Robert Lehmann

This essay approaches the problem of identity through the figure of the homo clausus. Beginning with debates on personal identity and its contemporary fragility, it turns to the individual as the site where identity is articulated in cultural and social forms. Simmel’s sociology grounds individuality in reciprocal interaction, whereas his philosophy of culture tends to elevate a form of heroic inwardness. Ultimately, viewed through the lens of pure interaction – above all the play of sociability – the closed self appears less as an insulated entity than as one constituted through mutual attunement.

Der Beitrag versucht, Grundzüge einer phänomenologischen Propädeutik zu ermitteln, in der nicht das Fremde, sondern zunächst ein horror vacui als Herausforderung interkulturellen Philosophierens zur Geltung kommt. Entlang der Intuition entschiedener Selbstentfremdung, wie sie sich im Philosophieren Eugen Finks und Max Schelers findet, wird dazu eine Schwelle menschlichen Erlebens thematisch, auf der man zwischen Eigenes und Fremdes gerät. Da, wo Phänomenologie als besondere Weise bewussten Erlebens ernst genommen wird, ermöglicht sie, den Grund unserer Behaglichkeit gegenüber solchen Theorien fragwürdig werden zu lassen, in der sich Eigen- und Fremdkultur zueinander in ein konfrontatives oder kommunikatives Verhältnis setzen lassen.

The question of Self-awareness is one of the key challenges of philosophical research. Phenomenological studies in particular should not rush towards making Self-awareness the object of conceptual provisions. Before such an endeavor they must accept the task of experiencing this phenomenon in a methodically reflected way. The present study shows that the phenomenologies of Husserl, Sartres, and Merleau-Ponty are theoretically at a loss when faced with this task. For the Advaita-Vedānta, in turn, the quandary this task provides is the prerequisite and motive of its philosophical praxis. By means of the concept of impersonal subjectivity, those moments of Self-awareness are thus identified, which are accessible from a phenomenological perspective. But against the background of a vedāntic system they allow for a recapitulation of phenomenological theorizing.

A non-dual ontology of Self shares the difficulty of any systematic order: it has presuppositions that it cannot represent within its system. For most theoretical concerns, this problem is trivial. For the non-dual philosophies of Śaṅkara and Nishitani, on the other hand, it points to a central aspect: their thinking rests on a radical turn of experience whose existential dimension cannot be represented in their propositions but can very well be expressed. Along the relationship between personality and impersonality, the contribution will trace this expression and thus point to the fruitful superfluity of a non-dual philosophy that can be exhausted neither in theory nor in practice.

This paper takes contemporary attempts to engage South and East Asian philosophies regarding their conceptual resources for addressing environmental philosophical problems as an opportunity to discuss the concept of nature within the tradition of classical Advaita Vedānta. Initially, the ambiguity of the European concept of nature and corresponding equivalents in the Indian context are outlined. Subsequently, a widespread interpretation is reconstructed, which regards Śaṅkara’s non-dual Vedānta as an illusionistic variant of akosmian monism and cites this ontology as evidence that such an understanding of nature can only lead to alienation from and contempt for the natural world. Even if this interpretation proves correct under certain conditions, it overlooks the fact that the ambiguity embedded in the Western term “nature”—as the totality of phenomena (jagat, prakṛti, nāmarūpa, māyā) on the one hand, and as the essence of this totality (svabhāva) on the other—in Śaṅkara’s Vedānta does not pertain to an ontological problem but to a methodological strategy of non-dual philosophy.

This paper addresses a common assumption in Horkheimer’s early critical thinking and Husserl’s late transcendental phenomenology. Though diverging in their approaches in many respects, both Husserl and Horkheimer consider a cultivated self- relation vital to succeed in their philosophical endeavors. Both critical behavior and transcendental- phenomenological self- reflection presuppose a certain competence to stand through rather intimate conflict in one’s own experience. Such a relationship to oneself harbors not only knowledge but the chance to human maturity.

This volume presents, for the first time, an assemblage of contributions on the philosophical dimensions of the impersonal, the multiplicity of its linguistic, social, scientific, religious and artistic perspectives, as well as initial approaches to its unified definition. Linguistic and logical impersonality: The “It" in K. Kraus “Impersonality” in the subject and in events The impersonal ontology of H. Rombach Levinas on the “Il y a” Organisation in non-egological consciousness The witness of consciousness in the Vedānta traditions Anonymous self-consciousness G. Deleuzes figures of the impersonal The impersonal in G. Agamben's Philosophy Formal and collective thought in Spinoza Cusanus and the person as stake in the game of life Impersonal subjectivity and the comedy of solipsism Dimensions of the impersonal in T. Nagel, E. Husserl and H. Plessner On the figure of the impersonal in the Anthropocene Language and mask in F. Nietzsche Theodoros Terzopoulos on impersonality and theatre With contributions by Michael Astroh, Eric Ebner, Eric Eggert, Rolf Elberfeld, Katrin Felgenhauer, Ralf Gisinger, Annika Hand, Stefan Lang, Robert Lehmann, Enrico Müller, Daniel Neumann, Frank Raddatz, Christian Rößner, Thomas Schmaus, Fabian Strobel and Theodoros Terzopoulos.

The paper examines the significance of embarrassment for a concept of political publicity. It is critical of how the common interpretation of this apparently social phenomenon as a “milder form of shame” leads to a functionalist interpretation. According to this interpretation, embarrassment regulates given normative structures by initiating or even motivating self-criticism. In contrast, the article shows, first, that embarrassment cannot occur at all in a public sphere that is thought of exclusively in normative terms, and second, that the phenomenon is primordially not reflexive. In embarrassment, one is not immediately “thrown back on oneself” but tries to find a relation to one’s public figure. A philosophical reflection on this pursuit reveals the constitution of normative structures. In this light, embarrassment presents itself as a genuinely political phenomenon.