Abstract
Beyond any fashionable attempts of emphasizing à outrance the signs of fragmentation and pluralism, of deconstructing language and dissolving of the self, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka chose to create a very personal philosophical work in a constructive and harmonious tonality able to offer some necessary pivots in the searching and deciphering of the meaning of life. Founding her Phenomenology of Life on the uniqueness of the creative human being, she unfolds a dynamic and holistic vision – a cosmic one, of tension-into-equilibrium – challenging to continuously re-think and more deeply understand the human condition in the given world, in the design of the “Ontopoiesis of Life”. A hermeneutic approach opens the horizon of “self-interpretation in life” within its inward-outward expanse, on the ground of the inner workings of the “logos of life” – the reason of all things, encompassing not only logical, but imaginative and creative energies. We try to pursue part of the nuclear message of the Tymienieckan phenomenological enterprise, focusing on the actualization of the creative potential to philosophizing about life, by highlighting the role of the “Imaginatio Creatrix” and the significance of moral living, towards a meaningful comprehension of beingness-in-becoming.
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Notes
- 1.
Thomas Ryba, “A.-T.Tymieniecka, the Work of the Analecta Husserliana and Conversion”, in Phenomenological Inquiry, Volume 31, Hanover, New Hampshire: The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning, 2007, pp. 29–38.
- 2.
Ibid., 37.
- 3.
Ibid.
- 4.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, “Phenomenology of Life and the New Critique of Reason: From Husserl’s Philosophy to the Phenomenology of Life and the Human Condition”, in Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana, Volume XXIX, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990, p. 5.
- 5.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, “Theme: The Triumph of Imagination in the Critique of Reason”, in Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (ed.), Imaginatio Creatrix. The Pivotal Force of the Genesis/Ontopoiesis of Human Life and Reality, Analecta Husserliana, Volume LXXXIII, Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004, p. xi.
- 6.
Olga Louchakova-Schwartz, “Self in the Path(o)s of the New Enlightenment: Towards a New Clinical Theory”, in Agathos. An International Review of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Volume 3, Issue 1, Iași: Editura Universităţii “Alexandru Ioan Cuza,” 2012, p. 18.
- 7.
See Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 1: Creative Experience and the Critique of Reason, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988; Logos and Life, Book 2: The Three Movements of the Soul, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988; Logos and Life, Book 3: The Passions of the Soul and the Elements in the Ontopoiesis of Culture. The Life Significance of Literature, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990; Logos and Life, Book 4: Impetus and Equipoise in the Life-Strategies of Reason, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000.
See also Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, The Fullness of the Logos in the Key of Life, Book I: The Case of God in the New Enlightenment, Dordrecht: Springer, 2009; The Fullness of the Logos in the Key of Life, Book II: Christo-Logos: Metaphysical Rhapsodies of Faith (Itinerarium mentis in Deo), Dordrecht: Springer, 2012.
- 8.
Martin Heidegger, Brief über den “Humanismus” (1946), in Wegmarken, Gesamtausgabe, Bd.9, Frankfurt am Main: V.Klostermann, 1976. Romanian translation: Scrisoare despre “umanism”, in vol. Repere pe drumul gîndirii, Bucharest: Editura Politică, 1988, pp. 334–335.
- 9.
Daniela Verducci, “The Ontopoiesis of Life: A Theory of Solidarity between Logos and Life”, in Phenomenological Inquiry, Volume 31, p. 23.
- 10.
Ibid.
- 11.
See Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781), Leipzig, hrsg. von Raymund Schmidt, 1930. Romanian translation: Critica raţiunii pure, Bucharest: Editura Ştiinţifică, 1969.
- 12.
Ibid., 282.
- 13.
See Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 4: Impetus and Equipoise in the Life-Strategies of Reason.
- 14.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, The Fullness of the Logos in the Key of Life, Book I: The Case of God in the New Enlightenment, p. xxvi.
- 15.
Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, I. (1913), in Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, Halle: Niemeyer, 1928. English translation: Ideas. General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (Ideas I), Collier Books, 1962, p. 238.
- 16.
Ibid., 229.
- 17.
See Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 4: Impetus and Equipoise in the Life-Strategies of Reason, p. 255.
- 18.
Angela Ales Bello, “The Function of Intentionality and the Function of Creativity. A.-T.Tymieniecka and E. Husserl: A Confrontation”, in Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (ed.), Imaginatio Creatrix. The Pivotal Force of the Genesis/Ontopoiesis of Human Life and Reality, Analecta Husserliana, Volume LXXXIII, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004, p. 547.
- 19.
Mircea Eliade, Profetism românesc/Romanian Prophetism (1936–1937), volume 2, Bucharest: Editura Roza Vînturilor, 1990, p. 201.
- 20.
Ibid., 201, 200.
- 21.
See Lucian Blaga, Trilogia cunoaşterii/Trilogy of Knowledge (1931–1934); Trilogia culturii/Trilogy of Culture (1935–1937); Trilogia valorilor/Trilogy of Values (1946); Trilogia cosmologică/Cosmological Trilogy (1947–1948).
- 22.
Daniela Verducci, “Time within Eternity: A Metaphysical Perspective Newly Opened by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka’s Ontopoietical Logos of Life”, in Phenomenological Inquiry, Volume 33, Hanover, New Hampshire: The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning, 2009, p. 11.
- 23.
See Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Tractatus Brevis. First Principles of the Metaphysics of Life Charting the Human Condition: Man’s Creative Act and the Origin of Rationalities, Analecta Husserliana, Volume XXI, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1986.
- 24.
Aram M.Frenkian, “Commentaries”, in Diogenes Laertius, Despre vieţile şi doctrinele filosofilor/Lives and Doctrines of Eminent Philosophers, Bucharest: Editura Academiei R.P.R., 1963, p. 520.
- 25.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 4: Impetus and Equipoise in the Life-Strategies of Reason, p. 595.
- 26.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, “Theme: The Triumph of Imagination in the Critique of Reason”, in Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (ed.), Imaginatio Creatrix. The Pivotal Force of the Genesis/Ontopoiesis of Human Life and Reality, p. xiv.
- 27.
Ibid.
- 28.
Ibid., xi.
- 29.
Ibid., xv.
- 30.
See Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, “Imaginatio Creatrix, the Creative versus the Constitutive Function of Man and the Possible Worlds”, in Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (ed.), The Phenomenological Realism of the Possible Worlds, Analecta Husserliana, Volume III, Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1974, pp. 3–41.
- 31.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, “The Theme: Poetics of the Elements in the Human Condition”, in Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (ed.), Poetics of the Elements in the Human Condition: The Sea, Analecta Husserliana, Volume XIX, Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1985, p. xii.
- 32.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, “Theme: The Triumph of Imagination in the Critique of Reason”, p. xviii.
- 33.
Thomas Ryba, “Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka’s Phenomenology of Life”, in Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (ed.), Phenomenology World-Wide. Foundations – Expanding Dynamics – Life-Engagements. Encyclopedia of Learning, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002, p. 449.
- 34.
See Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, “Imaginatio Creatrix, the Creative versus the Constitutive Function of Man and the Possible Worlds”, p. 38.
- 35.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, The Fullness of the Logos in the Key of Life, Book II: Christo-Logos: Metaphysical Rhapsodies of Faith (Itinerarium mentis in Deo), pp. 14, 15.
- 36.
Ibid., 6.
- 37.
Ibid., 24, 156.
- 38.
Patricia Trutty-Coohill, “The Case of God in the New Enlightenment, Tymieniecka’s Phenomenology of Life as a Radical Challenge to Continental Philosophies of Religion”, in Phenomenological Inquiry, Volume 33, p. 2.
- 39.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, The Fullness of the Logos in the Key of Life, Book II: Christo-Logos: Metaphysical Rhapsodies of Faith (Itinerarium mentis in Deo), p. 85.
- 40.
Patricia Trutty-Coohill, “Visualizing Tymieniecka’s Approach with String Theory”, in Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (ed.), Phenomenology/Ontopoiesis Retrieving Geo-cosmic Horizons of Antiquity, Analecta Husserliana, Volume CX/Part II, Dordrecht: Springer, 2011, pp. 697, 695.
- 41.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 1: Creative Experience and the Critique of Reason, p. 8.
- 42.
Patricia Trutty-Coohill, “Visualizing Tymieniecka’s Approach with String Theory”, op. 698.
- 43.
Ibid.
- 44.
Olga Louchakova-Schwartz, “Self in the Path(o)s of the New Enlightenment,” p. 17.
- 45.
Apud Vladimir Jankēlēvitch, Le paradoxe de la morale, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1981.
- 46.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, “Theme: The Triumph of Imagination in the Critique of Reason”, op. xviii.
- 47.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, “Possibility, Life’s Ontopoiesis, and the Vindication of the Cosmos”, in Phenomenological Inquiry, Volume 36, Hanover, New Hampshire: The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning, 2012, p. 3.
- 48.
Olga Louchakova-Schwartz, “Self in the Path(o)s of the New Enlightenment,” pp. 15, 14.
- 49.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 4: Impetus and Equipoise in the Life-Strategies of Reason, p. 615.
- 50.
Ibid.
- 51.
Ibid., p. 524.
- 52.
Thomas Ryba, “A.-T. Tymieniecka, the Work of the Analecta Husserliana and Conversion”, pp. 34–35.
- 53.
Immanuel Kant, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (1785), Leipzig, hrsg. von Raymund Schmidt, 1956. Romanian translation: Întemeierea metafizicii moravurilor, Bucharest: Editura Ştiinţifică, 1972, p. 39.
- 54.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 1: Creative Experience and the Critique of Reason, pp. 25–26.
- 55.
Daniela Verducci, “The Human Creative Condition between Autopoiesis and Ontopoiesis in the Thought of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka”, in Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (ed.), Does the World Exist? Plurisignificant Ciphering of Reality, Analecta Husserliana, Volume LXXIX, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004, p. 15.
- 56.
Edmund Husserl, Die Krisis des europäischen Menschentums und die Philosophie (1935), in Husserliana, VI, hrsg. von W.Biemel, 1953. Romanian translation: Criza umanităţii europene şi filosofia, Bucharest: Editura Academiei Române, 1993, p. 230.
- 57.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 4: Impetus and Equipoise in the Life-Strategies of Reason, p. xxxiv.
- 58.
Ibid., p. 525.
- 59.
Ibid., p. 320.
- 60.
Ibid., p. 319.
- 61.
See Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, The Fullness of the Logos in the Key of Life, Book I: The Case of God in the New Enlightenment, pp. 247–255.
- 62.
See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Romanian translation: Etica Nicomahică, Bucharest: Editura Știinţifică și Enciclopedică, 1988.
- 63.
See Stéphane Lupasco, L’Homme et ses trois éthiques, Monaco: Editions du Rocher, 1986.
- 64.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 4: Impetus and Equipoise in the Life-Strategies of Reason, p. 524.
- 65.
Ibid., p. 280.
- 66.
Gary Backhaus, “Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka: The Trajectory of her Thought from Eidetic Phenomenology to the Phenomenology of Life”, in Phenomenological Inquiry, Volume 25, Belmont (MA): The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning, 2001, pp. 26–27.
- 67.
Ibid., p. 27.
- 68.
Ibid., p. 41.
- 69.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 4: Impetus and Equipoise in the Life-Strategies of Reason, p. 650.
- 70.
Ibid., p. 664.
- 71.
Husserliana, Bd.VI, Den Haag: M.Nijhoff, 1953, pp. 15, 72.
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Cozma, C. (2016). Creative Philosophizing: Tying Tymieniecka’s “Imaginatio Creatrix” to the Moral Experience of Life. In: Tymieniecka, AT., Trutty-Coohill, P. (eds) The Cosmos and the Creative Imagination. Analecta Husserliana, vol 119. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21792-5_2
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