Remus Breazu

In this paper, I investigate the possibility of deconstituion in Schopenhauer’s philosophy. The paper is structured as follows: I start from Schopenhauer’s distinction between idea and concept, and I analyse their differences from the points of view of determination, adequacy, genesis, and constitution. Starting from the last, I investigate the characteristic of the idea of being in constant development in the light of the relation between will and the principle of sufficient reason. Finally, I show that there is a metaphysical equivocalness in Schopenhauer's approach, and it is precisely this equivocalness that allows us to talk about the possibility of deconstitution, even though his intentions are different.

In this paper, I examine a deconstitutive experience that may occur in a factical encounter between two egos. This experience has the character of nonsense, or more specifically, the sense-refusal. It is about the impossibility to access the foreign stream of consciousness while gazing at the other’s gaze. In order to show this, the paper has the following structure: First, I discuss the implicit presence of the other ego in all experiences, followed by (ii) Husserl’s analysis of the constitution of the foreign ego in his Cartesian Meditations, starting from which (iii) I analyse the experience of sense refusal in gazing at the other’s gaze. Finally, (iv) I draw attention to a potential misinterpretation of the present analysis.

Suport pentru cursul de „Etică artistică și deontologie academică“, Universitatea de Arte din București. Principiul de organizare este dat de Codul de Etică al UNArte. Cum în acest cod de etică conceptele operatorii sunt cele de integritate și deontologie, prima parte le este dedicată, nu înainte de a explica ce este etica artistică (Cap. 1). După o discuție sumară referitoare la codul de etică universitară (Cap. 2), sunt discutate pe larg două mari problematici care apar în acest cod: este vorba de etica cercetării, care cuprinde o secțiune despre plagiat (Cap. 3) și o secțiune despre practici de redactare a textelor academice (Cap. 4), și drepturile de autor, care cuprinde o secțiune despre drepturile de autor în genere (Cap. 5) și una despre drepturile de autor asupra imaginilor (Cap. 6). Abordarea este una mixtă: pe de o parte, atât sincronică, cât și pe alocuri diacronică, pe de altă parte, în principal descriptivă, dar uneori prescriptivă, în special acolo unde este vorba de a oferi un fel de ghid (în felul în care se fac notele de subsol etc.). Am încercat să scriu acest suport de curs într-o manieră cât mai clară și facilă, profitând de el și pentru a-i familiariza pe studenții de la Universitatea Națională de Arte din București cu diverse distincții filozofice și cu istoria filozofiei, nu doar pentru a le oferi premisele înțelegerii codului de etică, ci și în vederea dezvoltării unei gândiri critice și a unei sensibilități morale.

In this paper, I provide a summary analysis of the soliloquy, starting from Edmund Husserl’s analysis in the Logical Investigations and Jacques Derrida’s interpretation of it. The paper has the following structure: after some introductory remarks on Derrida’s Speech and Phenomena, I present the context of Husserl’s discussion of the soliloquy in the Logical Investigations, and Derrida’s interpretation of it. Building on some limitations that become apparent after Derrida’s lecture, I analyse the monologue in light of Husserl’s actual phenomenological practice and some of his late reflections on the monologue.

In this paper, I argue that the Delphic passage from Plato’s Apology of Socrates (21a-c) can be interpreted in a pre-judicative manner. More exactly, I attempt to show that in Socrates’ encounter with the god’s words one can find the manifestation of a de-constitutive experience. At a higher level, through this interpretation, I attempt to point out some of the aims of a prejudicative hermeneutics. Therefore, the paper has two main parts: (i) a line by line commentary on the Delphic passage through the lens of the pre-judicative hermeneutics, and (ii) some theoretical considerations about the pre-judicative hermeneutics through a seesaw movement relating to the interpretation of the Delphic passage.

In this paper, I analyse Constantin Noica’s interpretation of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment, as presented in Two Introductions and a Passage to Idealism. My aim is to highlight a particular opening of Kant’s aes­thetics that Noica identifies but does not develop further in his later philosophy. To this end, the paper is structured as follows: first, I review the current scholarship on Noica’s Two Introductions and a Passage to Idealism. Second, I discuss the method Noica em­ploys in this work and outline the main points of his argument. Finally, I address some ambiguities that appear at the end of his interpretation and briefly discuss the opening in Kant’s aesthetics that Noica notices but does not explore it further in his later philos­ophy.

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.

As is well known, sense-bestowal (Sinngebung) is a fundamental concept in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. Husserl considers that everything, including nonsense or absurdity, is a result of consciousness’ production of sense. In the following article, I will argue against this thesis. More precisely, I claim that there are experiences that are not characterised by sense-bestowal. These experiences, which, in my view, are directly related to Husserl’s concept of limit-phenomena, can be called sense-withdrawal experiences. In order to show this, the paper has the following structure: First, I will analyse the highly nuanced concept of sense-bestowal, drawing connections to the notion of constitution. Second, I will introduce the concept of limit-phenomena, which I will interpret in terms of sense-refusing experiences. This, in turn, will enable me to delve into the concept of sense-withdrawal, which will serve as the focal point of the final segment of the paper.

In this paper, I analyse Alison Landsberg’s concept of prosthetic memories from a phenomenological perspective. Prosthetic memory, while sharing similarities with both personal and collective memory, is neither exclusively personal nor strictly collective, emerging as a product of new media in mass communication. According to Landsberg, prosthetic memories have four main characteristics: the recaller experiences them as firsthand accounts despite not personally living through the events, these memories often revolve around traumatic events, have a commodified form, and are ethically useful. Using Husserl’s theories on memory consciousness and image consciousness, and contemporary phenomenological research on violence, I provide a phenomenological account for the first three characteristics of prosthetic memory. The key factors contributing to their quasi-personal and quasi-collective nature lie, on the one hand, in the presence of imagistic violence and, on the other hand, in their mass-mediated image character.

In Categories 12 Aristotle gives several meanings of the concept of priority. Since this chapter belongs to what was traditionally called “post-predicaments,” Aristotle’s presentation of priority was rather neglected by commentators. In this paper, I analyse the concept of priority as it is presented by Aristotle in Categories 12. First, I analyse priority with respect to opposites, contraries, and relatives. Second, I investigate each of the five meanings, and I show their inner connection with other concepts from Categories. Furthermore, I show that we can find an additional meaning of priority, which is implicit in Aristotle’s presentation from Categories 12.

The main goal of this paper is to interpret the experience of attempting to think one’s own death, an experience which is de-constitutive. The second goal is to show that this experience may be the ground of some paradoxical philosophical concepts, such as the Aristotelian concept of prime matter. In the first part of the paper,(i) it is laid out the phenomenological concept of constitution. In the second part of the paper,(ii) it is laid out the Heideggerian concept of being into death. Starting from here,(iii) constitution and death are brought together, in order to enfold (iv) the question of one’s own death, which is something different from being into death. The analysis is deepened through (v) the interpretation of the temporality of this experience. Last,(vi) it is suggested the similarity to the experience brought by the attempt to think prime matter.

The paper aims to give a phenomenological account of the way in which the experience of violence is modified in the aesthetic images. The phenomenological framework in which I place my analysis is primarily given by Edmund Husserl’s conception. The investigation starts from the curious fact that violence cannot be aesthetically experienced when it is presented in person, but it can be aesthetically experienced in images. I claim that the reason for this asymmetry lies in the structure of image-consciousness, that is, in the differences between the physical thing, the depicting object and the depicted subject. Given that the image-consciousness presupposes the background of the physical thing, which is constantly and implicitly aimed by the consciousness, it is possible to focus only on the manner in which the depicted violence appears. In this way, we can aesthetically contemplate a violent scene without being disturbed by it. To show this, I bring forth a brief presentation of the a priori structure of (i) image-consciousness and (ii) aesthetic attitude, as they have been theorised by Husserl. After (iii) providing a minimal concept of violence and explaining some of the modifications that violence undergoes in image-consciousness, (iv) I show how violence is modified in aesthetic images.

In this article, I address the question of violence with respect to the phenomenological difference between the transcendental and the empirical field. In the first part, I phenomenologically address the notion of violence, developing a concept required for an account of the phenomenon of violence. Thus, I correlate it with the notion of vulnerability, arguing that violence cannot be understood irrespective of vulnerability. However, a proper phenomenological account has to indicate the subjective conditions of possibility of a phenomenon as it is given in experience. Therefore, we should ask: what is the status of violence when we are talking about the transcendental field? This question leads to the second part of my article, where I address the notion of violence from the perspective of the difference between the pure and the empirical ego, as it has been traced out by Husserl. If from the point of view of an empirical ego the concept of violence is meaningful, from the point of view of the transcendental ego it seems to be absurd. This is particularly significant, because Husserl is talking about the transcendental ego as being immortal. The pure ego is thus invulnerable and this means that violence—understood from the point of view of both the violating subject and the violated one—is something that cannot be linked to the transcendental field. The question that arises—how is violence possible on the empirical level, since it is impossible on the transcendental level?—is a question to which Husserl cannot respond.

This article accounts for Heidegger’s phenomenological concept of violence from the period of Being and Time. Violence is relevant for Heidegger in two different contexts: (i) methodological, where we speak of hermeneutic violence, and (ii) thematic, where we should speak of existential violence. The former is grounded in the latter. In the first part of the article, I analyze hermeneutic violence, showing that this concept is ambiguous, and one has to distinguish between two different meanings of it. In the second part of the article, I show that at the core of the original sense lies the existential violence of bursting out of senselessness. In the final part, I contextualize Heidegger’s concept in light of the contemporary phenomenological developments of the phenomenon of violence, showing that existential violence is constitutive and has the peculiar character of being at the same time sense-destroying and sense-making.