Abstract
In Broken Hegemonies, Rainer Schürmann rereads Neoplatonism while distinguishing between two versions of the ontological difference. One is traced back to a foundation of being: this is the metaphysical difference. The other brings to light the One as the very condition of being: this is the henological difference, but it can also be termed phenomenological, since the One is the transcendental condition of appearing. I propose to show that such is precisely Patočka’s position and that his phenomenology is, therefore, a henology. The demonstration includes three stages: (1) the question of Being is to be approached on the basis of the question of appearing: ontology makes sense only as phenomenology; (2) appearing as such cannot be understood if it is referred to something appearing, whatever that may be: the phenomenological difference cannot be a metaphysical difference; and (3) there is a surpassing of beings (of appearance) toward their appearing only as the making evident of their submission to a condition of unity: the phenomenological difference makes sense only as henological difference.
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Notes
- 1.
Reiner Schürmann, Des hégémonies brisées (Mauvezin: Trans-Europ-Repress, 1996); Broken Hegemonies, transl. R. Lilly (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003).
- 2.
Plotin, Ennéades, VI, 9 [9], 1, 1, ed. and transl. E. Bréhier (Paris: Les Belles-Lettres, 1924–1938) modified. Quoted in ibid., p. 186/143 (French/English).
- 3.
Ibid., VI, 9 [9], 1, 3–9. Quoted in ibid., p. 193/148 (French/English).
- 4.
Reiner Schürmann, op. cit., pp. 189–193/145–148 (French/English).
- 5.
Ibid., p. 189/145 (French/English).
- 6.
Ibid., p. 190/146 (French/English).
- 7.
Ibid.
- 8.
Jan Patočka, “Les ‘Considérations phénoménologiques fondamentales’ et l’épochè,” in Papiers phénoménologiques, ed. and transl. E. Abrams (Grenoble: Millon, 1995), MS 3G/17, p. 196; [“Die phänomenologische Fundamentalbetrachtung und die Epoché,” in Vom Erscheinen als solchem. Texte aus dem Nachlaß, ed. H. Blaschek-Hahn and K. Novotný (Freiburg and München: Alber, 2000), Text V, p. 149: “nicht das Erscheinende, sondern das Erscheinen, das Erscheinen des Erscheinenden, welches bei dessen Erscheinen selbst nicht erscheint, zum Vorschein zu bringen”].
- 9.
Jan Patočka, “La fin de la philosophie est-elle possible?” in Platon et l’Europe. Séminaire privé du semestre d’été 1973, transl. E. Abrams (Lagrasse: Verdier, 1983), p. 257.
- 10.
Ibid.
- 11.
Jan Patočka, Platon et l’Europe…, op. cit., p. 171; [Plato and Europe, transl. P. Lom (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), p. 159].
- 12.
Cf. ibid., pp. 177/165, 184/173, 187/176 (French/English).
- 13.
Ibid., p. 135/125 (French/English): “there is a depth of Being which we unveil only when we swim against the natural current and the general inclination of our mind and our whole instinctive constitution which tends towards reality, thingness, objectivity.”
- 14.
Jan Patočka, “Les ‘Considérations phénoménologiques fondamentales…,’” op. cit., pp. 200, 201; [“Die phänomenologische Fundamentalbetrachtung…,” op. cit., p. 154].
- 15.
Cf. Jan Patočka, “La fin de la philosophie est-elle possible?” op. cit., p. 258.
- 16.
Ibid., pp. 259–260.
- 17.
Namely, its relativity to our situation and our movements in the world.
- 18.
This regress to the subject “possesses the principial meaning that leads to the metaphysical subjectivation of being” (Jan Patočka, “La fin de la philosophie est-elle possible?” op. cit., p. 260).
- 19.
Jan Patočka, “Der Subjektivismus der Husserlschen und die Forderung einer asubjektiven Phänomenologie,” in Die Bewegung der menschlichen Existenz. Phänomenologische Schriften II, ed. K. Nellen, J. Němec and I. Srubar (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1991), p. 302; quoted from the French translation: “Le subjectivisme de la phénoménologie husserlienne et l’exigence d’une phénoménologie asubjective,” in Qu’est-ce que la phénoménologie?, ed. and transl. E. Abrams (Grenoble: Millon, 1988), p. 239.
- 20.
The series of lectures given in Prague in 1973 in the framework of a private seminar and collectively published under the title of Plato and Europe offers an eminent example of this importance.
- 21.
Jan Patočka, Platon et l’Europe…, op. cit., p. 114; [Plato and Europe, op. cit., p. 103].
- 22.
What is above that is the principle, and the principle is what, when eliminated, abolishes everything that depends upon it. For example, the abolition of the point leads to the abolition of the line, and consequently of the plane surface and the solid.
- 23.
Jan Patočka, Platon et l’Europe…, op. cit., p. 198; [Plato and Europe, op. cit., pp. 185–186]. See also p. 109/99 (French/English).
- 24.
Jan Patočka, “Le platonisme négatif. Réflexion sur les origines, la problématique et la fin de la métaphysique, ainsi que la question de savoir si la philosophie peut y survivre,” in Liberté et sacrifice. Écrits politiques, ed. and transl. E. Abrams (Grenoble: Millon, 1990), p. 87; [“Negative Platonism: Reflections concerning the Rise, the Scope, and the Demise of Metaphysics – and Whether Philosophy Can Survive It,” in Philosophy and Selected Writings, ed. and transl. E. Kohák, (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. 198].
- 25.
Ibid., pp. 95/204, 92/202, 90/200 (French/English).
- 26.
Ibid., pp. 92/202, 89/200 (French/English).
- 27.
Jan Patočka, “Corps, possibilités, monde, champ d’apparition,” in Papiers…, op. cit., MS 5E/15, p. 126; [“Leib, Möglichkeiten, Welt, Erscheinungsfeld,” in Vom Erscheinen…, op. cit., Text III, p. 96].
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Barbaras, R. (2011). Phenomenology and Henology. In: Abrams, E., Chvatík, I. (eds) Jan Patočka and the Heritage of Phenomenology. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 61. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9124-6_8
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