Bernhard Waldenfels

Feelings not only have a place, they also have a time. Today, one can speak of a multifaceted renaissance of feelings. This concerns philosophy itself, particularly, ethics. Every law-based morality comes up against its limits when morals cease to be only a question of legitimation and begin to be a question of motivation, since motives get no foothold without the feeling of self and feeling of the alien. As it is treated by various social theories and psychoanalysis, the self is not formed through the mere acquisition or change of roles, but rather through a process that is susceptible to crises, a process shaped by affective bonds and separations. Learning, which is the theme of pedagogy, loses its hold whenever it is confronted by disinterest and listlessness. In neurobiology, the increased significance of those zones of the brain that are connected with the realization of feelings makes the brain, accordingly, no mere apparatus that processes data, but a living organ that selects and “evaluates” what is “important.” Finally, cross-cultural comparison shows the extent to which the one-sided preference for understanding and willing, which is the mark of Western rationalism, arises from a typical, not to mention a highly masculine attitude toward the world and life, as many different studies on gender difference stress (In reference to this perspective, see Seethaler, Gefühle und Urteilskraft. Ein Plädoyer für die emotionale Vernunft, 1997). The following reflections provide a historical orientation directed toward a new determination of feelings. This new determination of feelings is phenomenological and takes the pathetic character of experience, nourished by the corporeality of experience as its point of departure.

This is an English translation of Waldenfels' German essay: Equality and inequality are basic elements of law, justice and politics. Equality integrates each of us into a common sphere by distributing rights, duties and chances among us. Equality turns into mere indifference as far as we get overintegrated into social orders. When differences are fading away experience loses its relief and individuals lose their face. Our critical reflections start from the inevitable paradox of making equal what is not equal. In various ways they refer to Nietzsche’s concept of order, to Marx’s analysis of money, to Lévinas’s ethics of the Other, and to novelists like Dostoevsky and Musil. Our critique turns against two extremes, on the one hand against any sort of normalism fixed on functioning orders, on the other hand against any sort of anomalism dreaming of mere events and permanent ruptures. Responsive phenomenology shows how we are confronted with extraordinary events. Those deviate from the ordinary and transgress its borders, without leaving the normality of our everyday world behind. The process of equalizing moves between the ordinary and the extraordinary. What makes the difference and resists mere indifference are creative responses which are to be invented again and again.

Die 4. Auflage bringt zunächst die Kommentierung der Präambel und der Art. 1 bis 19 auf den aktuellen Stand von Judikatur und Literatur. Die grundlegende Struktur des Kommentares wurde beibehalten und um neuere Entwicklungen wie die Implikationen der Europäisierung und Digitalisierung sowie der Corona-Pandemie ergänzt.Die Herausgeberschaft des Kommentares hat ab der 4. Auflage Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf übernommen. Auch im Autorenkreis sind personelle Veränderungen zu verzeichnen: Mit Ausnahme von Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, Alexander Thiele und Ferdinand Wollenschläger, die bereits an der 3. Auflage mitgewirkt haben, liegen die Kommentierungen in den Händen neuer Autorinnen und Autoren.Der Kommentar erscheint in drei Bänden und wird nur geschlossen abgegeben.Der Grundgesetz-Kommentar ist Bestandteil des Moduls Verfassungsrecht PREMIUM, das bei beck-online.de erhältlich ist.

Si definimos la experiencia de lo ajeno -siguiendo a Husserl- como la «accesibilidad de lo que es originariamente inaccesible", ¿cómo podremos hacerlo accesible sin encerrarlo en los círculos del egocentrismo, logocentrismo y eurocentrismo, es decir sin anular lo ajeno apropiándonos de ello? La etnología como ciencia de lo otro cuya ambigüedad puede comprenderse en la obra de Lévi Strauss y en los comentarios de Merleau-Ponty sobre ella, nos ayuda a responder esta pregunta señalando el campo intercultural. Cuando tomamos lo ajeno como provocación a la que respondemos siendo incapaces de decir de manera completa lo que es, se abre una nueva perspectiva.

Certamente, desde que o ser humano existe, a vida nunca esteve isenta de manipulação técnica. Todavia, formas recentes de biotecnologia vão mais longe, tendendo a tornar indiscernível as distinções clássicas entre crescimento natural e produção artificial. Ars sive natura, este poderia ser o novo slogan. Neste sentido, em oposição à bioética corrente que tenta compensar o monismo tecnológico através de um dualismo prático, discutiremos a idéia de que, quando age sobre o Outro (Fremdeneinwirkung), a biotecnologia nunca é puramente técnica, sendo imediatamente prática, ética e política. Por outro lado, confrontada com novos desafios tecnológicos, a fenomenologia necessita assumir certas características de fenomenotecnologia; ações não são nunca meramente práticas. Uma tal combinação entre fenomenologia e fenomenotecnologia abre especiais perspectivas no que diz respeito ao trato da questão da vida humana. Primeiramente, descreveremos o eu corporal como gerador de sua própria história, na medida que evidencia graus de identidade e se constitui como altamente vulnerável. Em segundo lugar, distinguiremos entre a atitude técnica, restrita ao fato de que algo se modifica, e a atitude terapêutica, que se dirige a alguém que sofre: o paciente. A seguir, ultrapassaremos os limites do enquadramento clínico ao considerar novas conquistas no que diz respeito à produção da vida (por exemplo, clonagem e manipulação genética). Antes de simplesmente argumentar pró ou contra, temos de indagar o que significa produzir um eu vivo. Neste contexto, o tempo da poiesis será contrastado com o do pathos. Examinaremos o lugar desde o qual um ser vivo ou pessoal pode ser definido como alguém em si, e pretendemos tencionar simultaneamente o caráter paradoxal de atribuição de um eu ao Outro (Fremdezuschreibung), que assemelha-se ao paradoxo de ter a experiência do Outro como Outro (Fremderfahrung). Pois a pré-história e a pós-história de um alguém específico, incluindo nascimento e morte, é apenas acessível a nós em termos de substituição. Reduzidos a conjuntos de células, seres humanos seriam liberados de tudo isto. Restaria algo sobre o que falamos, mas de modo algum alguém falando a nós. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Biotecnologia. Terapia. Fenomenologia. Fenomenotecnologia. ABSTRACT Certainly, as long as human beings exist, life has never been exempt from technical manipulations. However, recent forms of biotechnology go further, tending to blur the classical distinction between natural growth and artificial production. Ars sive natura, that may be the new slogan. Now, in opposition to current bioethics which try to compensate the technological monism by means of a practical dualism, we will argue that by acting upon the Other (Fremdeinwirkung) biotechnology is never purely technical, it is immediately practical, ethical and political. On the other side, faced with new technological challenges, phenomenology needs certain features of phenomenotechnology; actions are never merely practical. Such an intertwining of phenomenology and phenomenotechnology opens up special perspectives in dealing with the issue of human life. Firstly, we will describe the bodily self as generating its own history, as showing grades of selfhood and as being highly vulnerable. Secondly, we will distinguish between the technological attitude, restricted on something to be changed, and the therapeutic attitude, addressed to somebody suffering, namely the patient. In the end, we cross the limits of the clinical frame by considering new attempts of life production (e.g. cloning and gene manipulation). Before simply arguing pro and con we have to ask what does it mean to produce a living self. In this context the time of poiesis will be contrasted with the time of pathos. We will examine the place from where a living or personal being may be defined as somebody in itself, and we will simultaneously stress the paradoxical character of ascribing the status of a self to the Other (Fremdzuschreibung), which resembles the paradox of experiencing the Other as an Other (Fremderfahrung). At last, the pre-history and the post-history of a oneself, including birth and death, is only accessible for us by means of substitution. Reduced to cell ensembles, human beings would get rid of all that. There would be left something we speak about, but by no means somebody speaking to us. KEY WORDS – Biotechnology. Therapy. Phenomenology. Phenomenotecnology

Acknowledging sensuous worlds, which bestow sensual qualities on life-world, we are facing the age-old problem of how to think the intra- and intermodal unity of the senses and how to explain the corresponding phenomenon of synaesthesia. In tackling this problem, we will first pay our attention to the rhythmical quality of the senses. It is situated on the very threshold of the formation of the senses. The question about the natural or artificial nature of sensory rhythms begs a further question whether, at any given moment, the senses can be perfectly coherent and in tune with what affects them. Is it not true that any eurhythmics is even at its best supposed to account for the Other disturbing the rhythm by stepping out of the line?

Responsive ethics stands out against every sort of communicative ethics merely orientated towards common aims, general norms, and utility calculation. It is based on a clear contrast between being responsible for what one has done and responding to the Other′s appeal and claim. The logic of response includes aspects like temporal delay, inevitability, gifts and freedom arising from elsewhere. Both – being responsible for and responding to – meet through the Third Party which intervenes in terms of habits and rules, yet without being able to cover the extra-ordinary demands of the Other. Responsive ethics defends the unsocial within sociality

This chapter covers the traditional role of responsibility, and the possible connections between response and responsibility. These connections are explored through the advance of trust and the surplus of the extraordinary in relation to the Third Party. The idea of responsibility comes from the sphere of juridical law, and has a theological touch. The classical conception presented suffers from a permanent erosion that is reinforced by systemic constraints. Trust is a natural element of every community that is together applied by common aims in life. The phenomenon of trust refers to the bond, the nexus, which holds together the members of a community, creating the requisite solidarity. The term ‘trust’ or ‘confidence’ should not primarily read as a substantive, but as a verb or as the derivative of a verb. Furthermore, it is noted that the responsive ethics proposed could function as a permanent corrective.