Abstract
The central philosophical problem of birth concerns the fact that it is an event necessary for all events. As such, it is the nihilated a priori of itself—in short, it is lost in an abyss of consciousness. The article engages with the thoughts of Sartre, Ricoeur, Henry, Romano, Marion, and Husserl to explain some facets of abyssal birth. It argues that family genealogy may contribute to the philosophical dialogue about birth. Family genealogy is usually practiced with a methodology oriented to epistemology. At times, however, genealogical research may bring the historical ancestral past to presence as a lived experience, thus grounding birth in transgenerational intersubjectivity. To explain this more fully, the article compares this presence affect with similar affects in history, art, and psychoanalysis. The article does not make the birth-as-abyssal problem—as framed by philosophers—vanish, but it questions considering one’s birth exclusively as epistemological. Presence, though closer to ontology than epistemology, is more accurately classified as phenomenological, being as event rather than event as being.
Highlights
A brief consideration of six twentieth- and twenty-first-century philosophers will show the kinds of issues that arise in their thinking
Birth is original and an a priori of being for-itself. It is the moment in which the for-itself was not yet, and the moment in which it appears in the world
Research leads to discovery of the threads of previous lives, influences and obligations, interests and passions, and destiny and open possibilities
Summary
To use Claude Romano’s terminology, it is an event that does not “eventially” happen to one (Romano 2009) (“Evential” [événemential], for Romano, designates that nothing takes place in an event except the “taking-place” itself, that is, there is no determinate ontic aspect to an event) It is unremembered and lost in an abyss of consciousness, and is the nihilated a priori of itself. Feminist philosophers Cavarero (1995, 1997, 2002, 2003, 2008, 2014), Schües (1997), Oksala (2003, 2004), Guenther (2006, 2008), Stone (2010), O’Byrne (2010, 2013), Jones (2012), Staehler (2016), and Irigaray (2017) have explored many philosophical aspects of birth These philosophers will be cited throughout and with occasional brief discussions in this article, but merit a separate sustained interdisciplinary engagement with family history. The main emphasis of philosophers regarding birth is its abyssal aspect, another topic of interest is the uniqueness of each person’s birth
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