Phenomenological life
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Phenomenological life (french: vie phénoménologique) is life considered from a
philosophical Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
and rigorously phenomenological point of view. The relevant philosophical project is called "radical phenomenology of life" (''phénoménologie radicale de la vie'') or "material phenomenology of life" (''phénoménologie matérielle de la vie''). This part of phenomenology has been developed by the French philosopher
Michel Henry Michel Henry (; 10 January 1922 – 3 July 2002) was a French philosopher, phenomenologist and novelist. He wrote five novels and numerous philosophical works. He also lectured at universities in France, Belgium, the United States, and Japa ...
, since his fundamental book on ''The Essence of Manifestation''; it studies the subjective life of individuals in its pathetic and affective reality as pure impression.


Definition

The philosopher
Michel Henry Michel Henry (; 10 January 1922 – 3 July 2002) was a French philosopher, phenomenologist and novelist. He wrote five novels and numerous philosophical works. He also lectured at universities in France, Belgium, the United States, and Japa ...
defines life from a phenomenological point of view as that which possesses the faculty and the power "of feeling and experiencing oneself in each point of its being". For Michel Henry, life is essentially subjective force and
affectivity Affect, in psychology, refers to the underlying experience of feeling, emotion or mood. History The modern conception of affect developed in the 19th century with Wilhelm Wundt. The word comes from the German ''Gefühl'', meaning "feeling. ...
— it consists of a pure subjective experience of oneself which perpetually oscillates between
suffering Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, may be an experience of unpleasantness or aversion, possibly associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual. Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of a ...
and
joy The word joy refers to the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune, and is typically associated with feelings of intense, long lasting happiness. Dictionary definitions Dictionary definitions of joy typically include a sense of ...
. A "subjective force" is not an impersonal, blind and insensitive
force In physics, a force is an influence that can change the motion of an object. A force can cause an object with mass to change its velocity (e.g. moving from a state of rest), i.e., to accelerate. Force can also be described intuitively as a p ...
like the objective forces we meet in nature, but a living and sensible force experienced from within and resulting from an inner desire and a subjective effort of the will to satisfy it. Starting from this phenomenological approach to life, in ''Incarnation, a Philosophy of Flesh'' Michel Henry establishes a radical opposition between the living flesh endowed with sensibility and the material body, which is in principle insensible. The word "phenomenological" refers to
phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...
, which is the study of phenomena and a philosophical method which fundamentally concerns the study of phenomena as they appear. What Henry calls "absolute phenomenological life" is the subjective life of individuals reduced to its pure inner manifestation, as we perpetually live it and feel it. It is life as it reveals itself and appears inwardly, its self-revelation: life is both what reveals and what is revealed.


Properties

Life is by nature invisible because it never appears in the exteriority of a look; it reveals itself in itself without gap or distance. The fact of seeing does in effect presuppose the existence of a distance and of a separation between what is seen and the one who sees, between the object that is perceived and the subject who perceives it. A feeling, for example, can never be seen from the exterior, it never appears in the "horizon of visibility" of the world; it feels itself and experiences itself from within in the radical immanence of life. Love cannot see itself, any more than hatred; feelings are felt in the secrecy of our hearts, where no look can penetrate. Life is constituted of sensitivity and affectivity — it is the unity of their manifestation, affectivity being however the essence of sensibility (as Henry shows in ''The Essence of Manifestation'') which means that every sensation is affective by nature. Phenomenological life is the foundation of all our subjective experiences (like the subjective experience of a sorrow, of seeing a color or the pleasure of drinking fresh water in summer) and of each of our subjective powers (the subjective power of moving the hand or the eyes, for example).Michel Henry, ''Incarnation'', éd. du Seuil, 2000, pp. 7-8.


Phenomenological vs. biological life

This phenomenological definition of life is founded, then, in the concrete subjective experience we have of life in our own existence. It thus corresponds to human life. In ''I am the Truth. Toward a Philosophy of Christianity'', Michel Henry writes about the other forms of life studied by biology and from which
Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...
derives his own philosophical conception of life: "Is it not paradoxical for anyone who wants to know what life is to go and ask protozoa or, in the best case, honeybees? As if our only relation with life was a wholly external and fragile relation with beings about whom we know nothing – or so very little! As if we ourselves were not living beings!" This definition, however, fails to include living organisms that cannot experience themselves, such as plant life — unless one can find evidence of the existence of a certain kind of sensibility in them, as Professor A. Tronchet appears to suggest in his book ''La sensibilité des plantes (Plant Sensibility)'': "The protoplasm of plant cells, like that of animal cells, is endowed with irritability, i.e. a particular form of sensibility, thanks to which it is capable of being affected by excitations originating externally or internally". For Michel Henry, what scientists call “biological life” is only a visible appearance or the projection in the external world of the true life, whose inner or affective reality resides into the “absolute phenomenological life”, that’s to say in the pure and inner feeling that the living does constantly of his own life, in the suffering and the joy he constantly feels in himself.Michel Henry, ''I am the Truth: Toward a philosophy of Christianity'', Stanford University Press, 2002, p. 34-44.


Notes


References

* Michael O'Sullivan (Author) : ''Michel Henry: Incarnation, Barbarism and Belief: An Introduction to the Work of Michel Henry'' (Peter Lang Pub Inc, 2006) (Paperback) * Michel Henry (Author), Girard J. Etzkorn (Translator) : ''The Essence of Manifestation'' (The Hague : Nijhoff, 1973) * Michel Henry (Author), Susan Emanuel (Translator) : ''I Am the Truth: Toward a Philosophy of Christianity'' (Cultural Memory in the Present, Stanford University Press, 2002) (Paperback) * Michel Henry (Author) : ''Seeing the Invisible: On Kandinsky'' (Continuum, 2009) * Michel Henry (Author) : ''Barbarism'' (Continuum, 2012) * Michel Henry (Author) : ''Words of Christ'' (Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012) * Michel Henry (Author) : ''Incarnation: A Philosophy of Flesh'' (Northwestern University Press, 2015) {{DEFAULTSORT:Phenomenological Life Phenomenology Philosophy of life