NEW PHENOMENOLOGY IN FRANCE

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1 The Southern Journal of Philosophy Volume 50, Issue 2 June 2012 NEW PHENOMENOLOGY IN FRANCE László Tengelyi abstract: Phenomenology is a basic philosophical movement belonging to what is called continental philosophy. Recently, a new phenomenology has emerged in France. In the period from Levinas and Henry to Marion and Richir, it has become evident that the phenomenon as such cannot be reduced to a mere constitution by intentional consciousness; rather, it must be considered as an event of appearing that establishes itself by itself. This fundamental insight entails important consequences: on the one hand, a new concept of the subject has been elaborated; on the other hand, a new approach to effective reality and objectivity has been developed. Idealism is overcome, transcendentalism is revised and reinterpreted. These changes will certainly have an impact on the destiny of continental philosophy. It is not easy to pass a well-founded judgment on the future of what is usually referred to in the Anglo American world as continental philosophy. The bearer of this name is a constellation of thoughts, practices, methods, and convictions that encompasses a heterogeneous multiplicity of different currents and approaches. Concerning historical phenomena, a motivated surmise about the future can only result from familiarity with all tendencies that, in a particular field, have recently emerged. Who can claim, however, to be closely familiar with every tendency that may have an impact on the destiny of continental philosophy? Among the currents and approaches circumscribed by this collective designation, there is a basic philosophical movement, which, in its general outlook and fundamental methods, is just like analytic philosophy László Tengelyi is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Institute of Phenomenology at the University of Wuppertal, Germany. Between 2003 and 2005, he was the president of the German Society of Phenomenology. He assumed guest professorships in Poitiers, in Nizza, at the Sorbonne (University Paris I), in Memphis, Tennessee, and in Québec, Canada. Besides four books in Hungarian, he published Der Zwitterbegriff Lebensgeschichte (English version, The Wild Region in Life-History, Northwestern University Press, 2004; French version, L histoire d une vie et sa région sauvage, Millon, 2005), L expérience retrouvée (L Harmattan, 2006), Erfahrung und Ausdruck (Springer, 2007), and Neue Phänomenologie in Frankreich (with H.-D. Gondek, Suhrkamp, 2011). The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Volume 50, Issue 2 (2012), ISSN , online ISSN DOI: /j x 295

2 296 LÁSZLÓ TENGELYI animated by only one ambition, namely, to understand the world. This movement is generally called phenomenology. Here, this term is taken in its broader sense, so that it does not simply refer to Edmund Husserl s thought but, rather, designates a hundred-year-old tradition to which different post- Husserlian thinkers like Martin Heidegger or Maurice Merleau-Ponty belong just as well as the originator of the entire movement himself. I shall leave open the question whether, for instance, hermeneutics or deconstruction can be said to be grafted on the phenomenological movement in this broad sense of the word, or whether it must be considered as a separate movement of equally fundamental aims and scopes. However, among the currents and approaches indicated by the expression continental philosophy, we also find some types of discourse or some discursive formations that are determined to accomplish a social task or to achieve a historical goal. They are designed, for example, to justify sexual and cultural diversity or even, more generally, to promote radical democracy. They are imbued, in a word, by the ambition of changing the world. Such discursive formations are by no means unnecessary or illegitimate. However, they can hardly be described as (purely) philosophical currents or approaches, even if they take inspiration from thinkers like Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Alain Badiou, or Jacques Rancière. Obviously, the destiny of continental philosophy depends to a large extent on whether or not philosophy will preserve its ability and willingness to gather all its strength in view of a social task or a historical goal. Undeniably, since the time of the French Enlightenment and French Revolution, this has been one of the most powerful incentives for thinking in philosophy and the humanities. But, precisely in our age, several philosophers and historians of ideas have already proclaimed the end of the epoch in which intellectuals in the French sense of the word had played an important role (for details see the epilogue of Winock ). Whether or not their diagnosis is correct is still the question. In the following considerations, I do not intend to decide this question. I shall limit myself to some remarks on the destiny of the basic philosophical movement called phenomenology. The causes that ultimately led to a radical cleavage between phenomenology and analytic philosophy are far from obvious. It is well-known that, in his early period, Husserl shared Gottlob Frege s and Bertrand Russell s interest in logics and mathematics. Michael Dummett s proposal to discern in the early works of Frege and Husserl the germs of an opposition between two philosophical orientations a psychological and a linguistic one (see Dummett 1993) has never been accepted by experts. From a historical point of view, it seems to be clearly untenable: Frege was engaged, to some extent, in linguistic analysis, but not in a linguistic orientation toward phi-

3 NEW PHENOMENOLOGY IN FRANCE 297 losophy, and Husserl was just as radical a critic and opponent of psychologism in logic, mathematics, and philosophy as Frege himself. Therefore, I am rather inclined to see in the cleavage of the two main currents of twentiethcentury philosophy the consequence of some tenets and attitudes that, for a long period of time, were to have a prevalent role in analytic philosophy. That philosophical problems arise from the misunderstanding of the logic of our language or that metaphysical statements are plainly and bluntly meaningless proved to be insurmountable stumbling blocks to a reception of analytic philosophy by continental philosophers. Moreover, early analytic philosophy was often marked by a touch of British empiricism, which could not be attractive in the post-kantian transcendental climate characteristic of the intellectual life on the European continent. In the 1930s, the positivism of the Vienna circle, which was to have an endurable influence on analytic thinking, especially in North America, was as severely rejected by Husserl as by Heidegger. The later conviction, according to which philosophy is nothing but the analysis of ordinary language, did not alter the situation, and this in spite of a certain affinity of Ludwig Wittgenstein and of John Langshaw Austin for a quasi-phenomenological approach (at least) to language. However, during the last three or four decades, all of these tenets and attitudes have been revised, abandoned, or overcome by analytic philosophy. Consequently, an entirely new situation has emerged. Even if phenomenology remains distinguished from analytic philosophy by its historical roots, its style, and its methods, it is no longer clear why a general and, as it were, antagonistic opposition between the two philosophical movements should be maintained in our age. There are some phenomenologists who have already drawn unequivocal consequences from this situation. Dan Zahavi s work, including the book on The Phenomenological Mind (Gallagher and Zahavi 2008), is a case in point. Jocelyn Benoist s development is equally conspicuous: the earlier phenomenologist has recently dedicated himself to a philosophy influenced no less by Austin and Wittgenstein than by Husserl. Paul Ricœur s Oneself as Another (1990) can be mentioned as an example as well. Indeed, since the publication of this work, the theory of narrative identity, put forward among others by Ricœur, has not ceased to provide an opportunity for a dialogue and a debate between phenomenologists and analytic philosophers (see Hutto 2007). However, the trend of cooperation and controversy with analytic thinkers cannot be considered as predominant in or generally characteristic of contemporary phenomenological thought. In France, a new phenomenological approach has recently established itself, and it has been developed independently of the Anglo American philosophical mainstream. It may be distinguished as a third form of phenomenology from Husserl s transcendental

4 298 LÁSZLÓ TENGELYI inquiry and from Heidegger s hermeneutic thinking. Thus, it constitutes a new phase of the phenomenological movement, and, as such, it will certainly have an impact on the future of continental philosophy. Since, together with a friend and collaborator, I have dealt with this current in a book-length study (Gondek and Tengelyi 2011), I feel sufficiently prepared to reflect on the question of how its achievements may influence the future of continental philosophy. Twenty years ago, Dominique Janicaud was the first to become aware of the new initiatives that marked the beginnings of this current. He identified the novel characteristic of these initiatives as a theological turn in French phenomenology (Janicaud 1991). Accordingly, he considered Emmanuel Levinas, Michel Henry, Jean-Luc Marion, and Jean-Louis Chrétien as its main representatives, opposing to them, in the first place, Merleau-Ponty, in the second place, Ricœur, and finally, also Marc Richir ( Janicaud 1998). Retrospectively, it is not difficult to see that, in its polemical thrust, the picture of the new current outlined by Janicaud was rather one-sided. It is obviously indispensable to distinguish between the precursors and the protagonists of the new phenomenology in France, and, arguably, not only Levinas and Henry but also Merleau-Ponty and Ricœur can be said to be among the forerunners of this current. As far as the protagonists of the new phenomenology in France are concerned, not only Marion, Chrétien, and the later Henry but also Richir and some other thinkers belong to them. Among the protagonists of this movement, there are some, who are strictly committed to Christian religion, but there are others who are not. Not only Richir belongs to the latter group but also Didier Franck, Renaud Barbaras, Françoise Dastur, and Éliane Escoubas. It is true that, to some extent, even Richir and Franck are interested in theological issues, but this interest by no means testifies to a theological turn in French phenomenology. It rather arises from the insight that, in a post-nietzschean era, some problems, which, in earlier times, could only be formulated in theological terms, can now be vindicated for philosophy. His polemical thrust induces Janicaud to designate Marion and others simply as the nouveaux théologiens of France. Indeed, Marion has presented not only important studies in phenomenology and scholarly writings on Descartes, but also some books of a theological nature. However, with the possible exception of his recent work on Augustine s thought, he has never intermingled his phenomenological and historical investigations with his theological convictions. It should not be forgotten that, in his Being Given, he has put forward a phenomenological inquiry into a gift without [a] giver (Marion 1997/2002, 145/101). Indeed, the givenness analyzed in this work is purged of any transcendent giver (146/102). Therefore, even Marion s

5 NEW PHENOMENOLOGY IN FRANCE 299 Being Given can be said to vindicate for philosophy a problem that, in earlier times, could only be formulated in theological terms. As for Henry or Chrétien, the situation is incontestably much less unambiguous. These thinkers are not concerned with any separation of phenomenology from theology. However, they by no means subordinate phenomenology to a traditional form of theology. Just like Marion, they opt for a religion that breaks with ontotheological metaphysics, and it is mainly in their struggle against the tradition of ontotheology that they draw upon phenomenology. But nobody can deny that such a struggle is a genuine affair of phenomenology. In order to get an impression of the main achievements that can be attributed to the new phenomenology in France, it is useful to take a look at the general difference between the precursors and the protagonists of this current. At the end of the 1950s and at the beginning of the 1960s, the most creative French phenomenologists found themselves confronted with certain special phenomena that put up a resistance to the application of well-known phenomenological methods and techniques of description. Merleau-Ponty led the way, among other things, by his analysis of modern painting to overcome the traditional opposition of the subject and the object, and he tried to grasp the flesh of the world in its interrelation with the embodied self. Levinas made serious efforts to describe the face, to which he attributed a high ethical significance. Ricœur dedicated himself to the analysis of symbols in religion, in psychoanalysis, and in literature, meaning by this term not only linguistic expressions but also extralinguistic objects with a double sense. Henry engaged himself in a study of affectivity in order to make life accessible to an adequate understanding. Flesh, face, symbol, and life are quite different phenomena, however, they have one thing in common: they are, strictly speaking, indescribable, inapparent, deprived of phenomenalization. Even if they are clearly indicated by certain appearances, they themselves withdraw from appearing. A disconcerting situation for a phenomenologist! He or she is supposed to describe phenomena, to grasp appearances, but how to grasp the inapparent, how to describe the indescribable? Moreover, phenomena that are withdrawn from phenomenalization are encountered without being constituted by an intentional consciousness. It is no wonder that the thinkers in question had a recourse to something other than phenomenology in order to find an issue with this awkward situation: Merleau-Ponty coined the term endo- or intraontology ; Levinas conceived of ethics as a first philosophy ; Ricœur envisaged a hermeneutic turn of phenomenology; Henry insisted on calling his approach phenomenology, but he opposed the revelation of life through affectivity to classical phenomenology, which he interpreted as a doctrine of ecstatic manifestation.

6 300 LÁSZLÓ TENGELYI Subsequently, it became increasingly evident that, as a matter of fact, these thinkers by no means had left behind the realm of phenomena, even if the phenomena they had been interested in showed the particularity of manifesting themselves only indirectly through traces and indications without appearing directly. The flesh of the world remained invisible, but it proved to be, so to speak, the invisible of this world. The face manifested itself by traces it left behind on the perceptible surface of the skin. In symbols, a literal sense anchored in sensible experience opened the way to understanding a figurative meaning. Affective life withdrew from appearing in ordinary sense-perception, but it plainly revealed itself through feelings and attunements. It became ultimately obvious that the analysis of these special phenomena was still to be understood as a piece of phenomenology, though of an unusual or even unorthodox one. Janicaud clearly saw that with Levinas, Henry, and others a new type of phenomenology had emerged. He borrowed from the later Heidegger the paradoxical term of a phenomenology of the inapparent in order to designate its particularity. Even if he never ceased to combat this kind of phenomenology and opposed to it his own minimal art of thinking ( Janicaud 1997), it is incontestably to his merit to have recognized its specificity. To be sure, he was not the only thinker to reflect on the novelty brought by the former generation of French phenomenologists. In his study of Reduction and Givenness (1989), relying mainly on Levinas and Henry, Marion had already distinguished a third form of phenomenological reduction a reduction to pure appeal from Husserl s transcendental reduction to objectivity as well as from Heidegger s ontological reduction to being. This distinction between three different forms of reduction can be considered the first expression of the awareness that, in France, a new phenomenology had developed. Two years later, in his paper on The Four Principles of Phenomenology (1991), Henry relied on Marion s Reduction and Givenness in order to propose a new principle of phenomenology: the more of reduction, the more of gift. With this principle, the self-consciousness of the new phenomenology in France came to a definitive breakthrough. However, we must not jump to the conclusion that Marion s third reduction or Henry s just-mentioned principle is the distinctive feature of the new phenomenology in France. In reality, it is highly contestable whether the different phases of the phenomenological movement can be adequately grasped by the three terms objectivity, being, and pure appeal. As to the principle the more of reduction, the more of gift, it is so far from being generally accepted by contemporary French phenomenologists that Richir even proposed a counterprinciple: the more of reduction, the less of gift (Richir 1995, 154).

7 NEW PHENOMENOLOGY IN FRANCE 301 The expression phenomenology of the inapparent is no less misleading, partly because it seems to contain in itself a latent inconsistency, and partly because it is apt to restrict the scope of the new phenomenology in France to some particular phenomena. However, the protagonists of the new movement differ from the entire generation of their forerunners precisely by relating the discoveries of this generation to the phenomenon as such and not just to certain special phenomena. It is indeed in the phenomenon as such that the protagonists of the new phenomenology in France came to see an event, which establishes itself by itself and is, therefore, irreducible to a pure and simple constitution by an intentional consciousness. This is the basic insight, in which we can recognize the very distinctive feature of the new phenomenology in France. During the last three decades, this observation, which concerns the spontaneity of phenomenalization, has taken quite different forms. Marion s and Henry s principle of gift is clearly an expression of this spontaneity. Marion s reduction to a pure appeal points in the same direction. Chrétien s (1992) study of appeal and response, heavily drawn upon in the last part of Marion s Being Given, leads to similar conclusions. The same insight finds expression in Richir s phenomenology of spontaneous sense-formation as well (see Richir 1992). The leading idea of this phenomenology is that the sense or meaning of a phenomenon cannot be reduced to a sense-bestowal by the intentional consciousness, because it arises from an interrelation, intertwinement, and even interpenetration with other senses or meanings. Consequently, the emergence of a phenomenon is seen by Richir, as well as by Marion, Henry, or Chrétien, as an event of spontaneous phenomenalization, which makes its irruption by itself into the intentional consciousness. This central insight entails a whole series of consequences, two of which deserve to be mentioned here. The first of these two consequences is related to the notion of the subject. Originally, Husserl conceived of phenomenology as an inquiry into subjectivity. In the 1920s, Heidegger by no means rejected this orientation toward subjectivity, even if he clearly saw that phenomenology required a break with the traditional notion of a self-possessed and self-sustained ego, which was prevalent in modern philosophy. According to Benoist, the new phenomenology in France was also centered on subjectivity. He even puts into Marion s mouth the following exclamation: French phenomenology will be a phenomenology of the subject, or it will not be at all (Benoist 2001, 16; cf. Marion 1989, 247). However, no self-possessed and self-sustained ego is tolerated by the precursors and the protagonists of the new phenomenology in France. From Levinas to Marion, it is repeatedly stated that it is not in the nominative case but rather in the accusative or, even more, in the dative case that the subject is originally given in self-awareness and self-perception. The

8 302 LÁSZLÓ TENGELYI subjectivity of the subject is ultimately due to the event of phenomenalization, which happens to it, without being controlled or even dominated by it. The second consequence consists in an objectivity or objective reality that is regained by phenomenological inquiry. Since the event of phenomenalization imposes itself upon the subject spontaneously, reality is first encountered in experience, before it is constituted by intentional consciousness. Consequently, constitution does not imply any ontological dependence on the mind. Nor are the conditions for the possibility of experience determined in advance by the structure of subjective abilities. Idealism is overcome; transcendentalism is revised and reinterpreted. These changes open up a new field of investigation on the categories of experience. It is neither being qua being nor the transcendental object of experience that categories are related to in this investigation. They rather are related to the event of phenomenalization. Thus, phenomenology comes to establish itself as another first philosophy (Marion 2001, 16). It becomes possible to pick up Husserl s idea of a phenomenological metaphysics of contingent facticity, as it is opposed, at the end of Cartesian Meditations, to every metaphysics in the customary sense of the word. These are achievements of the new phenomenology in France that, foreseeably and predictably, will have an impact on the future of this basic philosophical movement. Where will they unfold their influence on the destiny of continental philosophy? Probably and hopefully not exclusively in France. Hopefully, because they still have to be appropriated and restated in a less Franco-immanent or sometimes even Franco-esoteric way than they were originally formulated in order to enter into a dialogue and a debate, for instance, with the recently rehabilitated and refurbished metaphysics of the analytic tradition. Hopefully, also because Marion is right in saying that, as a general rule, one must be on one s guard against identifying a moment of philosophy with a language and with a nation (Marion 2002, 10). Marion even adds, Philosophy is an enfant de bohème, it lives nowhere, except if it is transmuted into the ideology of national philosophies (inventions as young as the national states and as dangerous as these) (2002, 10; emphasis added). REFERENCES Benoist, J L idée de phenomenology [The idea of phenomenology]. Paris: Beauchesne. Chrétien, J.-L L appel et la réponse [The call and the response]. Paris: Minuit. Dummett, M Origins of analytic philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gallagher, S., and D. Zahavi The phenomenological mind: An introduction to philosophy of mind and cognitive science. New York: Routledge.

9 NEW PHENOMENOLOGY IN FRANCE 303 Gondek, H.-D., and L. Tengelyi Neue Phänomenologie in Frankreich: Renaissance einer Denkströmung [New phenomenology in France]. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Henry, M Quatre principes de la phenomenology [Four principles of phenomenology]. Revue de métaphysique et de morale 96 (January March 1991): Hutto, D. D., ed Narrative and understanding persons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Janicaud, D La phénoménologie éclatée [Phenomenology exploded]. Combas: L éclat Chronos: Pour l intelligence du partage temporel [Chronos: Towards understanding temporal division]. Paris: Grasset Le tournant théologique de la phénoménologie Française [The theological turn of French phenomenology]. Combas: L éclat. Marion, J.-L Un moment Français de la phenomenology [A French moment of phenomenology]. In Rue Descartes 35 (March 2002): De surcroît: Études sur les phénomènes saturés [In excess: Studies on saturated phenomena]. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France /2002. Étant donné. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. In English, Being given, trans. J. L. Kosky. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press Réduction et donation [Reduction and gift]. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Richir, M Intentionnalité et intersubjectivité [Intentionality and intersubjectivity]. In L intentionnalité en question: Entre phénoménologie et recherches cognitives, ed. Dominique Janicaud, Paris: Vrin Méditations phénoménologiques: Phénoménologie et phénoménologie du langage [Phenomenological meditations: Phenomenology and phenomenology of language]. Grenoble: Millon. Ricœur, P Soi-méme comme un autre [Oneself as another]. Paris: Seuil. Winock, M Le siècle des intellectuels [The century of intellectuals]. Paris: Seuil.

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