Tomas Sinkunas

This paper presents a phenomenological analysis of discarding in the private sphere. I argue that neither perceived deterioration nor the designation of an object as trash constitutes the essential structure of discarding. What is essential is the apprehension of a negative relation between materiality and the order of the private sphere – a relation that initiates the value judgement that an object becomes to-be-discarded and culminates in expulsion. The analysis identifies three essential elements of the experience of discarding in the private sphere, but also accounts for two key moments: prevention and habitualization. Things, within the context of waste are under constant valuation. Trash, within the private sphere, is ultimately “experienced” as an absence formed around an expectation of cleanliness that is enforced by habitualized rituals of cleaning.

Today, scholars struggle to provide a coherent account of the unique, unitary structure of disgust as portrayed in Aurel Kolnai’s essay On Disgust. And even though Kolnai stressed that ambivalence was the main challenge in accounting for the essence the phenomenon, it had yet to receive its proper treatment by scholars. In this paper, I highlight the importance of the constitutive elements of disgust in establishing a structurally coherent, unitary, originary sense of the phenomenon. By highlighting and elucidating the connections between Kolnai’s account of ambivalence, double intention and life and death, I am able to evince several key misconceptions of his theory, and thereby comprehensively account for the unitary structure of disgust.

In spite of the many important findings made within the theory of emotions, scholars still struggle to coherently account for the unique structure of disgust or determine its essence. In contrast to much of the contemporary literature on disgust, I aim to show that, through employing the phenomenological method in his 1929 essay “Disgust” (Der Ekel), Aurel Kolnai was able to grasp the real significance of the phenomenon of disgust. The current study aims to clarify and present Kolnai’s insight into the nature of disgust wherein the latter is first and foremost conceived as an ambivalent, multifaceted, but coherent phenomenon. Namely, as a defense mechanism that reacts against the proximity of a disturbing object charged with an ambiguous value of confusion that fluctuates between surplus of life and intention towards death. In order to achieve this goal, I present Kolnai’s notion of disgust by first focusing on the foreground of the phenomena of disgust: the essential features of the intentional content of disgust, the object of disgust in particular. I then present and analyze the life-death complex as the underlying structures of the visceral sense of disgust. Lastly, I show how the life-death complex relates to the visceral sense of disgust, thereby affirming the coherence of disgust.