Cristian Ciocan

In this essay, Jean-Yves Lacoste examines the often-overlooked phenomenon of fatigue from a phenomenological perspective, emphasizing its distinctiveness from other states such as suffering and joy. Lacoste argues that fatigue, while a daily experience, reveals a unique mode of being-in-the-world that is not adequately captured by the notion of “everydayness” in a phenomenological sense. He explores how fatigue disrupts conventional temporalities, highlighting its subversive centrality of the present, distinct from the temporality of joy or suffering. The author also contrasts the world revealed in fatigue with the world of suffering, asserting that fatigue exposes a fundamental truth of existence by stripping away illusions and bringing us into contact with the raw reality of being. He further connects fatigue to spiritual life, suggesting that it can deepen our experience of prayer and existence before God. Ultimately, Lacoste posits that fatigue accomplishes a form of work by reducing us to bare existence, challenging the traditional valorization of labor and highlighting the vulnerability and essential truth of the human condition. This text invites a reconsideration of the role of fatigue in our understanding of existence and spiritual life.

This paper approaches Peter Handke’s “Essay on Tiredness” through the lens of phenomenology. Tiredness here is not treated as a marginal theme, but as a complex existential experience in which affectivity, embodiment, temporality, and sociality are all at stake. In dialogue with Levinas, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty, I follow Handke’s text across ten sequences: from the frightening tiredness of childhood to its creative, erotic, contemplative, epic, and finally fundamental forms. These sequences show how tiredness unsettles the ordinary bearings of subjectivity and reshapes the way the world is encountered – sometimes drawing the self into isolation, sometimes opening it to unexpected forms of relation. One might even say that Handke’s concern is therefore not with tiredness as a symptom of physical depletion, but with its power to disclose the world, to let being itself come to appearance. Seen in this light, tiredness becomes a phenomenological operator that places the self in a state of radical receptivity. At this point Handke’s meditation touches on what recent discussions have called ontological-existential exhaustion: not collapse into nothingness, but an exhaustion of being that allows new modes of presence to emerge.

Primul indiciu al importanței unui text filozofic este capacitatea sa de a iradia mult după ce primul val al receptării sale a tre- cut. Un astfel de text este Scrisoarea despre „umanism“, adresată de Martin Heidegger lui Jean Beaufret în 1946 și publicată în anul imediat următor. În pofida dimensiunilor sale întrucâtva reduse, acest text rămâne în spațiul filozofiei europene o lucrare esențială, care ne provoacă în continuare, la mai bine de 70 de ani de la apariția sa, prin densitatea temelor sale și prin forța sa meditativă. Pornind de la întrebarea centrală adresată de Beaufret (Comment redonner un sens au mot „humanisme“?), Heidegger arată că analitica existențială din Ființă și timp (1927) nu poate fi redusă la temele curente ale existențialismului francez (intrând astfel în dispută cu eseul lui Sartre apărut în 1946: L’existentialisme est un humanisme) și aduce astfel în discuție problemele filozofice care domină cea de-a doua etapă a gândirii sale. Tocmai pentru a sublinia importanța acestui text heideggerian, studiile cuprin- se în acest volum, care pornesc în mare parte de la conferința organizată de Societatea Română de Fenomenologie în 2017 la Facultatea de Filozofie a Universității din București, abordează fiecare în parte câte o temă centrală a Scrisorii despre „umanism“, asumând ca titlu câte un citat din acest text. Studiile sunt grupate în trei secțiuni – (i) Gândire, acțiune, techne; (ii) Diferența antropologică: omul și animalul; (iii) Ființă și gândire –, fiecare dintre acestea cuprinzând câte trei articole.

This article develops a phenomenological account of fatigue as an existential phenomenon rooted in the dynamics of human effort and temporality. Rather than treating fatigue as a medical or psychological condition, the analysis focuses on how it discloses the limits of our capacity to act and the layered temporality of lived experience. Drawing on the work of Jean-Louis Chrétien, Jean-Yves Lacoste, and Emmanuel Levinas, fatigue is understood as a process that unfolds across distinct phases—from engagement and sustained effort to collapse, exhaustion, and sedimentation—ultimately marking a shift from power to powerlessness. Beyond the binary of physical versus mental exhaustion, fatigue is shown to affect the structure of the self, inscribing itself through repetition and non-recovery. In this way, the experience of fatigue becomes a lens for understanding human finitude, not only as limitation, but as the condition from which rest, recovery, and a possible renewal of agency may arise.

In this paper, I discuss about two major Romanian philosophers: Constantin Noica and Alexandru Dragomir. I narrate their spectacular biographies, in order to show how powerful can be the resistance through philosophy, even in the hard times of political totalitarianism, as they were, for the Eastern Europe, under the communist dictatorship. It is true that Noica and Dragomir are two of the most infl uential personalities for the history of phenomenology in Romania. However, their lives also seem to be exemplary for the philosophical life as such, which reveals its intrinsic value when facing the asperities of misfortune.

This introduction to the special issue _Phenomenology and the Limits of Experience_ explores the complex relationship between phenomenology and the notion of limits. The discussion examines how phenomenology delineates the boundaries of experience while simultaneously encountering methodological, epistemological, and existential limits. The introduction situates limit-phenomena—such as unconscious processes, affectivity, violence, and intersubjective alterity—within phenomenology’s evolving framework, highlighting their role in expanding its methodological horizon.

Vilém Flusser’s chiro-phenomenology fills an essential gap in scholarship by expanding and reinterpreting the ontological significance of gestures, focusing on the hand as a crucial site for understanding the embodied nature of human existence. This article explores Flusser’s unique contribution to the phenomenology of the hand, highlighting why his approach is necessary for a fuller understanding of gesture and embodiment. I begin by emphasizing the relevance of the hand in understanding gestures, arguing that phenomenology provides rich resources for this inquiry. Within the phenomenological tradition, two distinct perspectives emerge: Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, who concentrate on the perceptive and kinesthetic dimensions of the hand, and Heidegger and Levinas, who explore its ontological significance, viewing the hand as essential to human existence. I position Flusser within this ontological framework but show how he departs from his predecessors by developing an original manual approach that centers on the ‘gesture of making.’ By analyzing the eleven constitutive moments of this gesture, I demonstrate how Flusser’s chiro-phenomenology views gestures not only as expressive or communicative acts but as fundamental possibilities for human being-in-the-world. His work thus offers a crucial extension of phenomenology’s understanding of the body and action.

In this paper, I explore the bodily constitution of violence from a phenomenological perspective, contrasting the directly lived experience of violence with imagistic violence. The analysis involves examining one’s own embodiment from the first-person perspective in two distinct situations: as the agent of violence, anchored in one’s own “I can”, and as a passive victim, marked by vulnerability and helplessness. Each situation reveals specific particularities of the other’s adversity. The final section transitions to the imagistic experience of violence, discussing how bodily markers are modified in this context. Using Kubrick’s iconic film A Clockwork Orange as an example, I illustrate the shift in bodily structures and the implications of imagistic violence.

The aim of this article is to explore the question of the limits of experience in light of the phenomenology of violence. I begin by emphasizing the specificity of the phenomenological concept of pre-theoretical experience, in contrast with the traditional concept of experience dominated by theoretical and epistemological motives. Consequently, I underscore that violence can be phenomenologically understood only as a lived experience, given in the first person, belonging to an embodied subject, and placed in an antagonistic intersubjective situation. In order to question how the lived experience of violence discloses the limits of experience, I focus on the concept of the limit and discuss its relevance to phenomenological thought, referring to the limits of phenomenology, limit-problems, limit-phenomena, and limit-situations. I then show that we can differentiate between normal and liminal modes of experience, but we are also dealing with a multitude of levels of experience (visual, auditory, tactile, embodied, affective, intersubjective, comprehensive, and discursive), each of which has its own specific limits. I conclude by analyzing how the phenomenon of violence delineates the limits of experience at each of these levels.

Cet ouvrage est la première monographie systématique d'expression française dédiée exclusivement au problème heideggérien de la mort. Il se donne pour tâche de clarifier tout l'enjeu de cette question capitale de la pensée de Martin Heidegger. La nouveauté de cette étude réside dans une approche systématique et précise de Sein und Zeit, à partir d'une clarification rigoureuse de la notion d'Existenzial, en interprétant le problème de la mort dans l'articulation des structures fondamentales de l'être du Dasein. Cette approche permet non seulement d'expliciter les différentes couches ontologiques où intervient le phénomène de la mort dans l'analytique existentiale, mais aussi de mettre en lumière la rigueur de l'analyse heideggérienne et la systématicité de sa démarche. En outre, cette investigation explore l'intégralité de la pensée de Heidegger : des écrits de jeunesse jusqu'aux textes les plus tardifs, l'ouvrage retrace non seulement la genèse complexe de cette question, mais aussi son évolution arborescente.

Dans cet article, je propose une exploration du phénomène du témoignage. Mon but est de montrer que la perspective phénoménologique rend possible une approche intégrative du témoignage, compris comme un phénomène qui engage la structure existentielle du sujet, articulant les relations entre langage, présence, mémoire, vérité et temporalité. Le témoin n’est pas seulement celui qui témoigne, mais d’abord celui qui affronte, dans sa présence expérientielle, un événement dont le sens est bouleversant et institue ainsi le sujet comme témoin : soit comme « témoin endurant » si l’enjeu est d’abord le soi le plus propre du témoin, ou comme « témoin oculaire»s’il s’agit principalement de l’autre. Le témoignage trouve sa signification particulière dans la tension qui se creuse entre le pôle ontologique, où le témoin est compris comme « être là » en présence de l’événement sur le plan expérientiel, et le pôle herméneutique, où le témoin est convoqué devant les autres au niveau du langage. Une autre différence doit être tracée entre le « témoin-confessant », lorsque le témoignage porte précisément sur ce que le témoin a enduré soi-même, et le « témoin-tiers », dont le témoignage porte sur ce que l’on a principalement observé sans le subir soi-même.

Intitulé Lectures de Jean-Luc Marion et composé d'une vingtaine d'articles, le volume assume l'équivocité d'une mise en abîme : lire Marion dans sa propre lecture de la philosophie. Montrer à l'oeuvre le dialogue du philosophe avec l'histoire de la philosophie constitue en effet le pari de ce livre, pari qui fait fond sur l'idée que tel est le chemin même de la philosophie et que ceci est en outre l'accès le plus respectueux que nous pouvons avoir à une oeuvre s'accomplissant sous nos yeux. De Grégoire de Nysse et Denys l'Aréopagite à Derrida, en passant par Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche, Husserl et Heidegger, la pensée de Marion embrasse, approfondit, reprend et réfute les thèmes fondateurs de la métaphysique et de la phénoménologie. L'oeuvre entière de Marion est traversée par sa lecture personnelle et novatrice de la philosophie. Elle se construit en dialogue avec les textes classiques et rend en même temps compte des grands débats théoriques de l'époque qu'elle traverse. Le dialogue est d'ailleurs privilégié aussi dans ce volume, Jean-Luc Marion répondant aux auteurs des études qui lui sont consacrées."--Page 4 of cover.

RésuméDans cet article, j'analyse deux approches du phénomène du geste, tel qu'il est constitué par l'incarnation, l'intersubjectivité, l'affectivité et le langage : tandis que Martin Heidegger affirme que le mouvement corporel humain dans son ensemble doit être compris comme geste par opposition au mouvement spatial des choses, Vilém Flusser intègre sous cette notion une multitude de pratiques et d'activités humaines que le sens commun hésite à appeler gestes. Le dilemme de la phénoménologie du geste consiste dans cette tension entre la concrétude plurielle des apparences gestuelles et la tentation irrépressible d'identifier une couche unitaire qui leur permettrait de tenir ensemble.

At the beginning of his philosophical career (between 1918 and 1921), the young Heidegger analyzed various texts belonging to the field of the religious tradition: the Pauline Epistles, Augustinian writings and texts of the medieval mystics. Through these analyses, Heidegger formalized certain phenomena that we can find, a few years later, in Being and Time, illustrating the “warm” line of the existential analytic, the pathetic level of the ontology of Dasein: anxiety, death, consciousness, and guilt. My paper focuses on this process of ontologization of phenomena belonging to religious life, namely on the awaiting of Parousia which is used to elaborate the futural structure of being towards death. I finally argue that the keyword for the understanding of the phenomenological transfer from the religious life to the ontology of Dasein is the methodological idea of “formal indication”, whose meaning and role must be clarified.