Exploring phenomenology's currency, its up-to-dateness means actually thinking about its foundations, about what is essential for its existence. It's not only about how important phenomenology is within universities and research centers, but also about its relationship with other disciplines and particularly with science (an obvious trait of today's world). This interview with Prof. Dr. Virgil Ciomos shows that phenomenology is rather out-of-time. Moreover it does not subscribe to any kind of "paradigmatic particularity". This a-temporal dimension of phenomenology folds up over a certain regress that it experiences in the last years in western Europe. Paradoxically, this happens at a time when phenomenology has a lot to offer to science and, vice versa, when scientific findings could well benefit phenomenological research. Could we talk here about an "applied phenomenology"? This is a rather unhappy choice of words, considers Mr. Ciomos, pointing out the hoped for, indeed necesary phenomenological (and philosophical) education of those suggesting such a direction. Another issue touched upon here deals with Romanian phenomenology's place in the Western phenomenological world and with its latest developments in the country. The upshot is encouraging and with a good management of the potential of the young researchers, it can become even better. We cannot yet talk about a Romanian phenomenological school, but we seem to be heading in the right direction.
On Phenomenology's Currency and Foundations
An interview with Virgil Ciomos
Rares Iordache: What place does phenomenology have in today's discourse, a discourse dominated by changing paradigms? What kind of relationship does it have with the idea of a "new paradigm"?
Virgil Ciomos: It should be mentioned from the start that phenomenological discourse has a certain particularity - that of not being paradigmatic. There is nothing that can be accepted, not even a new paradigm that did not first go through the test of the real, of the things in themselves. Nothing can become the subject of discourse in an eidetic world of senses unless it was previously phenomenalised, made part of our experience. Thus, any project of "purely intellectually" establishing or changing a methodology does nothing else but - as Heidegger explicitly pointed out - restate a metaphysical attitude with, on the one hand, the self-conscious and apparently "pure" subject at its center and, on the other hand, the general structure of senses which are to be clarified by logics. In this respect, methodology is nothing but the user's manual for this kind of logic. A metaphysical attitude that is not a critical and thus a purely "paradigmatic" way of regarding philosophy is going to be "pre-critical", it is going to be in the pre-Kantian segment of its own history. Traditionally (and this is valid for philosophy too), paradeigma (παράδειγμα) had as primary meaning that of a "transcendental idea" (in the Kantian meaning of the word). Differently put, it did not entail a direct human knowledge. Going further back in time (to an Aristotelian perspective), we could say that this tradition would be associated to the active intellect and not to the passive intellect (the only one we have access to and can apply "paradigmatically"). It is therefore very important to meditate on the ontological sense of the paradigm, which is both transcendent and transcendental, compared to human (ontic) knowledge which can only leave behind the traces of its own schematization (we are here, again, in a Kantian context). Any voluntary and egotistic project to force new paradigms or to change them leads to entertaining the illusion of a modern subject who isn't able to even reach a critical attitude, let alone the topic of inter-subjectivity.
RI: If we are to talk about how active phenomenology is today, should we do that from a purely theoretical perspective (seeing that phenomenology tends to "constitute" itself as a "mathesis universalis") or should we consider it a science like any other philosophical discipline?
VC: Commonly (and, therefore, vulgarly) speaking, phenomenology is very little present in universities and research centers. This regression tendency is strongly visible in Germany (its birthplace, paradoxically) and largely in the German speaking world (to include Austria here as well). I remember that, a few years ago, one of the most famous phenomenology appointments in Germany was given to a Hungarian - prof. Laszlo Tengelyi (a friend of mine and a very accomplished phenomenology researcher). This should say something about Germany's ability to regain the leading position within a tradition that made it famous in the history of philosophy in the 19th and 20th century. On the other hand, we should not forget that "being present now", phenomenologically speaking, implies something more than a simple presence (a concept already criticized by Husserl and by the post-Husserlian phenomenology). Why is that? Firstly, because any kind of actualization, even the privileged actualization of a theoretical discourse, is already a kind of appearance. This kind of appearance does not have a privileged status, it does not have an intentional status (which becomes actualized). There is a chasm between this kind of theoretical discourse and the phenomenon itself. As Heidegger points out in Being and Time: phenomenology is not a "science of phenomena". Science is already a way of making phenomenology. Logos itself is also a way of making phenomenology. The true meaning becomes obvious the moment we understand this chasm within the same transcendental concept, which makes itself visible on two different dimensions: as phenomenon and as logos. It is very interesting (although a bit bothersome) to presume that the theoretical logos, (including the "phenomenological" logos) is a phenomenon of secondary nature and, therefore, an appearance of the same transcendental sense. This means that the concepts of "actualization" and "actuality" must be reconsidered since, in phenomenology, actuality does not mean to be present or to make present. Anyhow, that what makes itself present in ourselves is only a human version of Logos, that of which Heraclitus spoke, and after him, Christian theology and that to which phenomenology every now and then refers. This doesn't lead then to creating a present which is common and vulgar but to putting yourself between phenomenon and logos, as phenomeno-log, putting yourself between (Heidegger calls this "zwischen") the past you refer to as phenomenon and the present of a certain theoretical explanation. What is essential for a phenomenologist is to understand this chasm and to ask herself: "Where am I when this coupling happens, when do I become the subject of this coupling?" Evidently, I am not in the present any longer but I am also not in the past. This is a special kind of thinking, or better, of re-thinking, of anamnesis. NB: the word anamnesis contains two negations: "ana", with two "a", actually α, which, together with mnesis means "neither present, nor past", or a temporality of the non-determined. This alone makes possible a true presentness. If we are to expand on this modest meditation and think about what could illustrate the synonymy between "presentness" and "contemporaneity", then we could say that being contemporary only with those who live in the present is not possible, and even less so with those living in the past (analogously, phenomenology cannot be contemporary). It (anamnesis) suggests an experience of "return within return". When you turn to the past you do not have to re-actualize it, to make it now so as it once was but you have to turn within this turn, to make a double loop, a double negation in order to be able to enter into this experience, to be available for it. Anyway, there is a vulgar present for the modern time, as well as for the Middle Ages and for the Antiquity. They also knew about time-flow and talked about past, present and future. The present of contemporaneity is not a "privileged" present but another present, it is actually nothing more than a certain presence that cannot be "assigned" (a formula used by one of the most important contemporary phenomenologists - Marc Richir) neither to the vulgar present nor to the vulgar past. A presence without an assignable present, Richir calls it. Of course, one can always refuse this state of being in between, but this doesn't mean that it will not sometime return (violently) against them.
RI: Could phenomenological interpretation somehow become the new "essential" tool for a phenomenologist in an attempt to transcend the "present"?
VC: It could, of course, as long as the interpretation does not refer to the presence of your own text. If we talk about a present which refers to something in the past, let us say a text written in the past (we shall call it "original"), then the essence of phenomenological interpretation does not consist in making another text actual. You see, we have here the same kind of discussion about temporal relationships as we have when we talk about interpretation (and I mean here any kind of interpretation, not only philosophical but also poetical, literal, artistic, musical, etc.). Interpretation is then only possible when you manage to put yourself in between, between your writing and the past of the writing you interpret, for example. This means that neither the text to be interpreted nor the present of your own writing are essential for the existence of the Written Text itself. Either you write the same thing about the past (about the past text, for example) and then you do nothing but plagiarize, or you write something completely different, that has nothing to do with the text you interpret. You cannot get out of this paradox unless you realize that both present and past are but two vulgar forms of actualization. The text from the past, the so called "original" or, to use Eco's phrase - the "first copy", points to an Original with a transcendental value, a value you cannot understand unless you put yourself between its past and its present. In other words, through interpretation the transcendental origin of the text is re-interpreted, since the text itself (as "first copy") is already an interpretation of its own origin. This functions only if your writing/text aims at making the chasm possible. From this point of view, both the "original" text and its interpretation are only ways shaping the primordial sense, its very origin evading both the original text and its interpretation. It is exactly this other dimension, this transcendental dimension of the sense that makes interpretation possible at all, that enables us to say something new or, better off, something different about the Same. If the primordial text has a certain form in the text from the past and another form in the text from the present, that means it can be defined as that which is other than itself. It is given to us always in a different form but it keeps being the Same. Precisely this makes phenomenological interpretation possible: an interpretation which is not taken in itself, "without the scraps". Understanding it "without the scraps" cannot even happen to its own author. I remember here Proust who once said that real life is, actually, literature. Well, life is not really literature but it is that what happens to the writer while she writes, because this is the moment when the writer puts herself within the chasm, between the present of her writing and the past time evoked. Thus, the time we look for (to paraphrase Proust's In Search of Lost Time) is not the past but that which makes possible both the past and the present, without becoming "present" in neither of them. From this standpoint, the author - and the phenomenologist must also be an author - must take the risk of being in an undetermined time, between past and present, where nothing is given as such any longer. There is, therefore a certain risk that comes with the act of interpreting, a risk we need to take but which gives back to us an opening towards creativity.
RI: You write in a 2008 essay that "phenomenological and eidetic reductions are not only subjects for Ph.D. theses but that they also bring along a true praxis of the spirit". What does this really mean? Isn't there a contrast between the scientist's or phenomenologist's "praxis" and the spirit as such?
VC: There are a couple of things that should be mentioned here. Compared to other philosophical discourses, phenomenology (as well as psychoanalysis) engages the subject as a whole. You cannot be an observing subject, who only talks about phenomenological reduction without actually trying it on yourself. You cannot write a Ph.D. thesis about eidetic reduction if you did not understand first its originality and, at the same time, if you did not understand the limits of Husserl's concept of eidetic variation. This concept was later updated (more courageously) by Merleau-Ponty as a variation at the level of the eide itself (moving away from the talk about experience in which eidos stays unchanged and only the phenomena change). The "generic" sense (since eidos means "species") is given through the diversity and differences between species. This is something that draws you in effectively, that brings you before Sophia (as in the primordial meaning of philosophy, as philo-sofia). In Latin they always made a difference between two ontological types: the first (belonging to philosophy) was dicitur - a discourse about something; the other was in esse - to be in being. With phenomenology (and not only phenomenology - we should remember that Wittgenstein wanted a philosophy re-defined as therapy) we get to a sort of praxis aiming at healing us from the transcendental illusions and appearances (to get back to Kant's terminology). All these should be part of an existential development. Phenomenology wants everything to pass through our own experience. Of course, this can sometimes be very difficult. Where am I? Where do I speak from? All reductions (phenomenological, eidetic, transcendental) must build upon real existential experiences. As is the case in psychoanalysis, it is very complicated to really take in your (very) own standpoint and, finally, the very symptom you are. Suddenly, accepting that any theoretical discourse is only a way for the sense to make itself present (which we don't easily grasp) puts you into a rather humble position, one which nobody is easily willing to accept.
RI: At a certain level, phenomenological practice can lead to a sort of applicability. There is even talk about an "applied phenomenology". Wouldn't this be contradictory to the meaning of phenomenology as such?
VC: The word choice, I admit, is not the happiest. Why? Because this would mean that we have to go back, again, to the modern paradigm of a methodology, to a general science, to a mathesis universalis. But this is only an illusion which Husserl himself somehow entertained and which would otherwise change phenomenology into a pre-critical type of Cartesian metaphysics. However, this should not imply that phenomenology, as any other "grand philosophy" cannot start with anything. It also doesn't imply that this philosophical attitude cannot be recomposed and re-assumed starting from any other domain: arts, politics, legal rights, etc. Lack of phenomenological mediation could be fatal for these disciplines since they would never be able to fathom their own foundations and would never be able to reach the limits of their own discourse. Such an applied phenomenological enterprise, which should begin (practically) from within other disciplines is often regarded as threatening. What usually follows is a rejection of philosophy: "We do not deal with philosophical problems! We keep our feet on the ground!", etc. is what the experts always say. Paradoxically, those who claim to be sensible and practical (and, among them, the most coherent seem to be the finance people, those who work with money - forgetting somehow that money is something pertaining to a virtual world and, ultimately, to a symbolic realm) when they have to explain the financial circumstances of a country, for example, almost automatically take refuge in the "budget philosophy". This means that, when you really want to be serious about something (and a country's budget is something rather serious), you cannot get away with an explanation that doesn't draw on its foundations, on the principles which have to guide you in choosing one option over the other. Suddenly, here it is, again, stringently and solemnly - phenomenology! We should still be asking what kind of philosophical education do these people have, these people who turn to philosophy in order to be able to back their own domains. If we take into account the regressive path philosophy seems to have taken in universities and, even more so, in secondary schools, the only words that comes to mind is: disdain. But philosophy blooms always the moment humanity reaches a crisis situation. Hegel already pointed out that crises are the cradles of philosophy, that philosophy appears as an attempt to answer and solve them. I can only hope that our present-day crisis is serious enough for philosophy (and, with it, phenomenology) to regain the position it once held.
RI: In your book "Être(s) du passage" you make some parallels between Kant and Husserl, Hegel and Merleau-Ponty and between theology and phenomenology. Since the relationship between phenomenology and ontology is comprehensible, how does theology and phenomenology work together, where is theology's place relative to phenomenology?
VC: This is a rather direct question. I would like to begin with a text from Heidegger - Phenomenology and Theology, which examines theology's place at the end of 19th, beginning of 20th century and finds out that it continues to be a "spiritual discipline" still within the onto-theological paradigm of philosophy, overtaken by Kierkegaard and more so by Nietzsche. This means that, from philosophy's point of view, theological discourse did not yet undergo the trials and critical demands of phenomenology. But it is underway. There are many philosophers with a phenomenological background willing to take this challenge. There are also, several theologians who, having a phenomenological education, suggested a different kind of theological discourse. One I can think of now is Jean-Yves Lacoste, a French theologian who teaches at Cambridge and who has been confronted with the Catholic theology's Vulgata - Neo-Thomism. For theology (particularly, Catholic theology) I think there is a sort of urgency to re-think Thomism from a phenomenological perspective, something which, however paradoxical, Husserl himself sought to achieve. We know far too little about Husserl's relationship with theology and religion in general. Every now and then we hear talks about his conversion to Protestantism) and we seem to forget that he was always surrounded by people not only with a religious but also with a monastic calling (as Edith Stein for example, an excellent phenomenologist who wrote about Thomism and tried to understand what kind of impact phenomenology could have on an exceptional religious work as that St. Johan of the Cross' Mystical Nights). Moreover, there is a very interesting diary - little known in phenomenological circles - of Aldegonde Jaeger Schmidt, a nun who was on Husserl's side until his death. She wrote down some of Husserl's last thoughts about what he sought to achieve through phenomenology. It seems that he meant it to be a sort of common platform for the three religions - Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Protestantism. His ambition was to make available for Christianity an authentic ecumenical foundation that would surpass Neo-Thomist synthesis. That on the one hand. On the other hand, phenomenology does not have to deal with theological discourse. But, of course, a phenomenological enterprise that goes all the way will end up dealing with inter-subjectivity issues (as it happened to Husserl himself) and, lastly, with that of the Spirit (Geist). Other phenomenologists (like Merleau-Ponty, for example) would also talk about a possible relaunch of Hegel's combination between philosophy and theology from his Phenomenology of Spirit. If Husserl's objective was to constitute a phenomenological community animated by Spirit then this implies, of course, a re-structuring of Christian theology (far too long centered on the person of Christ) and a re-thinking of its objectives (from a sui generis Pentecostal perspective, which goes on even today). This is why contemporary phenomenology seems to be a phenomenology of the the Spirit. Between Christ the Father and Christ the Son, we have the Holy Spirit who makes possible the transition between past and present. That's why, for theology, bringing forth a new Pneumatology as a continuation of Christology seems to have a certain urgency. To return to my favorite contemporary phenomenologist, Marc Richir, I should point out that his recent explorations bring to light (in a discreet and non-dogmatic manner) exactly this possibility of openness towards religious experience.
RI: Do you think that a collaboration between phenomenology and science would lead to phenomenology helping scientific development or the other way around, to science assisting phenomenology?
VC: There are several presuppositions at work here. Some of them should even be fostered by the Husserlian quest to make phenomenology into a "rigorous science". However, we should make it clear: phenomenology today is not similar to that of the time when it was constituted as the ideal of a "rigorous science" and science itself is not the same as that which inspired the scientism of the 19th century. Both these spurious senses - of phenomenology and of science - pertain, in my opinion, to a certain subculture. One would not talk about the opposition between science and phenomenology, if one would know that a simple Internet search for phenomenology would bring up quite a lot of works on... quantum mechanics. Therefore, phenomenology is more than a philosophical discipline and it implies a particular way of understanding the relationship between essence and appearance. After Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, after statistical interpretations of quantum mechanics, after repudiation of Einstein's hypotheses on quantum mechanics and after several Nobel prizes that confirmed this repudiation (I'm thinking about Bell's "quantum leaps" and other such wonders) one cannot keep pretending that science does not pay attention to the difference between the things in themselves and the things as they are for us - actually, the ABC of a Kantian critical attitude. But also, phenomenology cannot put itself up as a post-Cartesian project, as a mathesis universalis. This thing comes across clearly in a later Husserl text (published posthumously and dealing with passive syntheses), where he attempts to modify perspectives until then unanimously accepted by the transcendental tradition. For example, the view on continuity of consciousness (so often referred to by Kant): Husserl writes that ego's identity should be re-thought as a simple resonance... Which brings us again to the issue of the chasm, of discontinuity and of a unity of another kind as that of classical transcendental philosophy. From this point of view, science can deliver content to phenomenology and vice versa, the phenomenologist can contribute to promoting an authentic scientific attitude (once the scholars have gone already through the uncertainty principle, logical and mathematical paradoxes, Gödel's theorems, etc.).
RI: How would a "Romanian phenomenological school" (if we can talk about such a thing) play on a west-European and American cultural "market"?
VC: Talking about a "Romanian phenomenological school" might be a bit too much. We could however talk about several groups trying to re-animate a tradition established by people such as Camil Petrescu and others who introduced Husserl in Romania. What strikes me here is that there are two paradoxical orientations in Romania (a situation somehow unexpected but still prevalent in this country): a German (and especially Heidegger) inspired phenomenology in Bucharest, a city traditionally Francophone and a French inspired phenomenology school in Cluj, a city traditionally Germanophone. Lately there is a great deal of dynamics between these two schools. Together with Mr. Ion Copoeru I have organised a Francophone MA in Cluj (where courses on phenomenology proper, together with time phenomenology, French phenomenology, fundamental ontology, etc. are offered) from which some of the philosophy students in Bucharest also took advantage. To put it differently, there is a sort of Romanian Europeanism. The problem is to find out if this revival of Romanian phenomenology (and I should also mention here Mr. Liiceanu who started the whole series of translations from Heidegger) will also be well received in the Romanian universities. As an alternative, there is analytical philosophy, which is strognly represented in all four philosophy centers in the country and there are also many interesting bridges between the two. The hurdle seems to be keeping up open contacts with western phenomenology. Most of the relationships are with French phenomenologists (actually, if phenomenology managed to reach a certain consistency here it is mostly thanks to them). For example, Marc Richir was in Cluj around five times, for intensive courses, and likewise Gérard Granel (together with many others) and they, in turn, guided our students as Ph.D. candidates at their universities. Among them - Cristian Ciocan, who put the basis of Romanian Society for Phenomenology and is the author of an excellent thesis under the supervision of Jean-Francois Courtine (who used to be the director of the Husserl Archives in Paris). This is how philosophy wanders about between France and Germany via Blegium, as the two lungs of Europe breath life into Romanian phenomenology. Moreover, through Romanian Society for Phenomenology (with the consistent and decisive support from Mr. Gabriel Liiceanu) and through "Studia Phenomenologica" journal we slowly started to reach an international status. Today one could buy this journal in the most important bookstores in Europe. We can only hope that the Romanian contributions will be strong enough to last and that the few important young phenomenologists will find their place at Romanian universities so that they could pass on to future generations this great achievement of western culture that is phenomenology.
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