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Auch für Gott: Finitude, Phenomenology, and Anthropology

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Phenomenology to the Letter
This chapter is in the book Phenomenology to the Letter

Abstract

In his magnum opus, Au coeur de la raison: la phénoménologie, Claude Romano develops a phenomenological theory of essence, which, unlike Husserl’s, is avowedly anthropological. Material a priori necessities, Romano insists, are only conditionally necessary. They only determine how human beings experience phenomena. They do not determine how God, angels, and other nonhuman species of consciousness experience phenomena. Despite Romano’s legitimate concerns about Husserl’s denial of anthropologism, his own embrace of anthropologism creates problems of its own. On the one hand, Romano asserts that material a priori necessities do not depend on the linguistic conventions of contingent historical communities. On the other hand, he reintroduces relativity at a more general, “species” level. Romano’s anthropologism restores (wittingly or not) the Kantian thesis that there are unknowable “things in themselves,” and any such thesis is absurd, at least according to Husserl. In short, in his theory of essence Romano maintains two mutually contradictory theses: on the one hand, the negation of material a priori necessities is inconceivable, but on the other, these necessities are only conditional, and so their negation must be conceivable.

Abstract

In his magnum opus, Au coeur de la raison: la phénoménologie, Claude Romano develops a phenomenological theory of essence, which, unlike Husserl’s, is avowedly anthropological. Material a priori necessities, Romano insists, are only conditionally necessary. They only determine how human beings experience phenomena. They do not determine how God, angels, and other nonhuman species of consciousness experience phenomena. Despite Romano’s legitimate concerns about Husserl’s denial of anthropologism, his own embrace of anthropologism creates problems of its own. On the one hand, Romano asserts that material a priori necessities do not depend on the linguistic conventions of contingent historical communities. On the other hand, he reintroduces relativity at a more general, “species” level. Romano’s anthropologism restores (wittingly or not) the Kantian thesis that there are unknowable “things in themselves,” and any such thesis is absurd, at least according to Husserl. In short, in his theory of essence Romano maintains two mutually contradictory theses: on the one hand, the negation of material a priori necessities is inconceivable, but on the other, these necessities are only conditional, and so their negation must be conceivable.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. Introduction 1
  4. I. Rhetoric and Thought: The Language of Phenomenology
  5. Husserl’s Image Worlds and the Language of Phenomenology 23
  6. Auch für Gott: Finitude, Phenomenology, and Anthropology 45
  7. “irgend etwas und irgend etwas”: Husserl’s Arithmetik and The Poetics of Epistemology 61
  8. Fort. The Germangled Words of Edmund Husserl and Walter Benjamin 85
  9. II. Phenomenology and Incommensurability: Beyond Experience
  10. Beyond Experience: Blanchot’s Challenge to Husserl’s Phenomenology of Time 115
  11. Absehen – Disregarding Literature (Husserl / Hofmannsthal / Benjamin) 133
  12. Drawing a Blank – Passive Voices in Beckett, Husserl, and the Stoics 149
  13. III. Phenomenology of the Image and the Text Corpus
  14. Charles Olson: Phenomenologist, Objectivist, Particularist 183
  15. Icon as Alter Ego? Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation and Icons of Mary in Chronicles of the Teutonic Order 201
  16. Absolute Gegebenheit: Image as Aesthetic Urphänomen in Husserl and Rilke 227
  17. IV. Fictional Truths: Phenomenology and Narrative
  18. The Virtuous Philosopher and the Chameleon Poet: Husserl and Hofmannsthal 263
  19. “A Now Not toto caelo a Not-Now”: The “Origin” of Difference in Husserl, from Number to Literature 283
  20. Gregor Samsa and the Problem of Intersubjectivity 309
  21. Notes on Contributors 331
  22. Index 333
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110654585-003

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. Introduction 1
  4. I. Rhetoric and Thought: The Language of Phenomenology
  5. Husserl’s Image Worlds and the Language of Phenomenology 23
  6. Auch für Gott: Finitude, Phenomenology, and Anthropology 45
  7. “irgend etwas und irgend etwas”: Husserl’s Arithmetik and The Poetics of Epistemology 61
  8. Fort. The Germangled Words of Edmund Husserl and Walter Benjamin 85
  9. II. Phenomenology and Incommensurability: Beyond Experience
  10. Beyond Experience: Blanchot’s Challenge to Husserl’s Phenomenology of Time 115
  11. Absehen – Disregarding Literature (Husserl / Hofmannsthal / Benjamin) 133
  12. Drawing a Blank – Passive Voices in Beckett, Husserl, and the Stoics 149
  13. III. Phenomenology of the Image and the Text Corpus
  14. Charles Olson: Phenomenologist, Objectivist, Particularist 183
  15. Icon as Alter Ego? Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation and Icons of Mary in Chronicles of the Teutonic Order 201
  16. Absolute Gegebenheit: Image as Aesthetic Urphänomen in Husserl and Rilke 227
  17. IV. Fictional Truths: Phenomenology and Narrative
  18. The Virtuous Philosopher and the Chameleon Poet: Husserl and Hofmannsthal 263
  19. “A Now Not toto caelo a Not-Now”: The “Origin” of Difference in Husserl, from Number to Literature 283
  20. Gregor Samsa and the Problem of Intersubjectivity 309
  21. Notes on Contributors 331
  22. Index 333
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