The Selbständigkeit of the Essence: Michel Henry and the Meaning of Philosophical Knowledge

Roberto Formisano

doi:10.3390/rel12100813

Abstract

This paper deals with a research hypothesis tying the legacy of German idealism to the first foundation of Michel Henry’s “phenomenology of life”. Based on a series of archive documents, the paper reconstitutes the hermeneutical horizon in contrast with which the young Henry (1946–1963) defined his conception of phenomenology, philosophy, and religion, i.e., the French existential–Hegelian debate (Wahl, Kojève). The reconstitution of this dialogue between the young Henry and the French Hegelianism of the 20th century will provide the theoretical framework for the analysis of the “religious attitude” in Henry’s philosophy and in his attempt to rethink the transcendental connection between phenomenality and (philosophical) discourse.

Highlights

After discussing Levinas’ use of phenomenology “as a springboard in a quest for divine transcendence” (Janicaud 1991, p. 107 [p. 70])2 in his famous study, The Theological Turn of French Phenomenology (Janicaud 1991), Dominique Janicaud focuses his attention on Michel Henry, the author of L’Essence de la manifestation (Henry 1963)
Dastur 2011); the discovery of Husserl and Heidegger’s phenomenology in contemporary French philosophy occurred in the wake of Hegelianism, phenomenology, and the existentialism of that day, depending upon the way these had framed and formulated the major questions pertaining to the phenomenon of Being and its relation to “the Experience of Consciousness” (“die Erfahrung des Bewußtseins”, as Hegel describes it in his Phänomenologie des Geistes)
As evidence of the connection between the genesis of Henry’s phenomenology and the debates characteristic of the French philosophical culture of the 1930s and 1940s, I would like first to bring to attention a document of particular interest: this is a research file that Michel Henry began to write up by hand in 1946

Summary

Introduction

After discussing Levinas’ use of phenomenology “as a springboard in a quest for divine transcendence” (Janicaud 1991, p. 107 [p. 70]) in his famous study, The Theological Turn of French Phenomenology (Janicaud 1991), Dominique Janicaud focuses his attention on Michel Henry, the author of L’Essence de la manifestation (Henry 1963). Given its primary exigency—namely, to shake off the abstractions of 19th century academic and metaphysical tradition—of merging, as it were, the horizons of debate (the Hegel-Renaissance, contemporary phenomenology, philosophies of existence, the discovery of Marx’ early writings, neo-Kantianism, etc.), French philosophy found a path to the conceptual means that would underpin its program of “reverting to the concreteness” of experience and human reality (Dasein) (cf Dastur 2011); the discovery of Husserl and Heidegger’s phenomenology in contemporary French philosophy occurred in the wake of Hegelianism, phenomenology, and the existentialism of that day, depending upon the way these had framed and formulated the major questions pertaining to the phenomenon of Being and its relation to “the Experience of Consciousness” (“die Erfahrung des Bewußtseins”, as Hegel describes it in his Phänomenologie des Geistes) In this context, phenomenology turned out to be the privileged instrument by which French philosophy operated an original reappropriation of Hegel’s philosophy of the Spirit. At the very least, serve to open up a question critical to my research, one that has to do with determining the meaning and status proper to phenomenological knowledge

Phenomenology and French Hegelianism

Phenomenality and Philosophical Discourse

The Selbständigkeit of the Essence

The Meaning of Phenomenology

The Problem of Freedom

Conclusions