Abstract
In this present lecture I will try to provide a preliminary theoretical framework for the eco-phenomenology, understood as a specialized field of phenomenology in general. In order to give a precursory definition of eco-phenomenology, we shall start with the condition of the modern man in the industrialized, technologized world. The existence of modern man is determined by globalized, planetary technology. The technologically, industrially determined being of man strained his relationship with nature, understood as the natural environment of human being. The human, industrial, and technical-technological activities endanger the reproductive and rehabilitative resources and capacities of nature on Earth. The task of eco-phenomenology is to provide a phenomenological analysis of this strained relationship between the industrially and technologically determined human existence and nature. This analysis presupposes, as its theoretical basis, a general understanding of the relationship of man as such and nature. The theoretical foundation of eco-phenomenology is the phenomenology of the human condition in the natural world of Earth and in the cosmos in general. When such a firm apodictic and theoretical basis (concerning the natural existence of human being) is prepared, then one can establish three further theoretical disciplines upon this theoretical basis as the concrete components of eco-phenomenology. The first one is the above-mentioned discipline: the phenomenology of modern human existence in the age of planetary technology and globalized industrial world, and the relationship of the natural environment to the human world of global technology and industry. The second is an axiological study of man-nature relationship: the phenomenological evaluation of the man’s connection to the world of nature. The third is a practice-oriented ethical investigation about how the human being should relate to the natural world, and the means ecological phenomenology have to drift back its theoretical and practical(-ethical) insights into the wider social world. That is to say: what means are available to ecological phenomenology for it to have an effect on the extra-scientific social reality and influence the common relationship to environmental questions and problems, on the field of politics as well as on the field of private people.
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Notes
- 1.
Hans Jonas, “Die verwandten Natur des menschlichen Handeln”, in Hans Jonas, Prinzip der Verantwortung. Versuch einer Ethik für die Technologische Zivilisation, Frankfurt am Main, Inselt Verlag, 1979.
- 2.
Hans Jonas, “Philosophy at the End of the Century: A Survey of its Past and Future”, in Social Research 61(4) (Winter, 1994), p. 815.
- 3.
Hans Jonas, Gnosis und spätantiker Geist, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993.
- 4.
During these analyses concerning Hans Jonas, I lean almost exclusively on his afore-mentioned book: Hans Jonas, Prinzip der Verantwortung. Versuch einer Ethik für die Technologische Zivilisation.
- 5.
Sophocles, Antigone: “Strophe. Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man; the power that crosses the white sea, driven by the stormy south-wind, making a path under surges that threaten to engulf him; and Earth, the eldest of the gods, the immortal, the unwearied, doth he wear, turning the soil with the offspring of horses, as the ploughs go to and fro from year to year./
Antistrophe. And the light-hearted race of birds, and the tribes of savage beasts, and the sea-brood of the deep, he snares in the meshes of his woven toils, he leads captive, man excellent in wit. And he masters by his arts the beast whose lair is in the wilds, who roams the hills; he tames the horse of shaggy mane, he puts the yoke upon its neck, he tames the tireless mountain bull./
Strophe. And speech, and wind-swift thought, and all the moods that mould a state, hath he taught himself; and how to flee the arrows of the frost, when ‘tis hard lodging under the clear sky, and the arrows of the rushing rain; yea, he hath resource for all; without resource he meets nothing that must come: only against Death shall he call for aid in vain; but from baffling maladies he hath devised escapes./
Antistrophe. Cunning beyond fancy’s dream is the fertile skill which brings him, now to evil, now to good. When he honours the laws of the land, and that justice which he hath sworn by the gods to uphold, proudly stands his city: no city hath he who, for his rashness, dwells with sin. Never may he share my hearth, never think my thoughts, who doth these things!/”
- 6.
Martin Heidegger, “Wissenschaft und Besinnung”, in Marin Heidegger Gesammtausgabe (= GA) 7. bd., Vorträge und Aufsätze, Vittorio Klostermann, Herausgeber: Friedrich-Wilhelm von Hermann, Frankfurt am Main, 2000.
- 7.
Michael Zimmerman, “Heidegger’s Phenomenology and Contemporary Environmentalism”, in Eco-phenomenology. Back to the Earth itself, New York, University of New York Press, 2003: 73–101, “Rethinking the Heidegger-Deep Ecology Relationship”, in Environmental Ethics, vol. 15, summer 1983. Franck Schalow, “Who Speaks for the Animals? – Heidegger and the Question of Animal Welfare”, in Environmental Ethics, vol. 22, fall 2000.
- 8.
Michael Zimmerman, “Ontical Craving versus Ontological Desire”, in B. E. Babich (edited), From Phenomenology to Thought: Errancy and Desire, Dordrecht and Boston, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995: 501–523.
- 9.
“Heidegger’s Phenomenology and Contemporary Environmentalism”, in op. cit. pp. 81, 86.
- 10.
See e.g.: Simon Glendinning, “Heidegger and the Question of Animality”, in International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 4, no.1. (march, 1996): 75–82. George S. Cave, “Animals, Heidegger and the Right to Life”, in Environmental Ethics 4 (1982): 249–254.
- 11.
David Abram, “Merleau-Ponty and the Voice of the Earth”, in Environmental Ethics, vol. 10., summer 1988.
- 12.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, Northwestern University Press, 1968. French: Le visible et l’invisible, Paris, Éditions Gallimard, 1964.
- 13.
Merleau-Ponty, The Structure of Behaviour, Duquesne University Press, 1983. French: La structure de comportement, Presses Universitaires de France, 1942.
- 14.
Abram David, op. cit.
- 15.
Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologische Philosophie, The Hague, Netherlands, Martinus Nijhoff, 1977, Husserliana (= Hua) III/1, III/2. Ideen zur einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Zweites Buch: Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution, The Hague, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1952, Hua IV, Analysen zur passiven Synthesis. Aus Vorlesungs- und Forschungsmanuskripten, 1918–1926, The Hague, Netherlands, Martinus Nijhoff, 1966, Hua XI. Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, The Hague, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976, Hua VI.
- 16.
Erazim Kohák, “An Understanding Heart”, in Eco-phenomenology. Back to the Earth itself, op. cit. pp. 19–36.
- 17.
Op. cit. p.20.
- 18.
Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 1970: 6. Hua VI : 4. “In unserer Lebensnot – so hören wir – hat diese Wissenschaft uns nichts zu sagen”.
- 19.
Husserl. Manuscript: F I 32: 110, “Der Grundcharakter der Phänomenologie ist wissenschaftliche Lebensphilosophie”. Cites: Nam-In Lee, Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie der Instinkte, Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, Phae (= Phaenomenologica) 128, 1993: 197.
- 20.
Kohák, op. cit. p.28.
- 21.
It was the year when Husserl presented the transcendental transformation of phenomenology for the public, in his lectures “The Idea of Phenomenology”, (“Die Idee der Phänomenologie”, Hua II). The first appearance of the methodological operation of phenomenological reduction could be found in his so-called “Seefelder Manuskript”, in August, 1905. In Hua X.
- 22.
See: Heidegger, Zähringen Seminar, in GA 15.
- 23.
See: Husserl, Hua VI : 118 (in footnote), English: Crisis : 116. Furthermore: Hua IX (“Phänomenologische Psychologie. Vorlesungen Sommersemester. 1925”).
- 24.
Cf. Husserl, Hua III/1 (“Ideen”): 7§.
- 25.
The radical green movement which was founded by the philosopher Arne Næss (1912–2009).
- 26.
See: Dermot Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology, London-New York: Routledge, 2000:35.
- 27.
Husserl, Hua XVIII, XIX, XX/1, XX/2,English: Logical investigations, London-New York: Routledge, 2000.
- 28.
See for further details: George Heffernan, “A Study in the Sedimented Origins of Evidence: Husserl and His Contemporaries Engaged in a Collective Essay in the Phenomenology and Psychology of Epistemic Justification”, in Husserl Studies, 16 (1999): 83–181.
- 29.
See also: Moran, op. cit., pp. 125, 133.
- 30.
Cf. Robert Sokolowski, The formation of Husserl’s concept of constitution, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff (Phae 18), 1970, Introduction to Phenomenology, The Catholic University of America, 2000: 92–93.
- 31.
See also: Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, pp. 122–129.
- 32.
See: Nam-In Lee, Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie der Instinkte, Phae 128 : 128–133.
- 33.
Inga Römer, Das Zeitdenken bei Husserl, Heidegger und Riœur, Phae 196 : 95–97.
- 34.
Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge, Hua I, Formale und Transzendentale Logik, Hua II, Erfahrung und Urteil, Academia / Verlagsbuchhandlung Prag, 1939, Krisis, op. cit.
- 35.
Die ‘Bernauer Manuskripte’ über das Zeitbewußtsein (1917/18), Hua XXXIII, Späte Texte über Zeitkonstitution (1929–1934). Die C-Manuskripte., Husserliana Materialenband ( = Hua Mab) VIII.
- 36.
Römer, op. cit., pp. 115–116.
- 37.
Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, GA 2, English: Being and Time, Oxford, Blackwell Publishing, 1962.
- 38.
Biologism can be understood as a view which interprets the human beings in terms of a naturalistic biology, exemplified by thinkers such as Spengler who interpret cultures as biological organisms. Heidegger interpreted Spengler in this way, and he wanted to avoid this conception of the human being. (Ontologie. Hermeneutik der Faktizität, GA 63 : 37–39).
- 39.
Emmanuel Lévinas, Totalité et infini, Kluwer Academic, printemps 1988 : 142. “Le Dasein chez Heidegger n’a jamais faim.”. English: Totality and Infinity, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.
- 40.
Jan Patočka, Le monde naturel et le movement de l’existence humaine, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988 : 96.
- 41.
Heidegger, Zollikoner Seminare, GA 89.
- 42.
Jacques Derrida, Heidegger et la question de l’esprit, Édition Flammarion, 1993.
- 43.
Sein und Zeit, GA 2: 199. “Unter den vier existierenden Naturen (Baum, Tier, Mensch, Gott) unterscheiden sich die beiden letzten, die allein mit Vernunft begabt sind, dadurch, daß Gott unsterblich, der Mensch sterblich ist”.
- 44.
Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik: Welt, Endlichkeit, Einsamkeit, GA 29/30.
- 45.
Op. cit. p.261. “[D]er Stein ist Weltlos, das Tier ist Weltarm, der Mensch ist Weltbildend”.
- 46.
Max Scheler, Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos, Bouvier, 2002.
- 47.
Heidegger, Einführung in die Metaphysik, GA 40 : 48. “Welt ist immer geistige Welt. Das Tier hat keine Welt, auch keine Umwelt”.
- 48.
Nicolai Hartmann, Ontologie I-IV, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1935–1950.
- 49.
Husserl, Natur und Geist. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1919, Hua Mab IV, Analysen zur passiven Synthesis. Aus Vorlesungs- und Forschungsmanuskripten, 1918–1926., Hua XI, Natur und Geist: Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1927, Hua XXXII.
- 50.
Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil. 1929–35, Hua XV : 593–612.
- 51.
Rolf Kühn, Husserls Begriff der Passivität, München / Freiburg, Verlag Karl Alber, 1998.
- 52.
See: Shiheru Taguchi, Das Problem des “Ur-Ich” bei Edmund Husserl, Phae 178 :7, 30. See further: Jean-Luc Marion, Etant donné. Essai d’une phénoménologie de la donation, Paris, PUF, 2002 : §§2–3.
- 53.
Horkheimer-Adorno, The Dialectic of Englightment, Stanford University Press, 2002: 191.
- 54.
Bence Marosán, “Inga Römer über die fragmentierte Phänomen der Zeit”, in Sic et Non Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 2011: 1–15. Link: http://www.sicetnon.org/content/pdf/Roemer_marosan.pdf
- 55.
Römer, op. cit.
- 56.
See: Bernhard Waldenfels, “Veflechtung und Trennung”, in Deutsch-französische Gedankengänge, Berlin, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1995: 364–382.
- 57.
Renaud Barbaras, “Life and Phenomenality”, In The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, Vol. VIII (edited by Burt Hopkins and John Drummond), 2008: 127–138.
- 58.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, The Fullness of the Logos in the Key of Life, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, Springer, 2009: 39.
- 59.
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- 60.
Rolf Kühn, op.cit.
- 61.
Nam-In Lee, op. cit., 231–232.
- 62.
Op. cit., 231.
- 63.
See: Dermot Moran, Edmund Husserl. Founder of Phenomenology, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2005: 226. “Transcendental ego: singular or plural?”
- 64.
Husserl, Hua VI : 275. “Leben in der Apodiktizität”.
- 65.
Jean-Paul Sartre, L’Être et le Néant, Paris, Éditions Gallimard, 2009: 339. “Ainsi naîtrait le schisme du pour-autrui ; et cette division dichotomique se répéterait à lïnfini pour constituer les consciences comme miettes d’un éclatement radical”
- 66.
Husserl, Hua XV : 371–377.
- 67.
See: Nam-In Lee, op. cit., 159–160.
- 68.
Hans Jonas, op.cit.
- 69.
Robert Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, USA, Cambridge University Press, 2000: 185–186.
- 70.
Husserl, Hua VI : 15, English: 17.
- 71.
See: Nam-In Lee, op.cit., 196.
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Marosan, B.P. (2012). The Primal Child of Nature – Towards a Systematic Theory of Eco-Phenomenology. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) Phenomenology and the Human Positioning in the Cosmos. Analecta Husserliana. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4795-1_9
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