital itself. We receive information on our computers, tablets, and phone instantaneously (120). Here Angus develops briefly the idea about the importance of silence and delay which will be more developed in chapter nine. As digital culture transmits its information instantaneously, we have no space from which to take a pause from it given how quickly we are presented with new content. Yet, while the lack of any pause or delay can cover up the capacity for bracketing the digital, Angus states that “this absorption can never be complete” for the subject registers this information with a certain “intensity” or “valence” that is dependent upon other investments within the lifeworld (125). These other investments can produce a delay or lack of circularity of the system of digital culture and thus potentially ground a recovery of reason and value.

Chapters five develops further how value is both lost and potentially can be recovered and draws Marx into the picture to understand how abstract labor separates us from value. We do not encounter things in the lifeworld as value-free and then intellectually add value to them some x-value. Such a move would follow from the model that the instrumentalization of the lifeworld suggests. We have both social valuations that come from a determinate time and culture as well as subjectively personal valuations based on our own experience. Here Angus connects Marx and Husserl, reading both as concerned with the manner in which formal sign-systems are unable to address individual objects of value (139). In commodity fetishism, social relations are systematically concealed, similar to how in a “scientific” view of objectivity, one is unable to return to the value that grounds subjective experience. Moreover, because the system of exchange is hidden in object fetishism, self-knowledge is eluded. “This systematic absences of self-knowledge in social action is reproduced in an apologetic scientific form in political economy such that it produces a systematic lack in the social representation of value.” (143) Angus believes in the value of self-knowledge, but also importantly in the idea of a universalization that will permit escape from both a valueless scientific or economic system and from value being relative to particular cultures. In the fourth part of the book, this idea is sketched out more fully.

Part III: The Living Body and Ontology of Labor

Chapters six and seven productively develop stronger connections between the phenomenological project and the Marxist one. One the most developed discussions coming out of phenomenology’s approach to experience is developments that surround the consequences of understanding ourselves as first and foremost living bodies. We do not first consider the world consciously and then judge it, but are first born into a complex cultural, historical, and economic world and our embodied experiences with that world come to shape our judgements by sedimentation, not by conscious deliberation. Hence the lifeworld is not seen as “a” lifeworld, but simply what is, including the values and norms that our society has educated us in to see certain things as real or valuable when it might be just as conceivable that others things might be more deserving of value.  The living-body is “the root-experience of the lifeworld” but we are always being with other beings; we are always part of a human, not just an individual, experience. (157) Angus separates out two features of our shared human experience: the positive “we-subjectivity,” the community in which we live, work, and commune with others, and the other and self as “objects” that either benefit or hinder any individual project (157).

Angus then turns toward Marx’s ontology of labor as the foundation of what it is to be human and what shapes human history. Certainly we need labor to live, but Marx argues that labor is also how we constitute our identity and the world in which we live (162). In Husserl’s work, the living body’s motility grounds subjectivity and Marx’s ontology of labor helps develop one way in which this subjectivity is formed. Angus agrees with Jan Patočka and Ludwig Landgrebe that early Marx’s view on labor lacked, unlike Husserl’s, a full account of subjectivity. However, as Angus will point out the Marx of Capital I presents us with a more complex view of labor. Here we see the sketch of much of the rest of the book—how an ontology of the lifeworld, in particular labor and its relationship to subjectivity, permits an understanding of the structures of that world. In order to connect the ontology of the lifeworld to a phenomenology of the living body, what Marx would call a critique, one must go beyond the “evident” nature of the lifeworld to question its current form and status.

Marx’s mature ideas of an ontology of labor as “a phenomenology of the role of human activity in nature” will shape much of the rest of the section’s discussion (180) While largely sympathetic with Marx’s focus on labor, Angus argues that Marx’s interest in technology as history determining cannot make sense without a better account of the surplus productivity of labor that allows such technology to form itself. I think it beyond the scope of this review to examine this critique—that is, is it really the case that Marx failed to understand the necessity of surplus productivity’s relation to nature?—but rather to take Angus at his word, and examine the interesting idea of fecundity that Angus will develop throughout the remainder of the text (187). The logic of capitalism of collecting commodities to be exchanged can appear to have circular and enclosed perspective. We work to produce things that can be sold to obtain money to buy or produce other things, ad infinitum. One can think here of Hannah Arendt’s dismissive view of labor as this endless need of human work to survive without the possibility of anything new coming from it, other than more survival and thus more labor. Angus writes that what actually happens, and what can be thought to perhaps undermine the capitalist project, is that labor exceeds what is needed to complete the next circuit—what is “the fecundity of nature.” (187) Here one is too reminded of Michel Foucault’s interesting ideas of how any regime of power/knowledge creates subjectivities that are not just docile, but also then have the means to creatively exceed that structure. Later Angus will develop the idea of fecundity to argue for an interesting ecological view of our current situation. Herbert Marcuse’s work helps underscore the emancipatory possibilities inherent in human activity outside its insertion merely into the logic of capitalism as labor. The event of any human activity is not subsumable entirely to the motivation that preceded it. One example is that the excess that labor can create produces not just things for survival, but culture as well. Culture then creates new forms of organization that exceed strict capitalist production.

Chapter eight is one of the densest chapters in the book. It takes up the idea of abstraction and its relevance for labor and value and concludes with how to revive value in the lifeworld. Abstraction in Marx’s theory is complex, there is the abstraction where individuals are only understood as significant insofar they play a role—say laborer or capitalist. Abstraction can also be where one analyzes the core features of capitalism and sets aside the actual concrete form. In this sense, abstraction comes close to a phenomenological reduction. Finally, there is abstraction in the sense of addition—“When we consider any only single factor, such as labor, there are a number of historical and imaginary, or logically possible, forms in which that labor could be organized: capitalist, trial, state, cooperative, etc.” (237) This groundwork lays the foundation for the most important abstraction in Marx’s text, to be later complemented by Angus’ formulation of abstract nature: abstract labor. Abstract labor is not illusory, it is real in the that is produced in the system of exchange of commodities. Workers, as individuals, are now just understood in abstraction as nothing but laborers qua commodities—things that can be bought. The commodity hides the relationship between humans, we do not encounter or know those whose products we purchase hence we tend to assume the value lies within the product—what is commodity fetishism. Laborers themselves becomes a thing as their labor-power is just another unit of exchange. Moreover, abstract labor operates as value—abstract labor has a certain value in the system of exchange and can be taken without consideration of the particular work the laborers are performing. As Husserl wrote about in the Crisis, one consequence of modern science has been the mistaking of the method of mathematization for actual truth and meaning. Marx’s understanding of the abstract labor likewise performs this move in a system of value (256). If only abstract labor is considered valuable, one has lost any footing the real world of humans, as individuals and also as communities in their culture and their history.

The lifeworld is able to recover reason as the place in which one can situate the historical nature of abstract labor and account for how its excess cannot be contained within capitalist reason. Excess productivity produces culture and also draws from the fecundity of nature which is never completely exhausted by capitalism. Nature, individuals, and communities produce excesses but given the particularities of the concrete spaces in which such productivity exists, there is no “unitary source” and thus they do not produce uniform products. Hence, “the proletariat has never acted as a unitary subject as Marxist politics has expected.” (277) Angus develops from this work on abstraction to an idea of abstract nature as critical to his phenomenological Marxism, pointing out that Marx, by not having a concept of abstract nature, is unable to explain just what abstract labor is to be performed upon. Briefly, Angus points toward ecology as a way exit the limitations of capitalist and modern scientific thinking and integrate nature and humanity. “The task of transformation would be to recover nature as the source of meaning and value, human labor as the giving of a specific form to that source.” (286) Ecology works from the connections between nature and cultures and can provide a method to get beyond our reductionistic thinking.

Technology is the theme of chapter nine which develops further the way in which the regime of capitalist value homogenizes production. While Marx and Marcuse’s views on technology are important to underline that there is no simple nature unchanged by humans nor humans apart from technical extension, it is Gilbert Simondon’s work permits us to consider our contemporary lifeworld more fully. Simondon is critical of Communist Party Marxism, arguing that the development of more technological societies with machines as central to production creates a particular kind of alienation where “both the worker and the industrial boss are alienated insofar as they are either above or below the machine.” (303) Hence, some Marxist views of technology as liberating are false. Angus draws our contemporary situation as another crisis because contemporary digital culture “approaches a pure transparency without delays or silences that could initiate emergent meaning” as discussed in chapter four (319). The speed of transmission of information and the lack of spaces in which to not be presented with such information reduces the capacity for the kind of productive excess that permits a possible exit from capitalist logic. One striking feature of our own society dominated by the capacity to share on the internet is how information is exploited much like physical labor. Cognitive capitalism is “neo-mercantilist” as a socio-economic form with the important element of “decay”—that is, the value of the digital form reduces over time (324). Thus, new digital products have a very short lifespan where they produce surplus profit and must be constantly produced by tech workers. As with his earlier discussion of technology, Angus argues that instead of transforming such digital spaces, “the struggles of the working class in such industries would not necessarily be to transform them as such, but to exist to become an independent, self-defining enterprise.” (324)  Technology itself does not liberate workers if they do not have the means to define its value.

Chapter ten lays the groundwork for the recovery of the concrete grounds from which to critique the mathematization of science and the abstractions of capitalism. Husserl himself celebrated biology in its connection to the living body as a means to connect the lifeworld in experience and the sciences of life. However, Angus points out that, as Marx shows us, bodies can be abstracted in labor and creates a closed system of understanding bodies that does not permit a true phenomenological investigation. Angus’ idea of abstract nature is added to this critique in order to point out that it is not just labor, and thus humans, that are abstracted in capitalism, but nature as well. Angus writes, “abstract nature if the fundamental critical category of our phenomenological Marxism that can be counterposed to the discovery of natural fecundity as an excess that underlines all human productivity and culture.” (345) Again, Angus draws attention to ecology as a way of thinking since it considers the connections between life-forms and the worlds in which they live, something biology does not do. This is a concrete starting place instead of the abstraction required by the sciences or capitalism and can think of communities instead of only abstract systems.

Part IV: Transcendentality and the Constitution of Worlds

Chapter eleven and twelve deepen Angus’ ideas of the phenomenological project and the need for an intercultural self-responsible phenomenology. Emphasizing the intersubjective nature of any lifeworld and the plurality of them helps underline how the need for the phenomenological view to complement Marx’s work. In Marxist thought, there is the tendency to see subjectivity as rather uniform amongst classes. Angus takes up the question if Husserl’s commitment to seeing Europe as central makes phenomenology not just Eurocentric, which I would think is hard to deny, but also fundamentally invested in an implicit view of European superiority. Angus develops a fascinating perspective on America, here understood as the Americas, rather than simply the United States, as the kind of example that makes any kind of European view limited. America is not a repetition of Europe; America is shaped by the “conquest-disaster” of its origins as well as by the Indigenous traditions and thoughts that also continue to shape it. The conquest-disaster begins “an ongoing institution that remains with us to this day and points toward some sort of resolution of final goal (Endstiftung). We live within this institution and its assigns us a task.” (399) The task is to see this lifeworld as it is, not as Europe’s, but with its own shape and demands. Angus argues this broader view of the historical nature of cultures helps expose the need to respond not just to the scientific and economic crises, but also to our “planetary crisis.”

This planetary crisis refers to the reason understood as technology that is based on formal-mathematical science as the origination of crisis and phenomenological reason as the renewal of meaning and value through a recovery of relation to the lifeworld. Meaning and value must be generated, not simply from looking back to prior institutions, but from events constituted by the planetary encounter of culture-civilizations that motivate an appeal upward on step toward great universality. (403)

What is needed is intercultural-civilizational understanding that moves toward universality. This might seem a bit strange, after all typically calling for greater intercultural understanding can be seen to call for something particular and non-universal. Angus develops not a particular kind of universality, say something like “Europe,” that should be taken as the goal, but rather a certain kind of community living together. While we live in a world saturated by calls for cultural understanding, one might rightly see them as a kind of buffet model—a little of this one and a little of that. This can be seen as how scientific-technological civilization renders all traditions as local and particular to the universality of its enterprises, so culture becomes like a disposable addition upon “real” understanding which is of course that which can be reduced to either scientific models or capitalist logic. This can also be seen as expressed, in a much different fashion, in relativist philosophies where one can affirm the other, but is left in without any means of overcoming differences. Angus takes up an approach where what the phenomenological tradition can guide for intercultural understanding is by pursuing not a “truth” that then can add various cultural views, like clothing, nor a set of discrete truths which cannot communicate, but a center-periphery logic where different assumptions in culture-civilizations can be upended by each other in discourse and attention to practices. Angus looks to build:

A philosophy that would be ecological, in the sense that it would focus on the concrete relations that construct a Whole; that would be Marxist, in the sense that is would criticize a social representation of value that relies on commodity price; and that would be phenomenological, in that it would ground value in the lifeworld in action and intuition, is a possibility that would enact this hope. (441)

Chapter thirteen spells out just what intercultural-civilization phenomenology could be. By using place-based knowledge, such as Indigenous thought, we can displace the tendency of planetary technology and capitalism to homogenize by abstracting individuals and nature. Like ecological thinking, Indigenous thinking starts from relationships and from thinking from community instead of thinking of individuals first. Yet of course, any community might not be compatible with another, so in order to move from the value of community to the kind of universal investment needed to combat the crises of our age, Angus appeals in chapter fourteen to Charles Taylor’s notion that “each cultural group can find its own reasons for belonging in a higher unity, that the reasons do not have to be identical for each group.” (453). Hence, the intercultural dialogue would consider crises that face us all, but not require that each group form a new identity but rather that each group understand their share and investment in the problem. The final chapter of part IV considers how philosophy can work to restore the fecundity of nature, of human labor, and of community investment. Natural fecundity is found not “outside” human experience in the environment as a thing, but rather within a cultural heritage’s manner in which it takes up freedom. Indigenous thought and ecological thinking help show ways in which cultural heritage and cultural understanding are not limitations to “proper” science or economic systems, but important ways in which to understand relationships and value.

Part V: Self-Responsibility as Teleologically Given in Transcendental Phenomenology

The final section of the book develops the idea that philosophy in the manner outlined above cannot be first and foremost about rule-following. After all, if we are to take seriously intercultural dialogues and the heritage of communities, we cannot find a common set of ethical rules that must guide them all. Moreover, any lifeworld unexamined appears to us “how it is” and thus its “rules” are unexamined as they seem natural. The separation of meaning and value caused by the mathematization- mechanization of the world by the modern sciences and the forced abstraction of humans from their bodies and nature in capitalism requires both an analysis of its origins as well as a responsible call to action to try and guide a method for the renewal of meaning and value. Angus appeals to the idea of responsibility as a method of living by inquiring. “Self-responsibility is the ethic of philosophical inquiry and its practice in confronting the rule-following inherent in lifeworld practices.” (489) This is both a responsibility toward humanity and to the individual. Angus finds that Husserl remains too embedded in the tradition of knowledge “for its own sake” and thus remains unable to articulate a call to action. Instead, learning should be drawn into the strife of the world “with eyes wide open” and to search for justice. (499)

Conclusion

In the preface to the French edition of Capital I, Marx chides the “French public” who are “always impatient to come to a conclusion” that they might not wish to labor through the early chapters. However, he writes “There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.”[1] While I have nothing to say about if this characterization of the French public of 1872 is deserved, I do want to qualify my comments below as that perhaps they are testimony more to my challenges with the book’s steepness than the text itself. No book can serve all possible audiences, but I did wish the book were more readable for someone who was versed in one or the other tradition and curious about the possible connections. As it is, I would find it quite challenging for someone to read who didn’t already have a good command of Husserl’s phenomenology and at least an understanding of the critique of capitalism in Marxist thought. While Angus does provide an extremely detailed discussion of the main points he wants to draw from each, and thus this could act as a kind of summary, he does not explain for the reader the general frame in which to understand these very detailed summaries. This is particularly so for the phenomenological discussions. I cannot see someone who was well-read in Marxist thought making much sense of the phenomenological project herein since the discussion assumes a certain understanding of phenomenology’s language. I could imagine a reader unfamiliar with Marxist thought, but familiar with phenomenology understanding better the discussion of abstract labor and nature, so central to the book, since capitalism so defines our current reality and even someone who has not read Marx would be familiar with the idea that there might be problems with capitalism.

I wonder if the book began not with Husserl’s thought, but instead with a shorter discussion of ecology that appears very late in the text. This would provide a kind of framework and directionality to the text in which to work through the crises of science and labor. While the ultimate longer analysis of ecology rightly should follow his analysis at the end of the book, any reader would be familiar with our current environmental crisis and could help understand that this book would help elucidate this crisis and provide some ideas for action. In addition, more framing of phenomenology’s method might aid in reaching a wider audience. I also wondered at the conclusion, so exclusively considered with phenomenology where it would have seemed to my mind obvious here to appeal to the call to action in Marxist thought. In the discussion of communities, one could also think not just of communities qua historical cultures, but also communities such as labor unions, political groups, and religious groups.

However, this is a “groundwork” not an introduction to phenomenological Marxism and as such perhaps it is a text that is rightly directed toward an audience who can follow its density and read further as need be. It is a welcome addition to our intellectual life and provides an important way in which to address the manifold contemporary crises our world faces. In particular, Angus presents a compelling model wherein we engage with Indigenous and community-based thinking not to simply affirm the “otherness” of this thought, but to see it as an important interlocutor with European phenomenology and Marxism. The crises we face are not culturally located, but planetary, and as such require a universalizing, but not totalizing, response.

[1] Karl Marx. 1976. Capital Volume I, 105. London: Penguin.

F. Buongiorno, V. Costa, R. Lanfredini: La fenomenologia in Italia. Autori, scuole, tradizioni






La fenomenologia in Italia. Autori, scuole, tradizioni Book Cover




La fenomenologia in Italia. Autori, scuole, tradizioni




Gulliver





F. Buongiorno, V. Costa, R. Lanfredini





Inschibboleth




2018




Paperback




318

Reviewed by: Vittoria Sisca (Independent Scholar)

Raccogliendo undici contributi degli allievi più vicini ai personaggi che hanno dato avvio alla tradizione fenomenologica italiana, il volume a cura di Federica Buongiorno, Vincenzo Costa e Roberta Lanfredini intitolato La fenomenologia in Italia. Autori, scuole, tradizioni mostra la possibilità di raccontare la fenomenologia attraverso un’operazione che non si esaurisce in una sterile ricostruzione storica ma si configura come il tentativo di convertire un tema “a portata di fanciullo” in una Rückfrage: un esercizio intimo, che consiste nel ricercare le parole adatte per descrivere il proprio maestro, in una domanda che scava all’indietro cercando di scorgere anche la propria storia nel movimento di quella stessa vicenda di pensiero. Il risultato di questo esercizio è il quadro di un percorso che attraversa almeno tre generazioni di filosofi: un itinerario decentrato, dislocato in varie “scuole”, eppure tutt’altro che scolastico se col termine “scuola” intendiamo «la ripetizione, malgrado allargata, di temi di origine» (109). Leggendo il testo, in effetti, risulta difficile tracciare delle parole-guida che lo caratterizzano, nella misura in cui ciò che sopravviene è la netta impossibilità di ridurre il variegato panorama fenomenologico italiano a una «preconcetta visione d’insieme» (11) o altrimenti l’inadeguatezza di coprire, a beneficio di una definizione, l’intreccio di autori, scuole e tradizioni che gli dà forma.

Partendo dal principio, si potrebbe dire che il pensiero di Edmund Husserl abbia fatto capolino, in Italia, sull’onda di una reazione storica alle ipoteche metafisiche che ostacolavano l’emergere di una ragione differente. In particolare, come si legge nei contributi di Luca Maria Scarantino e Angela Ales Bello, Antonio Banfi riconobbe alla trattazione husserliana dell’intenzionalità il merito di aver trasformato la necessità ontologica della «correlazione metafisica fra percezione e rappresentazione» (17) in una necessità di ordine storico; mentre Vanni Rovighi, pur attribuendo al pensiero di Husserl una cifra idealistica di fondo, si avvalse di quella teoria o, come direbbe lei, di quel «guardare come stanno le cose» (44), per contrastare il neoidealismo imperante ai suoi tempi. I saggi successivi di Roberto Gronda e Elio Franzini esemplificano perfettamente come, coerentemente rispetto al proposito di porre le «condizioni di una teoria del sapere relazionale, antidogmatica e aperta a una pluralità di forme culturali» (16), l’insegnamento di Banfi ebbe un’influenza molto diversa all’interno delle opere dei suoi allievi. Comparando i due scritti, infatti, è possibile notare che, se Preti continuò e approfondì il razionalismo critico banfiano, Formaggio ereditò dal maestro quella capacità di «“tentare la sordità dell’esperienza”» (117) che gli consentì di comprendere, a partire dall’arte, «come un corpo in azione» riesca ad «essere protagonista di una trasformazione del mondo»: una trasformazione che, per un verso, ne rivela le qualità e, per l’altro, «scopre se stesso come dimensione percettiva, memorativa e immaginativa» (127).

Leggendo il contributo di Amedeo Vigorelli è possibile constatare, invece, che fu Enzo Paci a proseguire la missione pedagogica del maestro Banfi. Egli vi riuscì perché, analogamente a Banfi, non si limitò mai a guardare a Husserl solo come a un interlocutore privilegiato per il proprio pensiero, bensì fece della fenomenologia husserliana il punto di partenza per la costruzione di una vera e propria Gemeinschaft: una dimensione culturale «aperta, che “senza essere ostile al pensiero scientifico” evitasse di “farsene colonizzare e di sviluppare complessi di inferiorità”» al fine di reagire a un «diffuso scetticismo anti-filosofico» (88). Una tappa fondamentale di questa costruzione, nel percorso di Paci, è la rivista “aut aut”, che egli fondò nel 1951. Attorno ad essa, infatti, si svilupparono dei legami particolarmente significativi per lo sviluppo della fenomenologia italiana, al punto che si potrebbe paragonare questo progetto all’ossatura di quella Husserl Renaissance che, soprattutto in seguito alla pubblicazione nella Husserliana del secondo volume di Ideen e della Krisis, interessò il panorama culturale italiano degli anni Cinquanta e Sessanta. Fra questi, il legame fra Paci e Semerari di cui si parla nel contributo del Ferruccio De Natale ha il merito di mostrare come, oltre alla volontà di «superare i pregiudizi legati ad una lettura pigra, stereotipata della fenomenologia» (90), alla base della rilettura italiana dei testi di Husserl vi fosse anche quella «avvalersi delle analisi husserliane per configurare un “atteggiamento”» suscettibile di essere trasformato «in prassi, in lotta per l’emancipazione del soggetto da ogni forma di reificazione della sua attività intenzionale» (141) attraverso il confronto col materialismo storico di Marx.

I richiami marxiani che innervano le opere di Enzo Paci si colgono perfettamente nell’entusiasmante Prefazione alla terza edizione de La crisi delle scienze europee e la fenomenologia trascendentale che egli scrisse nel ’68, all’interno della quale paragonò le idee di coloro i quali attaccavano «la fenomenologia come una fuga della realtà che mancava di praxis» a quelle degli «intellettuali della Russia zarista» che «consideravano puramente teorici e astratti i ragionamenti di Lenin e di Trockij». Tuttavia, l’audace paragone paciano dice qualcosa anche in merito alla tendenza del filosofo a ricomprendere il pensiero husserliano dalla fine all’inizio, mostrando l’insensatezza di distinguere fra un “primo” Husserl logico e slegato dalla prassi, e un “secondo” Husserl storico, impegnato a recuperare la problematica della Lebenswelt. Un’attitudine che dalla sua opera si riverserà sull’intero panorama fenomenologico italiano, dando avvio a un cammino che si proporrà riallacciare, dentro e fuori i testi husserliani, il piano della logica a quello dell’esperienza, la sfera del sapere a quella della vita.

Tutto questo però richiede una precisazione: dal momento che la fenomenologia italiana è lo specchio di una postura che non veicola tendenze dogmatiche, questa tendenza si realizzerà in maniera ogni volta diversa, rendendo difficile per molti versi rintracciarne i connotati. Come si legge nel contributo di Roberto Miraglia, ad esempio, Giovanni Piana, a differenza di Paci, criticò alcuni aspetti dell’opera testamentaria di Husserl riscontrando come gli scritti husserliani, nel corso del tempo, tendessero sempre di più a far spazio a «un Hussel ideologico che ripropone i temi etico-fondazionalisti, senza che questo incremento di drammaticità» potesse però «rendere più adeguata ad affrontarli una cassetta degli attrezzi pensata invece in vista della realizzazione di una analitica fenomenologica» (243).  Un discorso analogo, peraltro, si potrebbe fare in merito ai riferimenti che contribuiranno, insieme a Husserl, a determinare le linee della scena fenomenologica italiana, perché se lo Husserl di Paci e Semerari va a braccetto con Marx, mentre è humeano invece lo Husserl di Enzo Melandri di cui tratta il saggio di Stefano Besoli, quello di Sini, conformemente alla convinzione che tornare alle cose stesse (come scrive Federico Leoni) significhi tornare alle operazioni «attraverso cui le cose stesse si costituiscono», diventa un Husserl copernicano, e cioè «radicalmente kantiano» (222).

Ovviamente, si possono individuare anche dei punti comuni negli studi fenomenologici italiani, come l’antiriduzionismo che accomuna ad esempio due personalità per molti versi differenti come Paolo Parrini, di cui scrive Andrea Pace Giannota, e Paolo Bozzi, a cui è dedicato il contributo Roberta Lanfredini. Ma quello che bisognerebbe chiedersi è: posto che quelle che abbiamo individuato non siano affatto le uniche spaccature individuabili all’interno della Fenomenologia in Italia, ha davvero senso parlare di una fenomenologia italiana? Il contributo finale di Federica Buongiorno suggerisce che per affrontare questo problema occorra spostare la questione su un piano diverso rispetto a quello della mera teoria. Questo perché sul piano dell’esperienza, e cioè di un esercizio filosofico che si fa, lo scontro di prospettive differenti muta di senso. Al suo posto, come avviene quando si traduce un testo e ci si trova, da un lato, ad affrontare «la sfida di trovare, se non per certi versi “inventare” la “parola giusta” con cui rendere il termine originale» e, dall’altro, a doversi confrontare con le «scelte già consolidate e difficilmente aggirabili» (299) di una terminologia già presente, emerge l’idea di una comunità di studiosi grazie alla quale l’eco primitivo di un pensiero si è prodotto (o riprodotto) in un determinato contesto.

Quello che si tratta di capire, se è vero che non è affatto semplice individuare i caratteri della fenomenologia italiana, è che questa difficoltà però non è un elemento accidentale, e neanche la dimostrazione che si debba per questo parlare per forza di una pluralità di pensieri che apre le porte a una deriva scettica. Piuttosto, essa è la conseguenza dell’impossibilità di circoscrivere a priori qualcosa che somiglia più a uno stile, a una maniera «che esiste come movimento ancor prima di essere giunta a un’intera coscienza filosofica», come diceva Merleau-Ponty nella Fenomenologia della percezione. Se consideriamo che non si può ripetere quello stile, quella maniera, come si ripeterebbe un proverbio, non possiamo che convenire con i curatori de La fenomenologia in Italia rispetto al fatto che l’unico modo per raccontare la fenomenologia è allora quello di procedere von unten, e cioè quello di ricollegare questo racconto all’esperienza degli autori che le hanno dato forma. Volendo, però, potremmo spingerci anche oltre: riprendendo le parole di John Keats, potremmo affermare che non solo una particolare vicenda di pensiero, ma «Niente può mai diventare reale, senza essere vagliato dall’esperienza. Persino un proverbio: che proverbio è, prima che la vita te l’abbia mostrato?».