Abstract
This essay explores the practical significance of Michel Henry’s “material phenomenology.” Commencing with an exposition of his most basic philosophical intuition, i.e., his insight that transcendental affectivity is the primordial mode of revelation of our selfhood, the essay then brings to light how this intuition also establishes our relation to both the world and others. Animated by a radical form of the phenomenological reduction, Henry’s material phenomenology brackets the exterior world in a bid to reach the concrete interior transcendental experience at the base of all exteriority. The essay argues that this “counter reduction,” designed as a practical orientation to the world, suspends all traditional parameters of onto(theo)logical individuation in order to rethink subjectivity in terms of its transcendental corporeality, i.e., in terms of the invisible display of “affective flesh.” The development of this “metaphysics of the individual” anchors his “practical philosophy” as he developed it—under shifting accents—throughout his oeuvre. In particular, the essay brings into focus Henry’s reflections on modernity, the industry of mass culture and their “barbaric” movements. The essay briefly puts these cultural and political areas of Henry’s of thinking into contact with his late “theological turn,” i.e., his Christological account of Life and the (inter)subjective self-realization to which it gives rise.
Highlights
This essay explores the practical significance of Michel Henry’s ‘‘material phenomenology.’’ Commencing with an exposition of his most basic philosophical intuition, i.e., his insight that transcendental affectivity is the primordial mode of revelation of our selfhood, the essay brings to light how this intuition establishes our relation to both the world and others
As Waldenfels has established in his well-known work on Phanomenologie in Frankreich, Henry’s philosophical approach stands out for the fact that he is beholden to few of the intuitions essential to phenomenology
For Henry, in contrast to Husserl and classical phenomenology, what is at stake is no longer the question of how to think life on the basis of the world—or on the basis of another transcendental horizon such as time, the body, or the other—but rather, on the contrary, it is a question of how to think the immanent capacity of revelation of life itself and of how to think the world on the basis of life
Summary
To shed light on the innovative significance of his practical philosophy, we must develop a deeper understanding of how Henry thinks the aforementioned relation to the world. Henry’s task is not, as in Husserl, to unveil the ‘‘history of institutions’’57 (Stiftungsgeschichte) that concretely articulates the symbolic matrices of our various socio-cultural life-worlds.[58] For Henry it is rather a matter of inquiring into the originary passivity of life as that which in its very pathetic self-movement oscillates between the self-delighting capacity for living and the self-agonizing wish to live no longer, but which will never be able to escape from this movement On these premises it can be established that what scientism or the ‘‘scientific knowing’’ attempts to flee when it excludes the concrete field of invisible display internal to the ego, or what we attempt to flee when we pretend to live out our subjective potentialities by appealing to ‘‘ideal entities,’’ is the self-experiencing (epreuve de soi) that necessarily involves the self-agonizing aspect of life.[59]. Humanism in all its forms’’68 is, according to Henry, nothing other than the necessary consequence of this barbarism that is internal to the modern spirit, which still calls for a defense of a genuine humanity precisely where it has already degraded humanity to a lifeless copy, that is, to an automaton.[69]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
