The Sense of Life – Jean-Luc Nancy and Emmanuel Lévinas
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8409517 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nicole Paula Maria Note, Nicole Note (0000-0002-9182-8422, Research Foundation - Flanders, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 347-361 |
| Publication date | 2016-10-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-1773 • E-ISSN: 2332-0486 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00071773.2015.1130469 |
| OpenAlex | W4251797581 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
Metaphysics has long been regarded as providing meaning to the world. Subsequent progressive replacement attempts of this narrative by a scientific approach have generally led to a view of life as being void of meaning. However, this has not affected the quest for meaning or for an understanding of this meaning, despite an increasing societal neglect of the importance of its pursuit. This article aims to contribute to a philosophical understanding of the sense of life in the world, drawing on Jean-Luc Nancy's understanding of sense as developed in his Sense of the World. To talk of “sense” rather than of “meaning” is an unconventional choice in the field, yet both differ from one another in that sense refers to an opening as the very possibility of meaningfulness generally. This means that, to understand meaning, we must understand sense. Key to Nancy's conception of sense is the transitivity of the verb being; being traverses itself from being as non-being “to” being as existence. Nancy is concerned with the question of how to interpret the “to”, because its significance transcends its common-sense understanding as being naturally linked to “from”. In this context, the notion expressed by “to” rather refers to the spacing of duration, opening an irreducible distance where the limits touch. In order to further develop this outlook, we recast Nancy's framing as an illogical tension, contrasting and complementing it with Lévinas’ structure of “to” in his description of “representation” and “enjoyment”, developed in Totality and Infinity. The outcome is a preliminary pattern on how to grasp the provenance of sense
Epistemology · Meaning (existential) · Metaphysics · Narrative · Sociology · The Void · Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy · Philosophical and Theoretical Analysis · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism
| Highly cited | No |
|---|