Phänomenologische Forschungen 2017-1

Dieser Text wurde verfasst für einen Workshop, der im September 2015 an der TU Darmstadt unter Leitung von Petra Gehring stattfand und der Theorie von Bernhard Waldenfels gewidmet war. Im Zentrum stand das komplexe Werk Antwortregister von 1994. Dem Verfasser oblag es, ausgehend von seinem Buch Verzeihung denken. Die verkannte Grundlage humaner Verhältnisse, das Netzwerk der Verbindungen zu Bernhard Waldenfels’ Theorie der Responsivität herauszuarbeiten.

In classical philosophy of time, present time mainly has been considered in its fleetingness: it is transition, in the Platonic meaning of the sudden or in the Aristotelian sense of discreet moment and isolated intensity that escapes possible perception. Through the idea of subjective constitution of time, Husserl’s phenomenology tries to spread the moment. He transcends the idea of linear and empty time in modern philosophy. Phenomenological description of time experience analyses the filled character of the moment that can be detained in the performance of consciousness. As a consequence of the temporality of consciousness, he nevertheless remains in the temporal conception of presence. The phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, however, is able to grasp the spacial meaning of presence. In his perspective of a phenomenology of perception, presence can be understood as a space surrounding the body, as a field of present things given in perception. Merleau-Ponty recovers the ancient sense of ‘praesentia’ as a fundamental concept of being in the world.

We have never been so indebted. However, we have never felt less in debt. This paradox of our time deserves some clarifications. While watching critically at the debt, which, through philosophy and not economy, tends to enlighten the reality of today’s crisis by the structural crisis touching its concept, that is what we try to do. We base our explorations on philosophy as well as literature. Indeed the great thinkers tend to get indebted towards each other without reflecting on their debt. Presenting the essence of the debt first leads us to assert that the debt is not the consequence of a gift anymore than the duty would be a consequence of the debt. Stating the meaning of it more precisely makes us report the mundane debts on the humane debt, that which we have to pay and that which we may honor.

This article seeks to disclose the sense(s) of translation by attending to it in the phenomenological key with Edmund Husserl’s The Origin of Geometry. I suggest that the text could be approached through the prism of generative phenomenology, and I investigate it from two different perspectives: xenological and Derridean. Both perspectives are employed toward the same objective: to demonstrate the theoretical relevance of Husserl’s text to the understanding of a complex social phenomenon such as translation. The emphasis on sociality, historicity, and tradition, as these themes transpire in The Origin, brings about a new understanding of translation as a phenomenon of the liminal in-between, with its basic structure defined as the encounter with the alien. Derrida gives this emphasis much attention in his commentary on The Origin. In this commentary, he focuses on the constitution of a communal history, which is not possible without the iteration of the origin, the basic means of which is communication on the general level, while on the level of different socio-cultural worlds translation comes up as the most optimal mode for the encounter with the alien. The encounter takes place in the liminal in-between which points to repeatability as the original sense of translation inscribed in the acts of binding and approximation.

The pivotal insight that paved Conrad-Martius’ (1880–1966) (CM) way in elucidating the ontological exclusivity of the I, denoted as “I-adhering being” (Ichhaftes Sein), is that despite its peculiarity and incomparability to any other mode of being, only the ontological foundations of the real being in general might enable a faithful comprehension of the I. The phenomenological interpretation suggested in this article presents CM’s ontological understanding of the I vis-a-vis her philosophy of Being, in particular in regard to three of its general characteristics – existence, intelligibility, and self-adherence (Sichheit/Selbsthaftigkeit) – which provide the critical approach to the ontological study of the I. Finally, the understanding of the ontological exclusivity of the I-adhering being is achieved by means of an explication of the joining together of its typical affinities and discrepancies in regard to Being in general.

The phenomenological reflection of „deception“ and „self-deception“ occupies a central place in Max Scheler’s whole phenomenological period. In contrast with „self-givenness“, „deception“ essentially means an inappropriate way of givenness, and „self-deception“ indicates an inappropriate way of givenness of the „self“. Based on the further criticisms and reflections on F. Brentano’s and E. Husserl’s related thoughts, Scheler distinguished „self-perception“ from „inner perception“, and attributed the primordial position to the „inner perception of the other“ via criticizing the „deception of self-perception“. He then obtained an account of a truly primary way of grasping the other, namely, the primary „self-givenness“ of „the other’s person“. This contributes to the possibility of Scheler’s „phenomenology of intersubjectivity“. In this paper, I will argue that Scheler’s phenomenological criticism of „self-deception“ and his phenomenological analysis of „inner perception of the other“ function as an „introduction“ to his „phenomenology of intersubjectivity“.

Communication is formed and passed on simultaneously historically and lively in its a2sthetical corpus, sensory content and in its objective-generally valid meaning: Everybody in the same communit can enunciate and understand a statement in the same way not only through one’s own experience, but also through secondary takeover. Language forming belongs in its entirety, in the perceived and non-perceived meanings, to the human community life. The non-perceived given meanings are conveyed in a communicative community through the symbolic language. The formation of symbols presupposes a trustworthiness between the communicators and it also sets further a continuation of the trustful receiving from the past to the future. Communication can strive for its historical permanence by virtue of the universality of symbols, and symbols can render an idea identifiable and transmittable on the basis of its reference to word of life.

Wilhelm Dilthey: Briefwechsel Band II 1882–1895. Hg. von Gudrun Kühne-Bertram und Hans-Ulrich Lessing; Giovanni Tidona: Ding und Begegnung. Sprach- und Dingauffassung im dialogischen und existenzialen Denken. (Reihe dia-logik, Band 7); Emmanuel Alloa und Miriam Fischer (Hg.): Leib und Sprache. Zur Reflexivität verkörperter Ausdrucksformen