The creativity of life: Husserl, Henry and beyond

Abstract

This work investigates the nature of transcendental subjectivity, and whether and how the subject can endeavour to know and attest to its absolute foundation with its essential structures. Towards this end, I take up the respective transcendental projects of Edmund Husserl and Michel Henry. I argue that while Henry’s identification of transcendental subjectivity with the bodily life of the subject helps further our understanding of these matters as initially laid out in Husserl, his position requires revision, as it points toward, but fails to sufficiently develop, the finite (intentional) and destructive character of the phenomenological life of the living individual. Accordingly, I contend that transcendental subjectivity can be understood neither as an absolute consciousness (Husserl), nor as a divine, a-cosmic flesh (Henry), but must be acknowledged as nothing other than the finite, embodied person in her ineluctable bond with the world, one which harbours both life and death drives. In light of this finding, I suggest that the living subject can most fully come to know and attest to the foundation of her being not only through the practice of phenomenology, but through other forms of culture such as art, ethics and science as well.