Phenomenology, Metaphysics and Comparative Philosophy. Sketch for a Positive Phenomenology

Abstract

This paper aims to overcome the Eurocentrism of the conventional comparative philosophy by using phenomenology as a method. By doing so, it shows that phenomenology itself exceeds any negative duality and transforms itself into “positive phenomenology”. The paper further argues that comparative philosophy can be newly conceived as phenomenological metaphysics in which the oneness undergoes an immanent self-development. For this triple work, phenomenology needs to carry out a thorough reduction, dismantling the negative duality which underlies any consciousness and is the origin of representation. It thereby should enable us to simply affirm the present in our consciousness, an positivity that does not include any negativity. The proposal of such intrinsically positive phenomenology will provide us with a good opportunity to reconceptualize comparative philosophy as metaphysics. My reflection will not be based on Husserl’s and Heidegger’s phenomenology, which centers on the notion of negativity; rather, it will be guided by Henry Corbin’s phenomenological interpretation of Sufism of Ibn Arabî.