World Phenomenology Institute

Historical temporality of the concept of boredom is counter to Heidegger’s treatment of boredom as essential to his philosophical investigation of temporality/time but without the grounding of boredom in historical or cultural milieu or, for that matter, in psychology or neuroscience. A mood (Stimmung) of boredom does not have a direct intentional object of its own, but it can accompany emotional and/or cognitive experiences by giving them a certain coloring or tonality. Heidegger’s final statements are about contemporary man avoiding or suppressing profound boredom out of concealment and lack of courage to face the question of oppression “in this fundamental attunement.” Levinas, on the other hand, sees insomnia as “primordial opening” to the understanding of “impossibility of hiding in oneself” (Levinas E (1993) God, death, and time. Edited by Jacques Roland. Stanford University Press, Stanford, p 209). Thus, Heidegger’s investigation of boredom parallels Levinas’s investigation of insomnia as revealing particular states of awareness and consciousness. But, unlike the Being held captive in a particular mood of boredom in Heidegger’s metaphysics and the pessimistic evaluation of profiting from the experience of profound boredom, Levinas’s insomnia reveals “the Other within the Same who does not alienate the Same but who awakens him” (Levinas E (1993) God, death, and time. Edited by Jacques Roland. Stanford University Press, Stanford, p 209).

Reviewing with a keen eye the history of philosophy, we would be struck by the continued filiations of contradictions between the adverse perspectives on issues that repeat themselves, albeit in novel formulations. In these latter they are amplified by fresh insights, approaches, and refinements that bring about fuller and clearer visions of the real. These new soundings of old themes do not proceed from comparisons of concepts but, rather, from genuinely new pursuits that contribute the benefits of the progress of knowledge.

Caught as we are within the stream of life, absorbed by its experiential and intellectual currents and eddies, we need a distance from past turns in its course in order to understand their significance with perspective. Instantaneous evaluations and interpretations can only be limited. With some distance from lived stimuli, impressions, we can extricate a movement from its moment. Stepping back from the immediacy of its day, we can search out its not so obvious causes, reasons and, what is even more valuable, can learn from its consequences. In our pondering, those reasons, influences, and hidden sources are brought to our questioning attention. Perspective is also gained from appreciating the long past impacts a movement had, its successive consequences. Just when a movement has spent itself and is set to dissolve into other movements, like the circles made on a surface of water by the impacts of stones thrown upon it, we can trace its approximate lineage.

This paper attempts to bring together the phenomenological approaches of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka and Emmanuel Levinas in order to stage an ecumenical dialogue that might help articulate a redemptive possibility for phenomenology and existentialism capable of addressing the social and political violences of the twenty-first century. The operative assumption of the paper is that no phenomenology can be effective if it does not take into account the genealogical, social, and political conditions of its articulation. In order to stage such redemptive possibilities, then, it is first necessary to evaluate the origins of contemporary phenomenology as they were first developed during the atrocities of the twentieth century. Recognizing that Tymieniecka and Levinas rely on what might be considered by some as incommensurable philosophical and religious vocabularies, the paper locates their shared priorities for responsibility, hope, and redemption in Husserl’s work – mainly Cartesian Mediations – and argues that their respective emphases on the dramatic context and quality of phenomenology unsuspectingly subverts the noble role traditionally reserved for philosophy and thus preserves a priority for the ethical in concrete, existential terms. The paper thus calls for a kind of urgent intervention in the disciplinary and institutional incentives of contemporary Continental philosophy to recover the hope for responsibility at its origins and contribute to the upbuilding task of helping to heal the world’s sorrows.

Considering the question of meaningfulness of man in the world – an obsessive philosophical issue in Karl Jaspers’ existentialism – in this essay we try to emphasize some of the very own manner in which Phenomenology of Life offers new concepts and it opens a novel perspective in tackling the grave problem of human beingness in nowadays; by unfolding a different trajectory, beyond the existentialist doubtful approaches that remain somehow under the sign of pessimism. The reliance on the “creative virtualities” of man in a positive/constructive direction – that is permanently featured by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka – could be a very good model of following in a better self-understanding, social communication and, finally, in making our life a worthy one to be lived.

I would like to explore the field of phenomenology with the aim to find resources within phenomenology to help understanding the learning processes better, and, if possible, make use of phenomenological methods in teaching philosophy to students in A-levels and freshman levels at universities. My paper is particularly aimed at the learning processes in philosophy in general, not necessarily in phenomenology. However, a certain pedagogical strengthening of the early introductions to phenomenology would probably facilitate the interest in phenomenological training, and widen its scope for practical applications in schools. As a basis for discussion I take a closer look at the historical understanding, as phenomenology views it. The theoretical framework of subjectivity in phenomenology, and the goals of pedagogical theories of learning are in some basic way compatible, where they seek to enhance the individuals understanding and meaning for its self, and this may be an opportunity to establish a primarily practical application of phenomenology in teaching. The obvious similarity, despite theoretical differences, between phenomenology, hermeneutic theory and pedagogical strategies, could be further developed into fruitful theories that could have a wider scope within the field of philosophical didactics.

The question of normality is much broader than that of the possibility of elimination or prevention of mental disturbances. In its essence it is the question of possibilities for creating the most favourable conditions for human life. We enquire into normality as an endless process of mans self-creation and his reshaping of the world. Creative activity, constant over-reaching, openness toward the future, seeking the truth, the possibility of choice and free decision belongs to the specific characteristics of the human species, and hence to the essence of human normality, as well.

While it is no simple matter to face the crisis of current psychology, alienated as it is by reductionism, naturalism, and epistemological misunderstandings that dangerously simplify man’s lived experience and complexity, it is nevertheless vital to re-found psychology itself so it may engage in the decisive task of studying man, proposing solutions, and engaging in interventions. The contribution of the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, Edith Stein, Max Scheler, and others, as well as that of the existential philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard, Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, and Maria Zambrano, often ignored in the sphere of psychology, can finally help psychological research today to propose a new objectivity born of intersubjectivity and of transcendental subjectivity in order to return to things themselves, man’s lived experience, and the essence of being human in the world, even when human existence is in a condition of shipwreck. This is the challenge that today’s psychologists must confront in their work, setting themselves as witnesses to their own credibility in research and in their relationships with patients. Thus this paper presents current studies in phenomenological and existential psychology in Italy and proposes some existential coordinates as universal and essential structures.