Testing the Limit: Derrida, Henry, Levinas, and the Phenomenological Tradition

338 Pages·2012·16.118 MB·English

by  François-David Sebbah

testing the limit

Cultural Memory
in
the
Present
Mieke Bal and Hent de Vries, Editors

TESTING THE LIMIT
Derrida, Henry, Levinas, and the
Phenomenological Tradition
François-David Sebbah
Translated by Stephen Barker
stanford university press
stanford, california
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
English translation © 2012 by the Board of Trustees of the
Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Testing the Limit was originally published in French under the title L’épreuve de
la limite: Derrida, Henry, Levinas et la phénoménologie © Presses Universitaires de
France, 2001.
This book was published with the assistance of the Edgar M. Kahn Memorial
Fund and the University of Technology of Compiègne (UTC).
Cet ouvrage a bénéficié du soutien des Programmes d’aide à la publication de
l’Institut français / ministère français des affaires étrangères et européennes. / This
work was provided support by the Publication Assistance Program of the Institut
Français / French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of
Stanford University Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sebbah, François-David, author.
[Épreuve de la limite. English]
Testing the limit : Derrida, Henry, Levinas, and the phenomenological tradition
/ François-David Sebbah ; translated by Stephen Barker.
pages cm. — (Cultural memory in the present)
“Originally published in French under the title L’Épreuve de la limite.”
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978–0–8047–7274–7 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978–0–8047–7275–4 (pbk : alk. paper)
1. Phenomenology. 2. Philosophy, French—20th century. 3. Derrida,
Jacques. 4. Henry, Michel, 1922–2002. 5. Levinas, Emmanuel. 6. Intention-
ality (Philosophy) 7. Subjectivity. I. Title. II. Series: Cultural memory in
the present.
B829.5.S4313 2012
142'.7—dc23
2011032773
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
part i: toward a critique of
phenomenological rationality 15
1 Research 17
2 Intentionality and Non-Givenness 34
3 The Question of the Limit 58
part ii: the frontier of time 67
1 At the Limits of Intentionality: Michel Henry and
Emmanuel Levinas as Readers of On the Phenomenology
of the Consciousness of Internal Time 75
2 Anticipating Phenomenology: Jacques Derrida and
Jean-Luc Marion, the Impossible and Possibility 88
1: The Time of Ordinary Phenomena and Phantoms
(Jean-Toussaint Desanti; Jacques Derrida) 88
2: The Impossibility of the Gift: Within the Extreme
Possibility of Givenness (Jacques Derrida; Jean-Luc Marion) 104
part iii: the test of subjectivity 123
1 Subjectivity in Contemporary French Phenomenology 127
2 The Birth of Subjectivity in Levinas 142
viii Contents
3 Born to Life, Born to Oneself: The Birth of Subjectivity
in Michel Henry 156
4 Spectral Subjectivity According to Jacques Derrida 174
part iv: phenomenological discourse
and subjectification 191
1 The Rhythm of Otherwise Than Being
According to Levinas 202
1: Reading Levinas and Thinking Entirely Otherwise 202
2: Rhythm as the Question of Intentionality in Levinas 212
2 The Rhythm of Life According to Michel Henry 219
Conclusion 243
Abbreviations 257
Notes 261
Bibliography 313
Acknowledgments
This book is the result of many years of research. I want especially to
thank Jacques Colette for having made me the beneficiary of his expertise
along the way. I offer deep thanks as well to Françoise Dastur not only for
the generous attention she gave to these pages, but also for the ceaseless
encouragement she showed me over long years. In addition to Jacques Co-
lette and Françoise Dastur, Rudolph Bernet, Jean-Toussaint Desanti, and
Jean-Michel Salanskis gave invaluable advice; I thank them for their com-
mentary, of which this text, I hope, carries many traces.
I want to express my profound gratitude to Jacques Derrida, Jean-
Toussaint Desanti, and Michel Henry, who read certain passages address-
ing their work and who always encouraged me to proceed in my own
direction.
Thanks as well to Alain Cugno, Anne Montavont, Jacob Rogozinski,
and François Roussel, who offered editorial assistance in the final stages.
Special thanks to Mireille Séguy, who assisted in the book’s development.
Warm thanks as well to Elisabeth Lemirre for her manuscript
editing.
The solitary work of reading texts must be perpetually stimulated, at
least for me, by discussion; I want therefore to thank all those involved in
the various spaces for philosophic discussion in which I worked for seven
years. I think particularly of the fruitful exchanges I was able to have at
the revue Alter, in the TSH Department at the University of Compiègne,
and at the International College of Philosophy, which published the origi-
nal French version of this book in one of its series.