James Mensch

Jan Patočka and Maurice Merleau-Ponty attempted to get beyond Husserl by focusing on manifestation or visibility as such. Yet, the results these philosophers come to are very different — particularly with regard to the a priori of the visible. Are there, as Patočka believed, aspects of being that can be grasped in their entirety, the aspects, namely, that involve its “self-showing”? Or must we say, with Merleau-Ponty, that being can only show itself in finite perspectives that can never be summed to a whole? At stake in their attempts to speak of appearing as appearing is, I propose to show, nothing less than the question of the finitude of being.

This book offers a fresh look at Edmund Husserl’s philosophy as a nonfoundational approach to understanding the self as an embodied presence. Contrary to the conventional view of Husserl as carrying on the Cartesian tradition of seeking a trustworthy foundation for knowledge in the "pure" observations of a disembodied ego, James Mensch introduces us to the Husserl who, anticipating the later investigations of Merleau-Ponty, explored how the body functions to determine our self-presence, our freedom, and our sense of time. The result is a concept of selfhood that allows us to see how consciousness’s arising from sensuous experiences follows from the temporal features of embodiment. From this understanding of what is crucial to Husserl’s phenomenology, the book draws the implications for language and ethics, comparing Husserl’s ideas with those of Derrida on language and with those of Heidegger and Levinas on responsibility. Paradoxically, it is these postmodernists who are shown to be extending the logic of foundationalism to its ultimate extreme, whereas Husserl can be seen as leading the way beyond modernity to a nonfoundational account of the self and its world.

In our increasingly interdependent world, human solidarity has become a topic of general (and heated) discussion. It has been urged as an antidote to the competitive pressures of globalisation and to the threats of climate change. Others argue that the sense of belonging together, of sharing a common fate that it brings is essential for civil society. Without this, we will seek to avoid the burdens our governments impose on us, for example, taxes and the draft. This sense of belonging facilitates our talking to each other and forming a democratically based consensus on such matters. A common history, language, religion, or ethnic identity can ground this sense of belonging. So can a feeling of shared danger.

At first glance, a phenomenological account of the future seems a contradiction in terms. Phenomenology’s focus is on givenness or presence. Attending to what has already been given in its search for evidence, it seems incapable of handling the future, which by definition, has not yet been given since it not-yet-present. Thus, for the existentialists, in particular Heidegger, phenomenology misses the fact that the Da-, the “thereness” of our Dasein, is located in the future. It misses the futurity inherent in our “being-there” in a world.[i] As part of this, it forgets that “values” are inherent in this world. Attending to the constitution of the thing as already given through its visible features, phenomenology leaves out the quality of its desirability, of its being a thing of value. Such desirability, however, is what moves us to possess it. Desire directs us towards attaining what we do not yet possess, i.e., what is not already given. In this sense, it presents the future. Value or desirability, then, must be thought of in terms of our inherent future directedness. Phenomenology, however, is incapable of this. In fact, its indifference to the future is nowhere more apparent than in its assumption that values are constituted after we grasp a sensuously appearing object. Taking them as something “tacked on” to the latter, it misses the role that futurity plays in our intentional life.[ii]

Since the close of the cold war, there seems to be a certain constant in the conflicts that have marked multi-national conferences. Again and again, we see the smaller states opposing the efforts of the larger to determine the structures of their relations. One of the factors of this opposition is their fear of losing their identity. In a world increasingly determined by global interests, cultural and economic particularity seems to be a luxury that few can afford. For many, the name of this fear is “globalization.” They take the term as signifying a process that threatens to replace their individuality with an empty universality. Benignly regarded, globalization promises a world where we all drink the same soft-drinks, wear the same jeans, watch the same movies, and listen to the same music--all of it, presumably American. A darker vision sees within such homogeneity the dangers of totalitarianism. As Hannah Arendt noted, totalitarian systems presuppose a certain uniformity to achieve their effect. The ideal they tend to is that of reducing their subjects to a situation analogous to marbles on a table. The slightest tilt will make the marbles roll in the same direction. When citizens lose their individuality, when each is stripped of his particularizing relations to his neighbors, then the state gains the ability to apply a uniform power to produce a uniform effect. Here, the controllability of the response is directly proportional to the reduction of each of us to every one else. In this less benign view, the globalization that American capitalism promotes is actually a new form of totalitarianism. After the fascism and communism of the previous century, its third, capitalistic wave is now upon us. We need not accept this dark vision to feel uneasy about the emerging global community. At the root of our current disquiet is, I think, a sense that an aspect of our selfhood is under attack. The fear is that when we do become just like everyone else, we will lose our privacy..

We can make very sensitive machines and may arrange for them to distinguish themselves from other objects. The programs that are designed toward specific goals, such as the identification of external objects, can also be imagined as action programs relating to the manipulation of these objects. These programs can be designed to retain data in order of receipt, picking patterns and anticipated appearance of perspective based on the success of their past performances. In this way, could be designed to allow the machine to identify their own “here” and “now”, but would It has a self a machine capable of doing this? If so, where would it be? The purpose of this article is to address philosophical questions, revising extensively the question of the self in artificial intelligence

Religion has been a constant throughout human history. Evidence of it dates from the earliest times. Religious practice is also universal, appearing in every region of the globe. To judge from recorded history and contemporary accounts, religious intolerance is equally widespread. Yet all the major faiths proclaim the golden rule, namely, to “love your neighbour as yourself.” When Jesus was asked by a lawyer, “Who is my neighbour?” he replied with the story of the good Samaritan—the man who bound up the wounds and looked after the Israelite who was neither his co-religionist nor a member of his race. Jesus’ example has been rarely followed. What is it in religion—and not just in the Christian religion—that leads its members to limit their conception of their neighbour? How is it that, in preaching the universal brotherhood of mankind, religions so often practice the opposite? In my paper, I suggest some answers by focusing on the notions of faith, ethics and finitude