The Michel Henry Reader


Book Description

From beginning to end, the philosophy of Michel Henry offers an original and profound reflection on life. Henry challenges the conventional understanding of life as a set of natural processes and a general classification of beings. Maintaining that our access to the meaning of life has been blocked by naturalism as well as by traditional philosophical assumptions, Henry carries out an enterprise that can rightfully be called “radical.” His phenomenology leads back to the original dimension of life—to a reality that precedes and conditions the natural sciences and even objectivity as such. The Michel Henry Reader is an indispensable resource for those who are approaching Henry for the first time as well as for those who are already familiar with his work. It provides broad coverage of the major themes in his philosophy and new translations of Henry’s most important essays. Sixteen chapters are divided into four parts that demonstrate the profound implications of Henry’s philosophy of life: for phenomenology; for subjectivity; for politics, art, and language; and for ethics and religion.




Barbarism


Book Description

Barbarism represents a critique, from the perspective of Michel Henry's unique philosophy of life, of the increasing potential of science and technology to destroy the roots of culture and the value of the individual human being. For Henry, barbarism is the result of a devaluation of human life and culture that can be traced back to the spread of quantification, the scientific method and technology over all aspects of modern life. The book develops a compelling critique of capitalism, technology and education and provides a powerful insight into the political implications of Henry's work. It also opens up a new dialogue with other influential cultural critics, such as Marx, Husserl, and Heidegger. First published in French in 1987, Barbarism aroused great interest as well as virulent criticism. Today the book reveals what for Henry is a cruel reality: the tragic feeling of powerlessness experienced by the cultured person. Above all he argues for the importance of returning to philosophy in order to analyse the root causes of barbarism in our world.




I Am the Truth


Book Description

A part of the "return to religion" now evident in European philosophy, this book represents the culmination of the career of a leading phenomenologist who investigates the multiple kinds of truth associated with Christianity.




Material Phenomenology


Book Description

This book is Michel Henry's most sustained investigation of Husserlian phenomenology. With painstaking detail and precision, Henry reveals the decisive methodological assumptions that led Husserlian phenomenology in the direction of Idealism. Returning to the materiality of life, Henry's material phenomenology situates central phenomenological themes--intentionality, temporality, embodiment, and intersubjectivity--within the full concreteness of life. One of the most accessible of Henry's books, Material Phenomenology is essential reading for those interested in the future of phenomenology or in a philosophy of life in the truest sense.




Michel Henry


Book Description

This book is a timely introduction in English to one of the most wide-ranging and imaginative philosophical projects of the last fifty years. It offers close readings of the main themes of Michel Henry's philosophy, a philosophy that has produced some of the most devastating critiques of phenomenology, Freudianism, and Marxism in this period. The author's contrasting of Henry's material phenomenology with Derridean deconstruction extends the range of recent critical theory in terms of embodiment and affectivity. In an age of rejuvenated evangelism and fundamentalism, the author's reading of Henry's later work on religion as an extension of his material phenomenology also presents a challenging examination of the foundations of Christian faith and belief. Presented in a clear and straightforward manner, with careful explication of the more difficult passages from Henry, this book also makes accessible to English readers, for the first time since their original publication, many of the texts central to Henry's phenomenology. It should be a welcome resource for researchers in the fields of French phenomenology and the phenomenology of religion.




Seeing the Invisible


Book Description

Provides a unique, philosophical interpretation of a significant twentieth-century painter - Wassily Kandinsky.




Michel Henry


Book Description

An examination of Michel Henry's important contributions to phenomenology, theology, politics and aesthetics, featuring contributions from an international list of scholars.




The Essence of Manifestation


Book Description

This book was born of a refusal, the refusal of the very philosophy from which it has sprung. After the war, when it had become apparent that the classical tradition, and particularly neo-Kantianism, was breathing its last, French thought looked to Germany for its inspiration and renewal. Jean Hyppolite and Kojeve reintroduced Hegel and the "existentialists" and phenomenologists drew the attention of a curious public to the fundamental investigations of Husserl and Heidegger. If only by being understood as a phenomenological ontology, this books speaks eloquently enough of the debt it owes to these thinkers of genius. The conceptual material which it uses, particn1arly in chapters 1 to 44, outlines the Husserlian and Heideggerian horizon of the investigations. However, it is precisely this horizon which is questioned. In spite of its profundity and achievements, I wanted to show that contemporary ontology pushes to the absolute the presuppositions and the limits of the philosophy of consciousness since Descartes and even of all Western philosophy since the Greeks. An 'External' critique, viz. the opposing of one thesis to another, wonld have no sense whatever. Rather, it is interior to these presuppositions whose insufficiency had to be shown that we placed ourselves; the very concepts which were rejected were also the ones which guided the problem initially.




The Contemplative Self After Michel Henry


Book Description

In The Contemplative Self after Michel Henry: A Phenomenological Theology, Joseph Rivera provides a close and critical reconstruction of the philosophical anthropology of Michel Henry (1922-2002) while also addressing the question of how theology contributes to Henry's phenomenology. In conversation with other French figures such as Derrida, Marion, Lacoste, and Barbaras, Rivera undertakes a global thematic study of Henry's work. He shows how, for Henry, the theological debate is shifted onto a phenomenological problem, with a coincident will to pursue the epistemological efforts of Husserl and Heidegger. The chapters tackle some of the most pressing debates in contemporary Continental philosophy, such as the "modern ego," the nature and experience of temporality, and the constitution of the body and otherness, and how a theological discourse may illumine those anthropological structures. The book expands on the modern narrative of the self from Descartes to Nietzsche, opens up the particular lines of inquiry Henry advances in dialogue with those figures and phenomenology in particular, and highlights the surprising theological turns in Henry's late work on Christianity. Because Henry's work is difficult, it is often misunderstood; Rivera's own vision of the self, one that is shaped by Henry but not in full agreement with him, advances insights internal to Henry but also brings into sharp focus many problematic points in Henry's phenomenological theology. An array of classical theological voices appear in the final chapters, such as St. Augustine, Tertullian, Irenaeus, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Gregory of Nyssa, all of whom are set in dialogue with Henry. A fresh and creative articulation of contemplation and selfhood, the volume is a valuable addition to the continuing conversation that seeks to build bridges between phenomenology and theology.




Phenomenology


Book Description

Introduces the history and methods of Phenomenology through the study of four key thinkers: Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty.