Life Phenomenology of Life as the Starting Point of Philosophy: 25th Anniversary Publication Book III

362 Pages·1997·18.95 MB·English

by  Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (auth.)

LIFE
PHENOMENOLOGY OF LIFE AS
THE STARTING POINT OF PHILOSOPHY
L A VIE
PHÄNOMENOLOGIE INTEGRALE
DE L A VIE COMME POINT D E
DEPART DE LA PHILOSOPHI E
Celebrant le vingt-cinquieme Anniversaire
Livre III
par les soins de
ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA
The World Phenomenology Institute
ANALECTA HUSSERLIAN A
THE YEARBOOK OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH
VOLUME L
Editor- in-Chief:
ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA
The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning
Belmont, Massachusetts
25 th Anniversary Publication
Book I Life
In the Glory of its Radiating Manifestations
Book II Life
The Human Quest for an Ideal
Book III Life
Phenomenology of Life as the Starting Point of Philosophy
LIFE
PHENOMENOLOGY OF LIFE
AS THE STARTING POINT
OF PHILOSOPHY
25th Anniversary Publication
Book III
Edited by
ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA
The World Phenomenology Institute
Published under the auspices of
The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning
A-T. Tymieniecka, President
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Life : phenomenology of life as the starting point of philosophy /
edited by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka.
p. cm. — (25th anniversary publication ; bk. 3) (Analecta
Husser1iana ; v. 50)
Eng 1 i sh and French.
Proceedings of the International Phenomenology Congress held Oct.
6-9, 1994, in Paris, France.
Includes bibliographical reference s and index.
ISBN 978-94-010-6296-1 ISBN 978-94-011-5460-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-5460-4
1. Life—Congresses. 2. Phenomenology—Congresses.
I. Tymieniecka, Anna-Teresa. II. International Phenomenology
Congress (1994 : Paris, France) III. Series. IV. Series : Analecta
Husser 1 i ana ; v. 50 .
[BD431.L418 1997]
142' .7—dc20 96-23675
ISBN 978-94-010-6296-1
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved
© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1997
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1997
No part of the materia lprotected by this copyright notice
may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without written permission from
the copyright owner.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii
THE THEME ix
INAUGURAL LECTURE
ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA / Life's Primogenital Timing:
Time Projected by the Dynamic Articulation of the Onto-
Genesis 3
PART ONE
PAVING THE WAY FOR THE ONTOPOIESIS OF LIFE
ANGELA ALES BELLO / The Entelechial Principle in the
Ontopoiesis of Life: From Aristotle to Recent Phenomenology 25
WILLIAM EGGINTON / From the End of History to the Death
of Man 33
PART TWO
FROM LIVED EXPERIENCE TO LIFE
a
ARION L. KELKEL / De la phenomenologie des vecus
l'hermeneutique de la vie: Dilthey, Husserl, Heidegger 59
JOZEF SIVAK / "La vie dans l'idee" selon Jan Patocka et son
actualite 79
JEAN-MARC MOUILLIE / Le fait de vivre dans la phenomeno-
a
logie: Elements critiques partir de Husserl 89
PART THREE
SEARCHING FOR NEW INSPIRATION IN HUSSERL
FRAN<;OIS-DAVID SEBBAH / Intentionnalite et non-donation 101
NATHALIE DEPRAZ / Qu'est-ce que la hyle transcendantale? 115
PHILIPPE BECK / La vie saturee 125
v
vi T ABLE OF CONTENTS
PART FOUR
ALONG THE HISTORICAL ITINERARY
ROMANA MARTORELLI VICO / L'Apport de la scolastique 131
DARIA CARLONI / Pensee mathematique et generation chez
Descartes 143
CINZIA STORTI / Les freres Schelling et la science de la vie 155
DANIELA VERDUCCI / La phenomenologie de la vie et la
philo sophie selon Max Scheler 165
PART FIVE
LIFE AND THE HUMAN FORGE OF SENSE
CAL VIN O. SCHRAG / La recuperation du sujet phenomeno-
logique: En dialogue avec Derrida, Ricoeur et Levinas 183
R. KOURENKOVA, E. PLEKHANOV, E. ROGATCHEVA AND
S. SIZOVA / L' Animal - l'humain: L' Education comme un
intervalle phenomenologique 193
PART SIX
THE AESTHETIC SIGNIFICANCE OF EXISTENCE
MARIA AVELINA CECILIA / La voie symbolico-litteraire et
l'exploration de l'existence: M. de Unamuno et P. Ricoeur 209
SERGE MARGEL / La vie du heros et Ie temps du poete: Notes
sur Ie sens temporel de I' aion comme survivance dans les
ecrits de Pindare 229
STEFANO CATUCCI / Figures de l'art, figures de la vie: Une
idee de philosophie chez Ie jeune Lukacs 247
SANDRO BRIOSI / Phenomenologie, semiotique et philosophie
du langage: A propos de signes et symboles 273
MARTIN NKAFU NKEMNKIA / Vitalogie comme expression
de la pen see africaine 281
REJOINDER
DMITRY SHLAPENTOKH / Life/Death - Cosmos/Eschatology:
Nikolai Berdiaev and the Influence of the Fedorovian Vision 301
INDEX OF NAMES 353
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The contents of this volume present the work of our fifth International
Phenomenology Congress held in Paris, October 6th to 9th, 1994.
First of all, I wish to express my gratitude to Madame Teresa
Tymieniecka Zadora, my cousin, whose interest in our work, generous
hospitality, as well help in organising the event have been essential in
this, as well as in the two previous Parisian congresses of The World
Phenomenology Institute. lowe her more in respect of our work than
could be expressed in a few words.
Professor Francis Jacques opened the door for us and received us
for two days of the conference at the Centre Censier, Sorbonne Nouvelle,
Universite de Paris III, and we thank him cordially and also Mr. Doge,
the administrator, for their participation in and care for our enterprise,
which was greatly appreciated by the participants.
My usual thanks go to Isabelle Houthakker, M.A., for her expert
editing and proofreading of French-language papers, and to our assis
tant editor, Robert Wise, for his copy-editing and for the index.
A-T.T.
vii
ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA
THE THEME
Phenomenology of Life (Integral and "Scientific")
as the Starting Point of Philosophy
Although it has been maturing in my writings for some 40 years, I
dared to come out decidedly with such a radically new approach as
"phenomenology of life" only in the last two decades - with some short
treatises, among them "The First Principles of the Metaphysics of Life:
Charting the Human Condition".l Life is the "theme of our times", as
Ortega prophetically said; but the last thing to be observed is that the
obvious, and so contemporary philosophy - dispersed in innumerable
side-issues - is not yet even aware of the force and necessity with which
the contemporary outburst of knowledge of the human situation within
the network of existence points to life as the central and crucial concern
of philosophy. Throughout the centuries philosophy has given this fact
only lip service.
The "phenomenology of life" is the central subject of the programs
which the World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research
and Learning has carried out in the last two decades; and in the present
volume we offer some new and strikingly inspiring insights into phe
nomenology of life in progress.
But what is "phenomenology of life"?
To define it we say that phenomenology of life is a philosophy of
life par excellence. Perennial philosophical seeking for the sufficient
reason, ground, origins of beingness, for "the one and the many", stasis
and movement, perdurance and change, duration and event ... find an
unprecedented ground-formulation and treatment in the new field of
the phenomenology of life and of the Human Condition. In contradis
tinction to world-view Lebensphilosophies (Schelling, Simmel, Dilthey),
as well as to process-philosophies (Whitehead) or phenomenology of
biology (Hans Jonas), as well as to the philosophy of life expounded
by Ortega y Gasset (restricted to the works of the human spirit), the
phemomenology of life and of the Human Condition opens the complete
field of being and becoming in its entire expanse. In this way we proclaim
it to be the "starting point" of philosophy!
First, insofar as it opens the integral field of the real. Unraveling the
ix
A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana, Vol. L, ix-xiii.
© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
x ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA
covered inner workings of nature, seeking its proto-generic and proto
genetic which in myriads of fluctuating moves, operations, processes
subtend the real, the virtual, the possible and the ideal on the one hand,
and remaining itself suspended upon the gigantic game of elementary
forces, on the other, phenomenology of life and the Human Condition
takes into consideration all the meaningful circuits of the bios within
the networks of its dependences; in its evolutive perspective it reaches
the Human Creative Condition and the works of the human spirit: society,
culture, art . ... Thus, as an integral 'underground' of reality, listening
to insights in all fields of knowledge, it gives a novel form to the
Leibnizian-Husserlian idea of a mathesis universalis: in a novel inter
disciplinary form.
Second, in fact, on the one hand, cosmos, bios and culture reveal
their ontopoietic junctures within a common interplay of life. An inter
play that only with the progress of today's sciences are we able in a
measure to penetrate. Science also endeavors to discover and grasp this
interplay, be it in segments and their fractions, in its laws and regulations
each within its own limited sector. On the other hand, vindicating the
autonomy of the Creative Condition of the human being and its sense
giving powers, this primal philosophy of life penetrates into the onto
poietic labyrinth of culture. Only the phenomenological approach which
acknowledges various types of intuition and is faithful to the Husserlian
"principle of principles" seeks to bring to light the specificity of each
segment of reality in conjunction with others, granting each its mean
ingful specificity and avoiding simplistic reductionisms.
Laying bare the networks of elementary forces in their constructively
fusing ontopoietic patterns for the origination of forms, phenomenology
of life draws upon the results of natural sciences, art, social and cultural
studies distilling their pristine nature and listening to their intuition,
and seeks to cipher them in their very own meaningful forms without
biases and to force their original voice into used formulations and
concepts of the philosophical tradition.
As such, phenomenology of life deserves to be recognized as the
"scientific philosophy of life", words used by the later Husserl as if he
was foreseeing our development as the fulfillment of his phenomenology.
And from the perspective of the scientific philosophy/phenomenology
of life Husserl's analyses reveal a potentiality for the new reading. This
breaking into the established ways of interpretation of Husserlian text
THE THEME xi
manifests itself already in this three-volume publication celebrating the
25th anniversary of our common work.
Third, the onto-poietic field which my phenomenology opens mani
fests the essential features and fulfills the main prerogatives of what
was attributed to metaphysics, to philosophia prima. Reaching deliber
ately below the modem distinction of subject and object, we are not
stopping at reality as "manifested" - life as manifested in its con
stitutive forms, animal or human. Yet at this newly opened field of
primogenital sense-emerging, traditional metaphysical queries receive
their primal, basic formulations. If we recall Leibniz's postulates for a
correct definition of an object (and he was the first to express the
intuition of the "inner workings of nature"), we see that the phenome
nology of life offers at long last the root factors for their satisfaction.
For giving an account of an object, event, action, statement, Leibniz
stipulated the necessity to bring in its "sufficient reason" - its "ground"
for becoming and being. In a corollary, a definition of an object has
to indicate its mode of origination. The integral scientific phenome
nology/philosophy of life fulfills these postulates at the very primogenital
circuits in which the object in question originates, deploying its ontic
form. The investigation of the emergence of sense in the primal onto
poietic becoming/unfolding is simultaneously establishing the beingness
as its "sufficient reason" and its "grounding" in being. In other words,
the ontopoiesis of life simultaneously pursues the on tic progress in the
constructive becoming of beingness as it lays down its proto-meta
physical "groundwork".
Fourth, corroborating further our reference to Leibniz, we will recall
that he has seen the "sufficient reason", the "ground" of a singular being,
beingness, existence, as residing within it.
Albeit we came to it from an entirely different horizon of thought
and in an altogether different type of investigation, yet our insights into
the being of beingness, of a living individual, coincide with those of
Leibniz. In fact, it appears that within the ontopoietic field the suffi
cient reason as well as the "ground" for the differentiation of living beings
lies within each of them. We uncover this field, the field of the inner
workings of life, in virtue of the essential - and philosophically crucial
- insight into the differentiation-genetic-origination unfolding of the
living being as such: the self-individualisation of life. The self-individ
ualisation of life as the vehicle of ontopoiesis pulls all the strings of forces