Felix O'Murchadha. Ronny Miron.

Описание: These are the plenary talks from the Exploratory Workshop "Experience and Non-Objects" of the Society for the Phenomenology of Religious Experience hosted by the Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center at Duquesne University on October 28-30. 2024.

Phenomenology and Metaphysics of World: On the Ontological Status of Horizon
Felix O’Murchadha, University of Galway
The core claim of this paper is that the ‘matter of concern (Sache)’ of Phenomenology is ‘world’ and hence all phenomenology is in the end a phenomenology of world. Objects are worldly in the sense that they are constituted horizonally. The appearing of an object refers to an infinity of hori-zons of that object and those horizons of appearance are always already in relation to the appearing of other entities in the world. What this means is that no consciousness (not even god’s) can corre-spond to the being of the object. All such correspondence is partial and incomplete. The corre-spondences that phenomenology articulates do not amount to complete descriptions, but rather are important precisely in that they fail. But this failure is characteristic of experience itself, as it indi-cates its constitutive openness, that is its directedness towards a non-object: world. In exploring the ever- retreating phenomenon of ‘horizon’, we recognize that it is never the object of intentional consciousness, not alone because it is indistinct, but because it is radically incommensurate with all determinability. Horizon is rather the openness that makes not alone the object of perception possi-ble but also any perceiving of that object. This is the fundamental exposure of subjectivity with re-spect to world: to perceive is already to be constituted horizontally. To understand this situation correctly we need to recognize the being of the perceiving entity to be fundamentally a locative one and its relation to the world to be rooted in its instinctive life. Such instinctive life is both a primal fact of animal being and is constituted through the happening of world that transcends itself infi-nitely. The horizon as a pivotal hinge between finitude and infinitude is thus best understood in re-lation to desire.

The Reality of the Invisible: The Phenomenology of Invisibility in H. Conrad-Martius’ Meta-physical Realism
Ronny Miron, Bar-Ilan University
The suggested paper will present and explore three forms of invisibility discussed in the thinking of the realist phenomenologist Hedwig Conrad-Martius (1888-1966): The primordial nothingness of Being, the selflessness of the I-being (ichhafte Sein), and Transcendence. The first concerns the inception of Being in nothingness that is preserved as abyss depth and maintained as an essential end awaiting any finite being. The second refers to the human spiritual being manifested as "infra-stasis" (Infrastase), thus indicating the capability of the I to totally empty oneself via self-elevation above, outside, and beyond itself outwardly to something other than itself. The third element of transcendence is displayed as possessing an indisputable stance in mundane reality that is first ex-perienced by humans via the external world. To this extent, the ontological phenomenology of the external world lays the foundation of the phenomenology of transcendence. In this regard, the I is displayed as bearer (Träger) of a certain natural situation of transcendence in the sense that "no specific act of some sort or executing 'salto mortale' is needed" on its part. Thereby, the elucidation of the I-being within the phenomenology of transcendence is necessitated. Certainly, none of the indicated forms of invisibility responds to the form of an object. However, the discussion will il-luminate the unique path taken by Conrad-Martius' phenomenology, in which Husserl's method of 'essence intuition' appears to be elaborated into an 'object-less intuition' capable of responding to 'invisible non-objects'. Furthermore, the proposed analysis will strive to draw the webs that are be-ing woven, connecting between the related forms of invisibility discussed in Conrad-Martius' writ-ings. Finally, 'nothingness', 'selflessness' and 'transcendence' will be established as indispensable milestones on the path of evolution from phenomenological realism to metaphysics.