Eugen Fink and French Phenomenology

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Alexander Schnell
• Subject Area: History of Philosophy
• Term: from 2021 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 452174347

• Final Report Year: 2024

Final Report Abstract

Eugen Fink (1905–1975) was not only an important co-worker of Husserl and a student and colleague of Heidegger but has also developed his own phenomenological approach. While Husserl’s philosophical interest is focused on the difference between natural and transcendental subjectivity and Heidegger, through Being, is concerned with the “ontological difference”, at the heart of Fink’s thought stands the “cosmological difference”. World, in its dual character, on the one hand means the world in the human being (existential concept of the world) and, on the other hand, addresses the world as that which we are unable to grasp as an object of experience, but to which we still relate as a wholeness (cosmological concept of the world). The project evaluates the role and significance of Fink’s original approach for the phenomenological movement outside of Germany. Here, it focuses on France, where the movement found a fertile ground after the Second World War. Fink’s originality is not only evident in the historical aspects of his reception, but also in its after-effects visible in some of the most original strands of research of contemporary phenomenology. In our project, we structure the reconstruction and analysis of these motifs around two big thematical axes: phenomenological cosmology and methodology. These axes enable us to integrate further research areas which are connected to Fink’s specific approach. The partial projects are connected by the goal of investigating Fink’s reception in contemporary phenomenology, be it with regards to his influence on different thinkers (such as Derrida, Henry, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, Patočka, Richir) or the relevance of his thinking for a renewal of phenomenology. The investigation of some of the non-phenomenological sources of Fink’s thought (Fichte, Hegel und Nietzsche) further enables us to point towards different limits of the classical phenomenological approach. – Alexander Schnell’s project focuses both on different concept connected to the method developed by Fink as well as on their current influence on phenomenology. The projects of C. Nielsen, K. Novotný and H. R. Sepp revolve around Fink’s cosmology. They investigate his notion of cosmological difference, his cosmology’s influence on French phenomenology as well as its relation to the fleshly experience of the world and the me-ontic dimension of world. Through different phenomena, L. Niemann opens a dialogue between Fink and Levinas, in which he is interested in the close interwovenness of ontological and anthropological questions. – In addition to these theoretical goals, institutional work is another of the project’s central aims. Through the Eugen Fink-Zentrum Wuppertal (founded in 2019), it aims to establish an infrastructure that provides optimal visibility to Fink research in Europe and facilitates the connection with international colleagues/colleagues from international universities.

Publications

• „Tag, Nacht, Zwielicht. Eine Annäherung an Fink und Levinas“, in: Annäherungen – Approaches – Rapprochements (= PHAINOMENA. Journal of Phe- nomenology and Hermeneutics 31|122–123, 2022/2) 93–122
  Niemann, Lutz
  
• Jan Patočka and French Phenomenology. Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, 29(1-2), 1-21.
  Novotný, Karel
  
• „Es selbst. Anonymes Subjekt bei Nishida“, in: H. R. Sepp (ed.): Das Subjekt der Moderne (libri nigri, vol. 85), Nordhausen: Bautz 2021,152–171 (ISBN 978-3-95948-524-1; PDF available)
  Sepp, Hans Rainer
  
• „Man as Medium. Yoshihiro Nitta’s Phenomenology of Transcendental Mediality“ [in Japanese], in: Hideo Kawamoto (ed.): 現象学 未来からの光芒 ─ 新田義弘教授 追悼論文集 [Phenomenology – A ray of light from the future], Tokyo: Gakugei Miraisha 2021, 82–90 (ISBN 978-4- 909783-72-1; PDF available)
  Sepp, Hans Rainer
  
• „Vom Absoluten. Skizzen zu einer Phänomenologie des Extrems“, in: Wei Zhang & Wenjing Cai (eds.): Phenomenology of Xin-Xing. East Asian and European Perspectives on Mind- Nature (Orbis Phaenomenologicus Perspektiven N.F., vol 32), Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 2021, 312–330 (ISBN 978-3-8260-7223-9; PDF available)
  Sepp, Hans Rainer
  
• Eugen Fink und die Phänomenologie (= Phänomenologische Forschungen 2022/2), ed. by C. Nielsen, A. Schnell (ISBN 978-3-7873-4346-1)
  Nielsen, Cathrin & Schnell, Alexander
  
• Eugen Fink. Annäherungen – Approaches – Rapprochements (= PHAINOMENA. Journal of Phenomenology and Hermeneutics 31|122–123, 2022/2), ed. by D. Komel, C. Nielsen, H. R. Sepp
  Komel, D. ; Nielsen, Cathrin & Sepp, Hans Rainer
  
• “L’espace et le corps vécus du point de vue cosmologique. Eugen Fink et Renaud Barbaras”, in: Annäherungen – Approaches – Rapprochements (= PHAINOMENA. Journal of Phe- nomenology and Hermeneutics 31|122–123, 2022/2) 123–147
  Novotný, Karel
  
• „,Torweg Augenblick‘. Zu Finks Nietzschedeutung“, in: Annäherungen – Approaches – Rapprochements (= PHAINOMENA. Journal of Phe- nomenology and Hermeneutics 31|122–123, 2022/2) 37–64
  Nielsen, Cathrin
  
• „Finks phänomenologische Auslegung des Schematismus-Kapitels in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft“, in: Annäherungen – Approaches – Rapprochements (= PHAINOMENA. Journal of Phe- nomenology and Hermeneutics 31|122–123, 2022/2) 15–36
  Schnell, Alexander
  
• „Verkehrte Welt“. Phänomenologische Forschungen, 2022(2), 186-207.
  Nielsen, Cathrin
  
• Grundfragen der antiken Philosophie. Grundfragen der antiken Philosophie, 7-226. Verlag Karl Alber.
  Fink, Eugen; Bertolini, Simona & Lazzari, Riccardo
  
• Hin zu einer Ontologie des Spiels. Oase des Glücks im Kontext von Finks Denkweg. Oase des Glücks, 33-42. Verlag Karl Alber.
  Nielsen, Cathrin
  
• Interiority, Exteriority, Being-In:. Rethinking Interiority, 35-54. State University of New York Press.
  Sepp, Hans Rainer
  
• Phänomenologische Werkstatt. Verlag Karl Alber.
  van Kerckhoven, Guy; Bruzina, Ronald & Alfieri, Francesco
  
• Weltaufgang: die Geburt des kosmologischen Denkens Eugen Finks. Verlag Karl Alber.
  van Kerckhoven, Guy & Giubilato, Giovanni Jan
  
• „Eugen Fink and the Question of Nihilism“, focus topic in: PHAINOMENA. Journal of Phenomenology and Hermeneutics 32|126–127, 2023/2, 7–75
  Schnell, Alexander & Sepp, Hans Rainer
  
• Life in motion. Metodo, 11(2), 167-204.
  Niemann, Lutz
  
• Monde et phénoménalisation. La phénoménologie spéculative d’Eugen Fink, Mémoires des Annales de Phénoménologie (vol. XXVI), Dixmont/Wuppertal, Association Internationale de Phénoménologie 2024, 174 pages
  Schnell, Alexander
  
• Phänomenologische Werkstatt. Verlag Karl Alber.
  van Kerckhoven, Guy; Bruzina, Ronald & Giubilato, Giovanni Jan