Daniel Neumann

According to Belgian phenomenologist Marc Richir, a central shortcoming of Husserlian phenomenology lies in its overly static and determinate conception of how meaning is constituted in thinking and experience. Husserl, Richir argues, envisions experience and thought as being thoroughly governed by stable “eidetic structures,” constitutive of what he calls “symbolic institution.” Against this image, Richir proposes a phenomenology that foregrounds the primacy of openness and indeterminacy in the genesis and experience of meaning. In this paper, we argue that Husserlian phenomenology is, in fact, capable of accounting for such in-determinacy and openness, while at the same time emphasizing the fact that within the overall “Heraclitean flux” (Husserl) of experience, stable eidetic laws can be uncovered. We show that the core divergence between the two approaches lies in their inversion of priorities: what Husserl deems essential in the experience of meaning, Richir regards as non-essential—and vice versa. mehr

This article reconsiders a critique of Jean-Luc Nancy’s and Giorgio Agamben’s political philosophies as passive and unpractical. The article argues that in both cases, the political philosophy is motivated by the concept of “withdrawal of law,” as outlined in the texts Abandoned Being and Homo Sacer, respectively. This withdrawal is shown to situate the political philosophies within a broader “phenomenological receptivity,” whose indebtedness to Heidegger’s philosophy of the event is elucidated. As a consequence, the term receptivity turns out to possibly be the better candidate for describing both philosophers’ political outlook, as opposed to passivity. Thus, instead of reproaching Nancy’s and Agamben’s theories for not providing the means for practical political interventions, the implicit phenomenological perspective they offer is restituted. mehr