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Abstract: Space and Body Experienced from the Cosmological Viewpoint. Eugen Fink and Renaud Barbaras The article addresses the question of the relationship between the phenomenological and the cosmological perspectives on space: space is the encompassing, it gives place and is centered in and through the embodiment of those who perceive in space. Does the oriented character of space, experienced in this manner, bind or separate cosmology and phenomenology? There exists a radical break between the two approaches, which the article pursues selectively in Fink’s university lectures, from early as 1945 onwards. Barbaras, on the contrary, proceeds from phenomenology, even if he moves more and more clearly beyond the Husserlian dualist framework of the universal correlation between consciousness and the world, in order to think the world itself. The article seeks to capture the common features and to understand the differences between the two cosmological perspectives regarding the origin of space, from their shared phenomenological provenance to the philosophical inspirations that separate them.
Keywords: phenomenology, embodiment, cosmology, space
Published in DiRROS: 25.10.2024; Views: 93; Downloads: 29
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Abstract: With Fink at Table. On Eugen Fink’s Philosophy of Sociality Fink’s philosophy of sociality does not start from the experience of the individual other, but from the primacy of participation in the same world. Fink unfolds this idea in the context of material culture, that is, in his analysis of how we interact with everyday things, such as tables. Such things are not merely objects of use, but can become “meaningful things” that symbolically represent our existence, and they represent it as a fundamentally shared existence. The essay draws attention to the fact that not all sharing, as Fink claims, provides unity. Reference is made to Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the table and the world, which, like Fink, holds that human dependence on objects is essential, with the difference that she ascribes both unifying and separating significance to objects and the world. In the conclusion, some critical observations on Fink are made. Fink did not reflect on the ambiguity in the concept of sharing, and his claim that sharing establishes communal unity is thus rather unfounded. Further, his conviction that philosophy of sociality is based on the cosmological concept of the world is viewed in a critical light, since it tempts one to assume a unity of the world, which, however, is never guaranteed in advance.
Keywords: Fink, sociality, table, world, Arendt
Published in DiRROS: 25.10.2024; Views: 78; Downloads: 18
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Abstract: Labor as a Worldly Relation. Approaches to Fink’s Fundamental Phenomenon of Labor This paper makes an attempt in exploring the relationship between world and labor in Fink’s philosophy. Although Fink considered labor as a “human basic phenomenon,” the worldliness of labor remains unevolved. I suppose that Fink implicitly deals with this matter in his reflections upon labor and nature. Hence, this paper examines Fink’s critical stance towards the traditional notion of labor/nature and his alternative proposition: “wilderness.” An analysis of the latter shows that labor does not simply create products (artificial objects), but regional ontologies (“Seiendheiten”) of the natural and artificial as such. In so doing, labor reveals itself as an ontological activity. I propose that “wilderness” is governed by an eminent but unthematized spatial sense, which will be unfolded by interpreting “wilderness” as a frontier, thus pondering the limitations of both labor and entities as such. The application of the concept of “Umwelt” enables us to approach labor’s worldliness.
Keywords: labor, nature, world, wilderness, human being
Published in DiRROS: 25.10.2024; Views: 70; Downloads: 18
Full text (389,43 KB)

Abstract: Place-World and World-Space. Eugen Fink and Philosophy of Place in Discussion The article attempts to bring Eugen Fink’s understanding of space into a discussion with newer approaches in phenomenology and hermeneutics, which expressly focus on the notion of place. With regard to the observation that philosophy of place has as yet only scarcely referred to Eugen Fink the question arises how could it profit from a confrontation with Fink’s cosmology. Upon an introductory deliberation concerning some of the fundamentals of Edward Casey’s and Jeff Malpas’s philosophy of space, we elaborate the central aspects of Fink’s comprehension of space, in order to accentuate the common characteristics and differences between his understanding and the recent research orientation. By contrasting in this manner Fink’s cosmological thinking with the topological thinking of the philosophy of space, can with the inclusion of Fink’s notion of anthropological and social spatiality a research field be outlined, which could impart onto philosophy of place a potential practical dimension.
Keywords: space, place, world, cosmology, topology
Published in DiRROS: 25.10.2024; Views: 81; Downloads: 21
Full text (401,89 KB)

Published in DiRROS: 25.10.2024; Views: 64; Downloads: 17
Full text (309,25 KB)