While correctly emphasizing that the idea of theological inspiration in phenomenology and vice versa might be very fecund, the current discussion on the theological turn does not always affirm that ...Janicaud was simply wrong as regards the characterization of new French phenomenology. This is why it is necessary to create a more balanced image of the discussions on the theological turn and contemporary phenomenology. The paper achieves this aim 1) by demonstrating that there was no theological turn in French phenomenology; 2) by analysing the true nature of the turn taking place in phenomenology. It concludes by affirming that contemporary French phenomenology—freed from the label “theological turn”—is a living branch of philosophy capable of contributing to the solution of some of the burning issues of today’s world, such as ecological crisis.
In contrast to Anglophone debates on personal identity initially formed by John Locke’s investigation of personal
identity
in the sense of personal continuity or persistence through time, the ...Continental tradition focuses on what constitutes
ipseity
(
ipséité
,
Selbstsein
, selfhood) in the sense of individuality or uniqueness of the human being “constituted” by its continuous transformation through changing experience. In this study, I claim that contemporary phenomenological research in France—especially the “phenomenology of the event” as represented by Henri Maldiney and Claude Romano—contributes to this Continental discussion in a significant way: it formulates the conditions of personal uniqueness or distinctiveness with regard to other persons, conditions not to be found in Heidegger’s existential conception of selfhood in
Being and Time
. More precisely, Maldiney and Romano allow us to answer the principal questions of this study: In what does the personal uniqueness consist? What exactly individualizes the first-person selfhood disclosed in Dasein’s relation to death? In my three-stage analysis, I first deal with Heidegger’s conception of selfhood in
Being and Time
and its limits with respect to the question of personal uniqueness. Next, I analyse Maldiney’s conception of “eventful selfhood” in which he “completes” Heidegger’s conception of selfhood by describing Dasein’s openness to ontical, and yet fully authentic events. Finally, I develop the argumentation by presenting Romano’s even more radical conception of the “happening subjectivity” (
advenant
), which allows us to return to the second major feature of personal identity: personal persistence. Nonetheless, I conclude that the connection between personal uniqueness and persistence is not sufficiently examined in the phenomenology of the event, which opens the path towards another related inquiry into the following problem: What is the proper subjective dimension or the “underlying thing” (ὑποκείμενον) in the background of personal persistence which somehow resists events?
Why can we not fix the “moment” of the sublime as an (archi-)event? This question inspired by an affirmation of Marc Richir provides a point of departure for the present study on the archeology of ...the phenomenological subject according to two contemporary phenomenologists, Marc Richir and Renaud Barbaras. Thus, the paper deals with the most archaic layers of the subjectivity thematized under Barbaras’ notion of archi-event and Richir’ s notion of “moment” of the sublime. After their confrontation in the light of the “phenomenon” they both intend to describe, it comes to the conclusion that Richir’ s criticism of the notion of event is justified and may even be extended in such a way that it affects the notion of archi-event.
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