Phenomenology's Presence

Similar documents
Truth and Method in Unification Thought: A Preparatory Analysis

Heideggerian Ontology: A Philosophic Base for Arts and Humanties Education

Phenomenology and Non-Conceptual Content

Phenomenology Glossary

CHAPTER IV RETROSPECT

PH 8122: Topics in Philosophy: Phenomenology and the Problem of Passivity Fall 2013 Thursdays, 6-9 p.m, 440 JORG

REVIEW ARTICLE IDEAL EMBODIMENT: KANT S THEORY OF SENSIBILITY

TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE... INTRODUCTION...

Recommended: Dermot Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology (New York and London: Routledge, 2000).

A Comprehensive Critical Study of Gadamer s Hermeneutics

Conclusion. One way of characterizing the project Kant undertakes in the Critique of Pure Reason is by

foucault s archaeology science and transformation David Webb

PH 360 CROSS-CULTURAL PHILOSOPHY IES Abroad Vienna

PHIL 415 Continental Philosophy: Key Problems Spring 2013

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2d ed. transl. by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (London : Sheed & Ward, 1989), pp [1960].

Notes on Gadamer, The Relevance of the Beautiful

Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education

Immanuel Kant Critique of Pure Reason

Imagination and Contingency: Overcoming the Problems of Kant s Transcendental Deduction

What is the Object of Thinking Differently?

HERMENEUTIC PHILOSOPHY AND DATA COLLECTION: A PRACTICAL FRAMEWORK

Natika Newton, Foundations of Understanding. (John Benjamins, 1996). 210 pages, $34.95.

1/9. The B-Deduction

The Spell of the Sensuous Chapter Summaries 1-4 Breakthrough Intensive 2016/2017

Meaning, Being and Expression: A Phenomenological Justification for Interdisciplinary Scholarship

Review of S. J. McGrath and Joseph Carew (eds.). Rethinking German Idealism, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.

ON GESTURAL MEANING IN ACTS OF EXPRESSION

KANT S TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC

Since its inception in 2006, the

CHAPTER THREE THE METHOD: THE HERMENEUTIC PHENOMENOLOGY...

Architecture as the Psyche of a Culture

Philosophy Pathways Issue th December 2016

Necessity in Kant; Subjective and Objective

Seven remarks on artistic research. Per Zetterfalk Moving Image Production, Högskolan Dalarna, Falun, Sweden

HEGEL, ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY AND THE RETURN OF METAPHYISCS Simon Lumsden

CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

TRAGIC THOUGHTS AT THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO INSTRUCTORSHIPS IN PHILOSOPHY CUPE Local 3902, Unit 1 SUMMER SESSION 2019

By Rahel Jaeggi Suhrkamp, 2014, pbk 20, ISBN , 451pp. by Hans Arentshorst

H-France Review Volume 15 (2015) Page 1

Joona Taipale, Phenomenology and Embodiment: Husserl and the Constitution of Subjectivity

Hamletmachine: The Objective Real and the Subjective Fantasy. Heiner Mueller s play Hamletmachine focuses on Shakespeare s Hamlet,

Verity Harte Plato on Parts and Wholes Clarendon Press, Oxford 2002

PAUL REDDING S CONTINENTAL IDEALISM (AND DELEUZE S CONTINUATION OF THE IDEALIST TRADITION) Sean Bowden

Mariana Larison, L être en forme. Dialectique et phénomenologie dans la dernière philosophie de Merleau-Ponty. Éditions Mimésis, 2016.

Review of David Woodruff Smith and Amie L. Thomasson, eds., Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Mind, 2005, Oxford University Press.

Peircean concept of sign. How many concepts of normative sign are needed. How to clarify the meaning of the Peircean concept of sign?

Georg Simmel's Sociology of Individuality

Towards a Phenomenology of Development

This is an electronic reprint of the original article. This reprint may differ from the original in pagination and typographic detail.

Philosophy in the educational process: Understanding what cannot be taught

Bas C. van Fraassen, Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective, Oxford University Press, 2008.

1. What is Phenomenology?

Vinod Lakshmipathy Phil 591- Hermeneutics Prof. Theodore Kisiel

Hegel and Neurosis: Idealism, Phenomenology and Realism

A Process of the Fusion of Horizons in the Text Interpretation

Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art"

THESIS MIND AND WORLD IN KANT S THEORY OF SENSATION. Submitted by. Jessica Murski. Department of Philosophy

1/8. The Third Paralogism and the Transcendental Unity of Apperception

Spatial Formations. Installation Art between Image and Stage.

The Existential Act- Interview with Juhani Pallasmaa

Introduction SABINE FLACH, DANIEL MARGULIES, AND JAN SÖFFNER


GRADUATE SEMINARS

College of DuPage. James Magrini College of DuPage,

By Tetsushi Hirano. PHENOMENOLOGY at the University College of Dublin on June 21 st 2013)

1/10. The A-Deduction

Towards dialogic literacy education for the Internet Age. Rupert Wegerif 4 th December 2014 Literacy Research Association Marco Island, Florida

Always More Than One Art: Jean-Luc Nancy's <em>the Muses</em>

SocioBrains THE INTEGRATED APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF ART

Jacek Surzyn University of Silesia Kant s Political Philosophy

Essay 82. Topic number 1. At the beginning there was the word

The Problem of Authenticity in Heidegger and Gadamer

Narrating the Self: Parergonality, Closure and. by Holly Franking. hermeneutics focus attention on the transactional aspect of the aesthetic

Winter 2018 Philosophy Course Descriptions. Featured Undergraduate Courses

Postmodernism. thus one must review the central tenants of Enlightenment philosophy

1/6. The Anticipations of Perception

The Strengths and Weaknesses of Frege's Critique of Locke By Tony Walton


Communicability and Empathy: Sensus Communis and the Idea of the Sublime in Dialogical Aesthetics

PHI 8119: Phenomenology and Existentialism Winter 2016 Wednesdays, 4:30-7:30 p.m, 440 JORG

Thomas Szanto: Bewusstsein, Intentionalität und mentale Repräsentation. Husserl und die analytische Philosophie des Geistes

Theory or Theories? Based on: R.T. Craig (1999), Communication Theory as a field, Communication Theory, n. 2, May,

Mass Communication Theory

Kent Academic Repository

Crystal-image: real-time imagery in live performance as the forking of time

Book Review. John Dewey s Philosophy of Spirit, with the 1897 Lecture on Hegel. Jeff Jackson. 130 Education and Culture 29 (1) (2013):

What counts as a convincing scientific argument? Are the standards for such evaluation

PHL 317K 1 Fall 2017 Overview of Weeks 1 5

Journal of Nonlocality Round Table Series Colloquium #4

UNIT SPECIFICATION FOR EXCHANGE AND STUDY ABROAD

The Polish Peasant in Europe and America. W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki

Kant IV The Analogies The Schematism updated: 2/2/12. Reading: 78-88, In General

Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty: The Aesthetics of Difference

KATARZYNA KOBRO ToS 75 - Structutre, 1920 (lost work, photo only)

Kant s Critique of Judgment

POST-KANTIAN AUTONOMIST AESTHETICS AS APPLIED ETHICS ETHICAL SUBSTRATUM OF PURIST LITERARY CRITICISM IN 20 TH CENTURY

Heidegger and Institutional Life: A Critique of Modern Politics

BASIC ISSUES IN AESTHETIC

Taylor On Phenomenological Method: An Hegelian Refutation

Transcription:

Phenomenology's Presence Graduate Conference in Phenomenology, University of Sussex, UK 13 th & 14 th June 2013 CONFERENCE PROGRAMME Thursday, 13 th June 2013, Room: MS3.07A (Medical School - BSMS) 09:00 10:00 Registration and Coffee 10:00 10:15 Welcome address 10:20-11:40 Session 1: Presence and Absence in Husserlian Phenomenology Chair: Gabriel Martin Speaker 1: James Jardine (Center for Subjectivity Research, University of Copehnhagen, Denmark) Title of Paper: 'Presence and Absence in Edmund Husserl's Phenomenology of Empathy' 1

Speaker 2: Marco Cavallaro (KU Leuven, Belgium) Title of Paper: 'The Presence of the Past. The Past of the Presence. Husserl and Merleau-Ponty on the Possibilities of Forgetfulness' 11:40-11:50 BREAK 11:50 13:10 Session 2: Heidegger, Language and the Ready-to-hand Chair: Carolina Christofidaki Speaker 1: Joshua Bergamin (Durham University, UK) Title of Paper: 'From Presence to Language: or, Towards a Heideggerian theory of consciousness' Speaker 2: Katherine Kurtz (Villanova University, US) Title of Paper: ' How to Include What is Seen with Hearing and Listening : The Problematic of Language in Being and Time' 13:10-14:00 LUNCH 14:00-15:20 Session 3: Merleau-Ponty and the Phenomenology of 2

Listening Chair: Patrick Levy Speaker 1: Aaron Casley (University of Barcelona, Spain) Title of Paper: 'Phenomenological Considerations in the Installation Work of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller' Speaker 2: Catherine Robb (University of Essex, UK) Title of Paper: 'Silence at the Limits of Phenomenology: Listening to Merleau- Ponty and John Cage' 15:20-15:30 BREAK 15:30-16:50 Session 4: Heidegger's Appropriation of Christian Philosophy Chair: Jana Elsen Speaker 1: Victoria Davies (University of Oxford, UK) Title of Paper: 'The Truth about Temporality: What is Heidegger's Understanding of Presence, and Where does it Come From?' Speaker 2: Joshua Roe (University of Oxford, UK) Title of Paper: 'The Appropriation of Scotist Philosophy in Martin Heidegger' 3

16:50-17:15 BREAK 17:15-18:45 Keynote Address Professor Robert Bernasconi (Pennsylvania State University, US) Title of Paper: 'The Play of Presence and Absence in Heidegger's Phenomenological Appropriation of Eckhart' Chair: Dr. Paul Davies (University of Sussex, UK) Conference Dinner 4

Friday 14 th June 2013, Room: Jubilee 155 (Jubilee Building) 08:30 09:00 Registration and Coffee 09:10 10:30 Session 5: Presence and Absence in Heideggerian Phenomenology Chair: e. Murat Celik Speaker 1: Christos Hadjioannou (University of Sussex, UK) Title of Paper: 'The Young Heidegger and the Phenomenology of Desire' Speaker 2: Justin White (UC Riverside, US) Title of Paper: 'Explaining Van Gogh's Shoes: A Heideggerian Response to Schapiro' 10:30 10:40 BREAK 10:40-12:00 Session 6: Beyond Presence and Beyond Givenness? Chair: Dimitri Kladiskakis

Speaker 1: Seferin James (University College Dublin, Republic of Ireland) Title of Paper: 'Absence and the Metaphysics of Presence' Speaker 2: Mara Grinfelde (University of Latvia, Latvia) Title of Paper: 'Is Non-intuitive Givenness Possible? An Evaluation of Jean-Luc Marion's Response' 12.00 13:00 LUNCH 13:00-14.20 Session 7: Phenomenology, Ethics, and Politics Chair: Will Rees Speaker 1: David Martínez Rojas (University of Sussex, UK) Title of Paper: 'Phenomenology and Critical Theory: Inequality and Equality in Ethics' Speaker 2: Alexandra Popescu (University of Sussex, UK) Title of Paper: 'The Absent Friend: Minimal Community in Lévinas and Derrida' 14:20-14:30 BREAK

14:30-16:00 Keynote Address Professor Beatrice Han-Pile (University of Essex, UK) Title of Paper: 'Freedom, Autonomy and Medio-Passivity in Heidegger's Essence of Freedom' Chair: Dr. Michael Lewis (University of the West of England, UK) 16:00 17:30 BREAK 16:30-18:00 Closing Discussion Discussion of the themes and findings of the conference led by Dr. Paul Davies (University of Sussex, UK) in conversation with Professor Robert Bernasconi (Pennsylvania State University, US) 18:00 Closing Remarks

Abstracts of Graduate Speakers Name: Joshua Bergamin (Durham University, UK) Email: j.a.bergamin@durham.ac.uk Title of Paper: From Presence to Language: or, Towards a Heideggerian theory of consciousness Abstract: Presence is tied indelibly in Martin Heidegger's thinking to the human experience of being. A central concept in Being and Time is the 'clearing' (Lichtung) a space within Dasein wherein entities come to presence. Presence here, like much of Heidegger's vocabulary, takes on a very particular meaning. It implies more than the mere occurring or coming-across of an entity it is coming-to-be-with an entity in an entirely new way. It is this change in Dasein's relationship to an entity that enters its clearing that I wish to explore here. For this change, I will hold, is at the very centre of our humanity, and the presencing of an entity as something in Dasein's clearing (for Heidegger buffs, its unconcealment) is the central moment of conscious experience. To fully convey the significance of this moment, I will begin by teasing out Graham Harman's (2002) exciting redefinition of zuhandenheit, or readiness-tohand. This way of being, he argues, extends far beyond the human use of equipment towards ends, but describes the state of process/flux that underpins all entities. While I will generally agree with his ontology, I argue that his extension of zuhanden relations to the inanimate realm glosses over the finer distinction of entities that are presenced in human consciousness. In human consciousness, I will argue, entities are not only experienced as frozen out of their ready-to-hand being, but are held so in an atemporal state. Re-reading

Being and Time through the lens of several of Heidegger's lecture courses, I will argue that this state and therefore, a specifically human consciousness is made possible only by language. I will conclude by suggesting that understanding language's relation with presence, time and consciousness in this way will open some fertile paths for exploring the nature of the Self and its relation to the world. Name: Aaron Casley (University of Barcelona, Spain) Email: aaron.casley@gmail.com Title of Paper: 'Phenomenological Considerations in the Installation Work of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller' Abstract: What is the role of phenomenology in contemporary art? When the English translation of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception was first published in 1962, New York was the capital of the art world and radical changes were taking place. Robert Morris's Boxes (1961) and Donald Judd's Relief Paintings (1961-1962) are examples of what was a new art practice, now referred to as minimalism. The primary focus of the work was upon the interaction between the art object and the viewer's body, and greatly complimented Merleau-Ponty's ideas. The transition away from the gallery wall and into the gallery space, in Judd's own words using "real materials in real space", represented not only a new way of viewing the art work (from the body), but a new conception of what art should be. Meaning is derived solely from the presence of the viewer, rather than existing intrinsically within the work itself. Half a century later, and the assimilation between these early works and phenomenology has already been widely discussed, but the central concept of art as something that needs to be physically encountered by the viewer has not gone away. In the installation work, or sound walks of contemporary artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, sound is the primary medium through which to explore the physical environments either set up or selected by the artists. Complex themes ranging from environmentalism, identity, place or the unconscious are encountered, and embodied perception is posited as the primary means of exploring the work. The viewer interprets these scenes through the act of imagining, which Edward Casey insists is an intrinsic feature

of all aesthetic experience. What is absent from the work is often as important as that which is present, and phenomenology plays an essential role in understanding the significance of such work. Name: Marco Cavallaro (KU Leuven, Belgium) Email: marco.cavallaro@student.kuleuven.be Title of Paper: The Presence of the Past. The Past of the Presence. Husserl and Merleau-Ponty on the Possibilities of Forgetfulness Abstract: In this paper I will take on the issue of time in Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In particular, I will compare Husserl s early theory of time-consciousness and Merleau-Ponty s later conception of an immemorial past. The central issue that bounds these, in some respects, very different pictures of time, I will argue, is the attempt to account for the presence of the past: How is consciousness conscious of the past? How does the presence of the past condition and shape the consciousness of the present? The title of my paper suggests two directions to grasp phenomenologically the presence of the past, which correspond to the two different views respectively embraced by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. On the one hand, the past is interpreted only as a temporal modification of the present which, in turn, represents the fundamental dimension of time. By means of remembering I experience the past solely as having been present. Therefore, Husserl s early theory of time seems to reflect the limits of a metaphysics of presence, as Heidegger pointed out. On the other hand, Merleau-Ponty s different perspective underlines the autonomous character of the past and its fundamental priority with respect to the present. Merleau-Ponty s account of an immemorial past, developed in the Working Notes of The Visible and the Invisible as well as his early reference to the dimension of a past that has never been present in the Phenomenology of Perception offer a picture of time which overcomes the limits of a metaphysics of presence. The original past is not only unattainable for the activity of remembering, but also is considered by Merleau-Ponty as a condition of possibility for perception and, hence, for the presence itself. I will conclude my talk by depicting the notion of transcendental forgetfulness which is at stake in Merleau-Ponty s picture of time.

Name: Victoria Davies (University of Oxford, UK) Email: victoria.davies@theology.ox.ac.uk Title of Paper: The Truth about Temporality: What is Heidegger s Understanding of Presence, and Where does it Come From? Abstract: What is presence in Heidegger s thought? How do things presence, and what is it that they presence over against? I offer a paper that addresses the nature of presence in Heidegger s thought, beginning in Being and Time s Augenblick, and delving into the nature of the event (Ereignis) with special focus on Contributions to Philosophy: Of the Event. This will refer to the fissure, the leap into which is the realisation of whatever it is that Heidegger terms presence, coming about and happening, co-responsively, in the primal strife between beyng and beings. Moreover, I will look to how presence relates to the unconcealing (aletheia) of truth: that truth is not, but rather, it happens. With the question, Where does it Come From? I intend the double meaning: the question as to how presence comes about and from what primordial structures can we understand it (the nature of its upon-which ), and the question of the inherited ideas of presence and the present. I will touch briefly on Husserl, but ultimately look to Kierkegaard. I will address the nature of the inheritance of the moment from Kierkegaard, and touch on whether Kierkegaard is best understood as a proto-phenomenologist. (This perhaps addresses, to some extent, the status of phenomenology in theology.) If Heidegger does inherit Kierkegaard s moment (and I argue he does), and if Kierkegaard is everywhere metaphysically entangled, what does this mean about Heidegger s understanding of presence? Is Caputo essentially right to critique Heidegger s understanding of presence in terms of a monument to metaphysics? I seek to argue that with the appropriate articulation, phenomenology can and should offer an alternative to the scientific-

metaphysical Weltbild, with which (a certain kind of post-metaphysical ) theology is a potential - unlikely - bedfellow. Name: Mara Grinfelde (University of Latvia, Latvia) Email: mara.grinfelde@gmail.com Title of Paper: Is Non-intuitive Givenness Possible? An Evaluation of Jean-Luc Marion s Response Abstract: While French thinker Jean-Luc Marion is probably best known for his hypothesis of saturated phenomenon a hypothesis of a phenomenon that is characterized through the excess of intuition over intention, a close reading of his works Being Given and In Excess allows to introduce a distinction between saturated phenomenon (intuitive givenness) and phenomenon of revelation (non-intuitive givenness). Marion claims that both of them can be characterized as givenness that shows itself in and from itself, namely, as phenomenon that cannot be reduced to the meaning giving activity of subjectivity. In other words, both of them are unconditioned or pure givenness. The difference is that while saturated phenomenon as the excess of intuition shows itself directly, phenomenon of revelation, being non-intuitive, shows itself indirectly. The aim of this paper is to question the meaning and phenomenological possibility of non-intuitive givenness. The question of the phenomenological possibility of non-intuitive givenness presupposes questioning the meaning of indirect phenomenalization. What does it mean that unconditioned givenness shows itself indirectly? According to Marion, unconditioned givenness shows itself only through other phenomena therefore indirectly as a necessary condition of phenomenality. It is argued however that based on both Marion s description of intuition and examples of non-intuitive givenness (birth, death and time), it must be equated either 1) with unfulfilled meaning-intention (something that is merely thought) or 2) with speculative ideal. In both cases Marion is not able to maintain the characterization of nonintuitive givenness as givenness that shows itself in and from itself. In other words, indirect phenomenalization can be equated with either phenomenon that

shows itself as intentional object within the reduced sphere of transcendental subjectivity or the speculative ideal that exceeds experience. Name: Christos Hadjioannou (University of Sussex, UK) Email: C.Hadjioannou@sussex.ac.uk Title of Paper: 'The Young Heidegger and the Phenomenology of Desire' Abstract: Phenomenology has always paid careful attention to the interplay between presence and absence. But this interplay has also been a popular topic of other approaches, notably the ones stemming from Hegelian dialectics, which relied on a paradigm of subjectivity developed in terms of the operation of desire as lack/absence. Heideggerian (and Husserlian) phenomenology developed out of the paradigm of givenness, seemingly leaving no space for a notion of absence as desire. Whenever we look for the disclosure of absence in Heidegger, we normally look at the mood of Angst in Being and Time (1927) ( 53), or -say- at his lecture What is Metaphysics (1929) where his ontological account of the Nothing as the ground of all determinate (dialectical) negation renders his account incompatible with dialectical absence and desire. Ultimately, Angst is a mood and its operation differs ontologically from the operation of desire. Last year Professor Miguel de Beistegui presented a paper on the contemporary French phenomenologist Renaud Barbaras (Sorbonne), who tries to articulate a phenomenology of desire. Most of Barbaras works are as yet untranslated but from the few that they have been translated into English, we can already get a glimpse of what a phenomenology of desire would amount to. In this paper, I will present the main arguments he offers in the essay Life, Movement, and Desire (2008), and by virtue of juxtaposition show how the young Heidegger had already offered such a phenomenological path of a phenomenology of desire.

This is a path that we find in Heidegger before his ontological turn, most notably in the Kriegsnotsemester lecture titled Basic Problems of Phenomenology (1919). We can rethink Heidegger s phenomenology in light of a juxtaposition with Barbaras text, and explore an alternative Heideggerian path, one that includes the notion of desire. In the paper we will explore how Barbaras rethinks the unity and accomplishment of life as desire, thus putting incompleteness and absence at the heart of life; absence as that towards which life strives rather than as a lack out of which life comes (i.e. contra Jonas definition of life as a metabolic tendency to preservation). In our analysis of Heidegger s KNS lecture, we will explore the notions of motivation and tendency, and see how they satisfy the criteria set by Barbaras while also seeing how they amount to a radicalization of Husserl s (and Brentano s) notion of intentionality as derived from the medieval notion of desire (ὄρεξις). Name: Seferin James (University College Dublin, Republic of Ireland) Email: seferin@gmail.com Title of Paper: 'Absence and the Metaphysics of Presence' Abstract: Descartes, Hume, Kant and Husserl all appealed to the presence of intuition whether performative, sensible, intelligible or phenomenological as grounds for the reform of philosophy through a resistance to metaphysical dogmatism. This resistance to dogmatic speculation was felt to give philosophy its dignity. Derrida appears to invert this convention and throw philosophy's sense of its own dignity into disarray when he asserts that presence is not the resistance to metaphysics but metaphysics itself. This would seem to make it difficult, if not impossible, to demarcate metaphysics from that which is not metaphysics. Derrida sometimes acknowledges this difficulty and at other times writes, notably while denouncing Husserl, as if a resistance to metaphysics is still possible. This paper will argue that there are traces of both the traditional sense

of metaphysics and the conventional resistance to it in Derrida's writings in that (a) some of what Derrida denounces under the heading of the metaphysics of presence is clearly metaphysical but not obviously presence; (b) there is still a trace of what was formerly termed presence being deployed by Derrida against metaphysics. If both the metaphysics of presence and the resistance to it in Derrida's consideration of Husserl involves the presencing of absence and absent presence, then how would it be possible to distinguish between the horizon of the Husserlian and Levinasian trace? Name: James Jardine (Center for Subjectivity Research, University of Copehnhagen, Denmark) Email: jamesjardine0@gmail.com Title of Paper: 'Presence and Absence in Edmund Husserl's Phenomenology of Empathy' Abstract: Edmund Husserl s work on empathy implies two lines of thought, which taken together appear in tension. On the one hand, empathy is described as an irreducible, intuitive and original experience of another person, in which the other is given as herself there before me in bodily presence. This other person of empathy is a thoroughly intuitive expressive whole, bearing two intertwined dimensions, a lived body as essentially personally significant and a personal subject as essentially manifesting herself in a lived body. On the other hand, Husserl maintains that, as experience of subjectivity, empathy is a nonoriginal presentification, and indeed that empathized content, as the content of a foreign consciousness, can only be what it is for me in its absence. Thus the only subject genuinely given in empathy is the empathizing Ego, which serves as analogon for the interpretive apprehension of the empathized Alter Ego. Put briefly, Husserl s analyses seem to lead him to the conclusion that empathy intends the other, at once and in the unity of a single act, in a peculiarly divided manner, both as a present intentional object, and an absent intentional subject.

Name: Katherine Kurtz (Villanova University, US) Email: kkurtz1@villanova.edu Title of Paper: ' How to Include What is Seen with Hearing and Listening : The Problematic of Language in Being and Time' Abstract: This paper works primarily with Heidegger s Being and Time to situate the presence of language within Dasein s encounters with being-in-theworld, in order to clarify the nature of the relationship between language and being already at play within his early work. Here, Heidegger situates language within the primordial existential structure of the being of Dasein in a way that grants ontological significance to the ontic phenomenon of speech as Dasein s factical possibility for authentic shared worldly disclosure. However, Heidegger struggles to secure the relation of language to being, reflected in his unanswered question, Is [language] an innerworldly useful thing at hand or does it have the mode of being of Dasein, or neither of the two? This paper will navigate this question by distinguishing the ways in which language presents itself in three particular modes of speech identified by Heidegger: the everyday of discursive speech, the apparent absence of speech in the silence that accompanies anxiety, and the more elusive, mysteriously dubbed poetic [dichtende]. Both discursive and poetic speech are so constituted for authentic worldly disclosure, but whereas discourse has the tendency to fall prey to idle talk, Heidegger singles out the poetic as that mode of speech that has the disclosing of existence as its true aim. This paper will argue that it is precisely this tendency of discourse that necessitates something like the poetic to keep open the possibility for authentic shared disclosure via language that is not entirely severed from the everyday. With the help of Robert Bernasconi s explication of the nothingness (or nothingness) that belongs to language in the absence of speech, the case will be made for the poetic as crucial for preserving the connection to being in everyday language, insofar as it provokes an experience which inverts Dasein s mistaken dominance with respect to language, foreboding of Heidegger s later work.

Name: Alexandra Popescu (University of Sussex, UK) Email: M.a.popescu@sussex.ac.uk Title of Paper: 'The Absent Friend: Minimal Community in Lévinas and Derrida' Abstract: Over the last few years, there has been an increase in the interest in Emmanuel Lévinas s work, and particularly in the relation between ethics and politics. This has been influenced, to a great extent, by Jacques Derrida s influential writings on Lévinas. There has also been a debate, extending over a considerable number of years, over the function of deconstruction, and whether one could speak of it as having any ethical import on the one hand, and political import on the other. Commentators have been split between those who see Derrida s work as continuing the Lévinasian legacy, and thus having little to offer to the political, and those who would like to divorce the trajectory of deconstruction from the Lévinasian heritage, and thus reveal it as being inherently political. The above split in interpretation is largely based on the divergence of interpretation of Lévinas s own writings as essentially about ethics, and therefore as either having little to offer to the political, or as undergoing something like a split in later writings, such as Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence, with the focus coming to rest more clearly on politics through the figure of the third. In this paper, I argue that Derrida s development of the concept of minimal friendship as absence within presence in Politics of Friendship can be traced to the Levinasian development of the other-within-the-self in Otherwise than Being. Derrida suggests minimal friendship as the political form of being-with demanded by the infinite heterogeneity and dissymmetrical curving that the Levinasian concept of the other-within-the-self demands. Friendship thus emerges as a spacing within which minimal community arises. My proposal resolves the impasse mentioned above: I argue that Derrida s thought on the political need not be divorced from the Levinasian trajectory, since the Levinasian concept of the other-within-the-self in already a concept which establishes politics as the necessary, interruptive force within the ethical.

Name: Catherine Robb (University of Essex, UK) Email: cmrobb@essex.ac.uk Title of Paper: 'Silence at the Limits of Phenomenology: Listening to Merleau- Ponty and John Cage' Abstract: How is it possible to envisage a phenomenology of silence, if silence is distinctively the absence of sound? Is silence better thought of as an absent presence, or a present absence? Merleau-Ponty considers silence as the dialectical opposite of language and gesture, as the temporal beginning of expression, as mute experience awaiting expression through sound. Silence is a pregnant potentiality that allows expression to be brought forth to presence. From this reading, silence is an absence, not necessarily negative, but one which allows for sound to emerge as present. However, this phenomenology of silence has to be questioned when we consider John Cage s seminal composition, entitled 4 33, consisting of four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence. By composing silence, Cage reverses the role of silence; silence is not prior to expression but is the expression itself. This is apt both for the performer, who is performing silence, and for the audience, who are intentionally listening to and hearing musical silence as the outcome of a performative gesture. Significantly, Cage s silence is no longer an absence but a present object open to musical and phenomenological analysis. Should we now automatically reject Merleau-Ponty s theory of silence? I suggest that by looking at Merleau-Ponty s later work, 'The Visible and the Invisible', a phenomenology of silence can be reconstructed that figures silence not through the dialectical oppositions of absence and presence, but as an in-visible or hidden-presence. Silence is thus an intermediary, the transition between the dialectic, which both explains the potentiality of silence as prior to expression, and the intentionality of Cage s silence. Thus, silence is neither an absent presence nor a present absence, but the pivot between the two. Name: Joshua Roe (University of Oxford, UK)

Email: joshua.roe@stx.ox.ac.uk Title of Paper: 'The Appropriation of Scotist Philosophy in Martin Heidegger' Abstract: This paper will argue that Heidegger s appropriation of Duns Scotus employs an understanding of transcendence distinct from the prevalence of immanence in Deleuze s interpretation of Scotus. In his habilitation, Heidegger attempted to find traces of phenomenology in scholastic thinking, with particular focus on a work by Duns Scotus (although now believed to have been authored by Thomas of Erfurt, a disciple of Scotus). He argued that Scotus recognised the distinction between things that are real and things that are abstract. This provides the basis for an indication of the priority of givenness in phenomenology. Whereby, the real is equivalent to the given and the abstract is derived from the given. Thus the abstract is secondary to the real. Heidegger then applied the division between real and abstract to a discussion of the medieval debate on three types of language: univocal, denoting things which have a common definition and name; equivocal, denoting things which have a common name but distinct meaning; and analogy, which describes how something that is distinct can also have something common within it. Heidegger argued that, in analogy, dissimilarity is not necessarily dependent on similarity in the same way that the abstract is dependent on the real. Therefore analogy, for Heidegger, is no less basic than the real as given. Scotus has also risen to prominence in the work of Giles Deleuze, who proposed the priority of the Scotist idea of univocity as emphasising immanence. Deleuze argues that being is primarily defined by univocity, which then has diversity within itself. Philip Tonner, in his recent book on univocity in Heidegger, reads the Habilitation through the lens of Deleuzian univocity. However I will argue that Heidegger did not regard analogy as reducible to univocity, but appreciates how analogy could be distinct from univocal terms. Name: David Martínez Rojas (University of Sussex, UK) Email: dm295@sussex.ac.uk

Title of Paper: 'Phenomenology and Critical Theory: Inequality and Equality in Ethics' Abstract: In Levinas s and Derrida s thought there is a point of view that represents a real challenge for theories of morality in the Kantian tradition. This point is grounded in the phenomenology of the encounter with the other and it conveys concepts such as asymmetry and infinite responsibility. In Levinas this encounter implies infinity because ontological relations that form totalities reduce the otherness into the same of the subject. This relation properly understood means that the other cannot be reduced to the same, she escapes the power of the subject, she impacts me like any other object or force. Due to this, in phenomenology, from intersubjectivity emerges inequality as a principle of ethics. This is different in deontology, because in this case, from intersubjectivity emerges equality and symmetry as core concepts of ethics. This is clear in Habermas s Discourse principle, where it is implied that persons are free and equal (just those action norms are valid to which all possibly affected persons could agree as participants in rational discourses). According to Derrida, from equality we cannot come to terms with the other in her difference, therefore, only in opposition to this principle can the other be recognized. In phenomenology, ethics should be grounded on the idea of the infinity of the other, and it implies a dimension of asymmetry. However, is it really the case that asymmetry is absent in Habermas s? In his concept of memory Habermas states that participants have a responsibility regarding the otherness of past and future generations. Furthermore, in his concept of solidarity, the vulnerability of the other should be recognized and protected with empathy. In this context I want to develop both approaches (I&II); finally I will contrast them, discussing whether Habermas, through memory and solidarity, properly includes the dimension of asymmetry (III). Name: Justin White (UC Riverside, US) Email: justin.fred@gmail.com

Title of Paper: 'Explaining Van Gogh's Shoes: A Heideggerian Response to Schapiro' Abstract: Meyer Schapiro famously criticized Heidegger s interpretation of Van Gogh s A Pair of Shoes, largely because Heidegger was wrong about whose shoes they were. In Origin of the Work of Art, Heidegger suggests that the painting discloses the world of the peasant woman, but the shoes depicted in the painting were likely a city man s shoes. Yet how can Van Gogh s Shoes disclose a peasant woman s world, the criticism goes, if it depicts neither a peasant s nor a woman s shoes? Some have found this criticism effective, while others think it misses Heidegger s point of how art discloses a world. Although not framing it in this way, Beátrice Han-Pile s discussion in Describing Reality or Disclosing Worldhood goes a long way toward suggesting how one might explain Heidegger s (mis)interpretation of Van Gogh s Shoes. She claims that any interpretation of an artwork involves a fusion of sorts. The artwork discloses structures of its world, but the interpreter will need to fill in the gaps, as it were. In addition to aesthetic sensitivity, attention to detail, and such, our knowledge of the original world of the artwork will determine the degree of proximity between the original world of the artwork and the hybrid world resulting from the intepreter s filling in the structures disclosed by the work of art. This framework provides the resources to rescue Heidegger s seemingly failed interpretation of Van Gogh, thereby responding to Schapiro s influential criticism. Van Gogh s Shoes discloses a world, but Heidegger fleshes out the world of the shoes in an inevitably idiosyncratic but in this case historically inaccurate way. That shortcoming, however, does not make Heidegger s phenomenological account of art irrelevant. Heidegger s discussion of the way artworks can be world disclosive need not lose its potency, even if Heidegger as interpreter of Van Gogh leaves something to be desired.

e w a y) North fiel d C re sc en t (o n Main buildings No North field Lan e rt hf ie ld La n A G E RO AD V IL e L RK 49 Hastings Aisin Seiki 41 Health Centre 6 Arts A 22 Institute of Development Studies (IDS) 19 Arts B 18 John Clifford West 35 Arts C 17 John Maynard Smith 47 Arundel 28 Jubilee Building 15 Asa Briggs (A1 and A2) Lecture Theatres 21 Jubilee Lecture Theatre 15a Ashdown House 42 Library 20 Attenborough Centre 56 Mantell 32 Boiler House 31 Meeting House 53 Bramber House 13 Pevensey l 52 BSMS Research 45 Pevensey II 50 BSMS Teaching 46 Pevensey III 26 Chichester I 24 Richmond 29 Chichester II 25 Shawcross 23 Chichester III 27 Silverstone 16 Chichester Lecture Theatre 51 Sport Centre 57 Childcare centre (under construction) 58 Sussex Health Outcomes Research and Clinical Imaging Sciences Centre (CISC) 39 Education in Cancer (SHORE-C) 37 Essex House 12 Sussex House 54 Falmer House 55 Sussex Innovation Centre 44 Falmer Sports Complex 36 Sussex Centre for Language Studies 22 Freeman Centre 43 Thermo-Fluid Mechanics Friston 33 Research Centre (TFMRC) 40 Fulton 30 Trafford Centre 38 Genome Centre 48 Visitors car park VP Brighthelm 4 Northfield 1 East Slope 5 Norwich House 11 Kent House 8 Park Village 3 Kulukundis House 9 Stanmer Court 59 Lancaster House 7 Swanborough 14 Lewes Court 2 York House Business, Management and Economics K History, Art History and Philosophy F Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) H Law, Politics and Sociology B Education and Social Work A Mathematical and Physical Sciences L Engineering and Informatics G Life Sciences J English E Media, Film and Music D Global Studies C Psychology I 34 Student residences REFECTORY ROAD PA Accelerator Building LANCASTER HOUSE ROAD 24-hour reception 10 School offices NORWICH HOUSE ROAD Bramber House a REFECTORY ROAD JUBILEE BUILDING Fulton Bus stop Information point 24-hour security point/reception Car park Railway station Wheelchair access for Library Mantell Falmer Sports Complex ARTS ROAD O D P A V IL IO N R BOILER HOUSE HILL A IDS LIBRARY ROAD Shawcross Hastings EA ST ER N RI Library NG RO G AD Library Square CISC ROAD Meeting House Attenborough Centre SCIENCE PARK R OAD NORTH-SOUTH AT S G 46:MEDICAL SCHOOL UNIVERSITY WAY Sussex Innovation Centre AD E RO GARDNER CENTRE ROAD HT Sussex House IG Brighton entrance/exit (A270) KN Falmer House BIOLOGY ROAD MIL Spor ts Centre SOU A27 LEWES BRIGHTON/WORTHING A27 The Keep (under construction, opening 2013) American Express Community Stadium THER N RI NG ROAD TR L S EE T