Pathos and Praxis: An Integrated Phenomenology of Life

Pathos and Praxis: The Phenomenology of Life in Michel Henry and Paul Ricouer presents a new and original framework for a dualistic integrated phenomenology of life. It provides the first comparative study of two influential French philosophers, Paul Ricoeur and Michel Henry, and shows that their debates over the interpretation of Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx signal two rival approaches to the phenomenology of life. Author Scott Davidson demonstrates that while Henry reveals the phenomenological meaning of life through an inward turn to a pure subjective feeling of being alive, Ricoeur anchors its significance in the reciprocal interaction between the self and the world. But these two alternatives are not necessarily opposed. Pathos and Praxis proposes an integrated phenomenology of life to which both Henry and Ricoeur make an important contribution. To be a self is to suffer the pathos of "having a life" but also to be capable of engaging in the praxis of "leading a life." By thinking the pathos and praxis of life together, the integrated approach preserves human agency against deterministic conceptions of life and at the same time avoids the meritocratic hubris that depicts one's life solely as the result of one's own doing. This integration of having and leading a life reframes our thinking about human capabilities and vulnerabilities in a way that has important implications for biopolitics and the ethics of life. Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Life as Pathos and Praxis 1. From a Phenomenology of Consciousness to a Phenomenology of Life 2. Birth: The Pathos of Being-in-Life 3. Movement: The Force of Life and the Biranian Philosophy of Effort 4. Desire: The Henry-Ricoeur Debate over Freud 5. Praxis: The Henry-Ricoeur Debate over Marx 6. Language: Words of Life and the Living Word 7. Death: Being-towards-Life and the “Life after Life” 8. For an Integrated Phenomenology of Life Notes Bibliography Index