Antonio Calcagno

The phenomenologist Gerda Walther posits the possibility of a new social act, which she terms telepathy. It is marked by an intimate in-terpersonal union in which ego and alter ego become capable of sharing in the identical lived experience, though distant from one another. Here, there is no fusion or collective identi?ication; rather, in-dividuals, though they live the experience and mind of the other, never lose or transcend their own individuation. Unlike the act of empathy, there is no analogical transfer. This article defends the possibility of a restricted sense telepathy. The author argues that four conditions must be ful?illed for telepathy to occur: recognition of a social drive; a partially willed act of mind that results in the assump-tion of a certain stance, but it also comes upon us as an experience; constitution of subjects as persons marked by a “fundamental es-sence”; and I-splitting.

The articles in this special issue of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy were selected from revised versions of papers that were originally presented at the sixty-second annual meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP) hosted by Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, New York, on September 26–28, 2024. The SPEP 2024 plenary addresses were delivered by Professor Hortense Spillers of Vanderbilt University and Professor Peter Szendy of Brown University. Spiller’s presentation, “Tales Told Out of School: Race and Public Relations,” used Franz Fanon’s concept of sociogeny to examine the role of publicity in the mythemic creation of racialize subjects in contemporary America. Szendy’s presentation, “Sympnea: Or, Breathing Together,” explored the ancient Stoic concept of sympnea to rethink and reanimate new ways of being together in public social and political spaces. We are delighted to publish Spiller’s paper in this volume; unfortunately, for various reasons, we are unable to include Szendy’s presentation.The twelve articles in this issue that follow Spiller’s plenary address have been organized according to three broad groupings. The first set of four papers addresses various social and political issues in continental philosophy: Brendan Brown’s “A Democracy (Never) to Come: Fugitivity and Metaphysics in Afropessimism,” María de los Ángeles Aldana Mendoza’s “The Speciesist Logic Behind Social Oppressions: A Decolonial and Intersectional Approach,” Anne van Leeuwen’s “‘Left-Wing’ Thought Today: Simone de Beauvoir on Fetishism and Belief,” and Isabelle Ensass’s “The Moment of Revolution: Blanchot’s Movement from Negation to Insurrection.”The second set of papers gathers five articles on materiality, affectivity, and perception: Sanjula Rajat’s “Lives in Limbo: Trans Temporalities and the Phenomenology of Waiting,” Miriam Ambrosino’s “Affective Agency and Axiological Harm: A Schelerian Approach to Affective Injustice,” Rachel Cicoria’s “Remembering Without Having Memorized: Technologies of Embodied Resistance,” Daniel Estrada’s “The Materiality of Affective Environments: From Emotional Responsivity to Metabolic Relationality,” and Emmanuel Cuisinier’s “Perception, Heroism, and the Problem of Expression.”Finally, the third set of three papers focuses on intersections between science and continental philosophy: Christian Roy’s “Validations of QBism from a Hidden Source of French Phenomenology: Arnaud Dandieu and Claude Chevalley on Measurements as Creative Acts,” Christopher R. Myers’s “Gadamer and Lebensphilosophie: Reconceptualizing Historical Science as Being with the Dead,” and Dustin M. Taylor’s “Heidegger and Cavaillès on Crisis and the Movement of Scientific Thought.”Abstracts of all articles are included at the beginning of each article that follows.On behalf of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy and the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, the editors would like to thank all of the authors for allowing us to include their papers in this special issue. We would also like to express our gratitude to John Stuhr, general editor of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, and Astrid Meyer, Rachel Anderson, and the entire JSP production staff at the Penn State University Press for their invaluable assistance with the publication process. Final thanks go to all the participants at our sixty-second SPEP conference in Rochester. Their scholarly expertise, philosophical insight, and inspired discussions with each other made the event a resounding success.

This article seeks[aut]Calcagno, Antonio to: (1) give a comprehensive account of motivationMotivation based on Edith Stein’s[aut]Stein, Edith early phenomenological corpus; (2) explain how it is distinct from psychic causalityPsychic Causality; (3) situate motivationMotivation within Stein’s understanding of the human person, ultimately showing how motivation comes to be intertwined with the lived bodyBody, psychePsyche, and spiritSpirit as integral constituent moment of the unity that lies at the core of Steinian personhood; (4) show how motivationMotivation comes to play an important role in Stein’s writings on woman and in her social ontology, especially when it comes to the discussion of values, including the valueValue of the stateState; (5) reflect on the strengths and potential limits of Stein’s account.

_A philosophical investigation of the concept of interiority, presenting readers with its unmined aspects and senses._ A philosophical exploration of the concept of interiority, _Rethinking Interiority_ presents readers with its unmined aspects and senses, including ideas of an inner world and life, personal identity, auto-affection, and its social and political dimensions as well as its ethical possibilities. Internationally recognized scholars and philosophers investigate figures in the history of phenomenology as well as recent developments in psychology and the neurosciences to uncover not only the depths of interiority but also how it comes to connect with and structure external reality. Western and Eastern philosophical positions are addressed, creating a fruitful dialogue in which readers are invited to participate.

Gerda Walther[aut] Walther, Gerda has no developed account of empathyEmpathy; rather, she draws from the writings of early phenomenologists and psychologists on empathy. Generally, for Walther[aut]Walther, Gerda, empathy is an act of mind that permits the understanding of another’s consciousnessConsciousness and experienceExperience. Edith Stein[aut]Edith Stein, in many respects, lays the ground for a phenomenological account of empathy. Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s treatment of intersubjectivityIntersubjectivity and the nature of intersubjective acts such as empathy draws greatly from Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund. There exist three primary sources for Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s analysis of empathy, all of which were written while Stein[aut]Stein, Edith was still in direct contact with Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund either as his student, assistant or as a private researcher attempting to habilitate. The primary and better known source is Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s doctoral dissertation published originally in 1917, titled On the Problem of Empathy\”On the Problem of Empathy”, by Stein, Edith. The text, which is the only extant portion of her doctoral dissertation, sets the stage for Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s later work on the subject. Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund was pleased by Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s selection of the topic, but he wanted her to give more of a historical overview, with special reference to Lipps[aut]Lipps, Hans’ work. Hence, the text is replete with discussions of notable philosophers like Scheler[aut]Scheler, Max, Dilthey[aut]Dilthey, Wilhelm, and Lipps[aut]Lipps, Hans. The second major work that addresses empathy is to be found in Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities\”Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities”, by Stein, Edith (Beiträge zur philosophischen Begründung der Psychologie und der Geisteswissenschaften). This work was published in Volume V of Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund’s Jahrbuch and consists of two principal texts: PsychicCausalityCausalityPsychic (Psychische Kausalität) and Individual and Community (Individuum und Gemeinschaft). This text comes from Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s period during and after her assistantship with Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund. The text is largely, but not exclusively, based on her work on Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund’s Ideen II. The last source is Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s research manuscript titled, Einführung in die Philosophie.

Edith Stein consistently rejects the possibility that identification plays a constitutive role in the structure of community, whereas Max Scheler, though sympathetic to Stein’s claims, admits that community does require a basic level of identification, but is in no way reducible to a complete union wherein the individual is absorbed by the collective, the I by the we. The latter position is exemplarily taken up by Stein’s student Gerda Walther, who argues that the most intense form of community is an Einigung or Vereinigung, a becoming-one in which a we can overtake the I. I argue that Scheler’s claim of a low-level identification as constitutive of community must be rejected, for although one may feel unified or as “one” with a group, the feeling itself cannot negate the larger phenomenological and fundamental reality of individuation while undergoing the feeling of identification. We can deploy Stein’s understanding of the I and its embodiment to show how Scheler’s claims about the role of identification in community, though identification may be experienced as Scheler says it is, still remains grounded within the sphere of an individual I: one can never absolutely transcend the sphere of ownness that is constitutive of who and what an individual person is. At best, one may temporarily lose focus of the sphere of ownness, which is always possible in the natural attitude or in intense emotional experiences, but these possibilities do not negate the phenomenological and fundamental principle of personal individuation that is characteristic of Stein’s early work in phenomenology.

Badiou and Hegel: Infinity, Dialectics, Subjectivity offers critical appraisals of two of the dominant figures of the Continental tradition of philosophy, Alain Badiou and G.W.F. Hegel. Jim Vernon and Antonio Calcagno bring together established and emerging authors in Continental philosophy to discuss the relationship between the thinkers, creating a multifarious collection of essays by Hegelians, Badiouans, and those sympathetic to both. The text privileges neither thinker, nor any particular topic shared between them; rather, this book lays a broad and sound foundation for future scholarship on arguably two of the greatest thinkers of infinity, universality, subjectivity, and the enduring value of philosophy in the modern Western canon. Assuredly overdue, this volume will attract Hegel and Badiou scholars, as well as those interested in post-structuralism, political philosophy, cultural studies, ontology, philosophy of mathematics, and psychoanalysis.

This book frames the mission of the Continental Philosophy and History of Thought series at Lexington Books. International leading scholars contribute essays that explore and redefine the relationship between received arguments in contemporary Continental philosophy and various influential figures and arguments in the history of thought. By bringing Continental philosophy and the histories of thought into dialogue, editors Christian Lotz and Antonio Calcagno broaden the standard canon of what is considered Continental philosophy by including important yet understudied figures and arguments in the tradition; the chapters also deepen and contextualize significant movements and debate in the field by showing their rich historical underpinnings, thereby establishing new viewpoints in specific constituent subfields of philosophy. _Reading Continental Philosophy and the History of Thought_ shows the growing richness of Continental philosophy via unexplored rethinking of the history of thought. The contributors expand Continental philosophy with and through the recovery of important historical developments, figures, and lines of thought.

Power is classically understood as the playing out of relations between the ruler and the ruled. Political impasse is often viewed as a moment in which no clear-cut delineation of power exists, resulting in an overwhelming sense of frustration or feeling stuck in a no-win situation. The new globalised world has produced a real shift in how power works: not only has power been concentrated in the hands of very few while many millions become more oppressed by radical shortages and growing costs, but we also have a new category of political subjectivity in which many find themselves neither rulers nor radically oppressed. Those who live the neither/nor of contemporary power live the new global impasse. For those of us who are stuck and compelled to wait for dominant power to break, this book uncovers possibilities in thought, imagination, and self-appropriation through oikeiosis, that is, making oneself at home in oneself, and constancy.

This paper argues that though Derrida is correct to bring to the fore the undecidability that is contained in his political notion of the democracy to come, his account does not extend the aporia of undecidable politics far enough. Derrida himself makes evident this gap. Though politics may be structured with undecidability, there are times when direct, decisive and definitive political interventions are required. In his campaign against capital punishment, the blitzing campaigns in Bosnia and Iraq, and in his call for les villes-refuges, Derrida makes decisive appeals which somehow seem to contradict the undecidability he sees as arch-structuring. Alain Badiou’s thinking about time as a subjective, decisive intervention executed within his ontological framework of undecidability and multiplicity can serve to extend the aporia of undecidability inherent in politics, ultimately giving an account for both the undecidability that structures politics and the decisive timely interventions that would seem to contradict Derridean undecidability.

This book explores the philosophical writings of Gerda Walther (1897-1977). It features essays that recover large parts of Walther's oeuvre in order to show her contribution to phenomenology and philosophy. In addition, the volume contains an English translation of part of her major work on mysticism. The essays consider the interdisciplinary implications of Gerda Walther's ideas. A student of Edmund Husserl, Edith Stein, and Alexander Pfänder, she wrote foundational studies on the ego, community, mysticism and religion, and consciousness. Her discussions of empathy, identification, the ego and ego-consciousness, alterity, God, mysticism, sensation, intentionality, sociality, politics, and woman are relevant not only to phenomenology and philosophy but also to scholars of religion, women's and gender studies, sociology, political science, and psychology. Gerda Walther was one of the important figures of the early phenomenological movement. However, as a woman, she could not habilitate at a German university and was, therefore, denied a position. Her complete works have yet to be published. This ground-breaking volume not only helps readers discover a vital voice but it also demonstrates the significant contributions of women to early phenomenological thinking.