Laszlo Tengelyi

"Erfahrung und Ausdruck" zeichnet in detaillierten Untersuchungen einen Umbruch innerhalb der Phänomenologie nach, der bereits bei Husserl einsetzt, sein eigentliches Gewicht aber erst bei späteren Nachfolgern wie Merleau-Ponty und Richir, Levinas und Waldenfels, Marion und Ricœur erhält. Die Phänomenologie unserer Zeit hält sich kaum mehr allein an die Innenbetrachtung der Erlebnisse eines Ichsubjekts; sie kehrt vielmehr Sinnbildungsprozesse hervor, die nicht in einer Sinngebung durch das Bewußtsein aufgehen, sondern für das bewußte Subjekt unverfügbare Momente ans Licht bringen. Das führt notwendig zu einer Neubestimmung des Verhältnisses von Erfahrung und Ausdruck: Ein als Ort spontaner Sinnbildung verstandenes Erfahrungsgeschehen läßt sich nicht in ein begrifflich-kategoriales Netz vorgefundener Bedeutungen einbinden, sondern verlangt zwingend nach einem "schöpferischen Ausdruck" (Merleau-Ponty). Der so verstandene Ausdruck der Erfahrung macht wiederum eigentümliche, weil von vornherein ausdrucksbedingte Erfahrungen möglich. Die Erfahrungen, die man mit dem sprachlichen Ausdruck in der fungierenden Rede, mit der fremden Sinnesäußerung im responsiven Verhalten, mit den erzählerischen Formen in der Reflexion auf die eigene Lebensgeschichte und im Umgang mit der Literatur macht, gehören wesenhaft zu den Untersuchungsgegenständen einer Phänomenologie, die sich nicht einfach als eine Beschreibung und Zergliederung der Erlebnisse versteht, sondern Anspruch darauf erhebt, als denkerischer Ausdruck der Erfahrung zu gelten.

A tour de force by one of Hungary's most interesting contemporary philosophers, this work outlines a phenomenological approach to some of the main topics of theoretical philosophy, such as meaning, sense, temporality, unity of life, narrative history, self-identity, and intersubjectivity, as well as an ethics of alterity. In his investigations, Laszlo Tengelyi's point of departure is a critical examination of what is commonly referred to as the narrative view of the self, which tends to equate life-history and personal identity. Challenging this view as too one-dimensional and reflective, Tengelyi reveals a hidden area of sense-formation in life-history - an area in which force and meaning do not merely blend but in many ways undermine each other. It is this hidden area that The Wild Region in Life-History describes. Husserl sought to constitute the meaning of the other as a modification of the self. Tengelyi turns to Heidegger and Levinas to expose Husserl's model of ""ownness"" as an illusion, and he appeals to Merleau-Ponty to point to the invisible in the visible. His work calls attention to the ethical claim arising from a meeting of self and other, and to the dramatic split of the self that such a claim entails. This drama, Tengelyi contends, cannot be narrated as a part of some life-history. The ethic of responsibility is primarily one of responding to such claims and only secondarily one of obeying a law. Finally, not even the immediate ethical consequences of an encounter with another human being transcend the wild region in life-history; on the contrary, they include, as Tengelyi shows, a whole range of elementary claims that precede duty, law, justice, and obligation, without, however, being integrated into a moral order of aims and goals.

A tour de force by one of Hungary's most interesting contemporary philosophers, this work outlines a phenomenological approach to some of the main topics of theoretical philosophy, such as meaning, sense, temporality, unity of life, narrative history, self-identity, and intersubjectivity, as well as an ethics of alterity. In his investigations, Laszlo Tengelyi's point of departure is a critical examination of what is commonly referred to as the narrative view of the self, which tends to equate life-history and personal identity. Challenging this view as too one-dimensional and reflective, Tengelyi reveals a hidden area of sense-formation in life-history - an area in which force and meaning do not merely blend but in many ways undermine each other. It is this hidden area that The Wild Region in Life-History describes. Husserl sought to constitute the meaning of the other as a modification of the self. Tengelyi turns to Heidegger and Levinas to expose Husserl's model of ""ownness"" as an illusion, and he appeals to Merleau-Ponty to point to the invisible in the visible. His work calls attention to the ethical claim arising from a meeting of self and other, and to the dramatic split of the self that such a claim entails. This drama, Tengelyi contends, cannot be narrated as a part of some life-history. The ethic of responsibility is primarily one of responding to such claims and only secondarily one of obeying a law. Finally, not even the immediate ethical consequences of an encounter with another human being transcend the wild region in life-history; on the contrary, they include, as Tengelyi shows, a whole range of elementary claims that precede duty, law, justice, and obligation, without, however, being integrated into a moral order of aims and goals.