LIFE

THE HUMAN QUEST FOR AN IDEAL

ANALECTA HUSSERLIANA

THE YEARBOOK OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

VOLUME XLIX

Editor-in-Chief:

ANNA- TERESA TYMIENIECKA

The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning Belmont, Massachusetts

25th Anniversary Publication

Book I Life In the Glory -of its Radiating Manirestations

Book II Life The Human Quest for an Ideal

Book III Life Phenomenology of Life as the Starting Point of Philosophy

For sequel volumes see end of this volume.

LIFE THE HUMAN QUEST

FOR AN IDEAL

25th Anniversary Publication

Book II

Edited by

MARLIES KRONEGGER

Michigan Stare University, East Lansing

and

ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA

The World Phenomenology Institute

Published under the auspices of The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning

A-T. Tymieniecka, President

SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, LLC

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

L 1 fe the human quest for an 1dea I ' ed 1 ted by Mar l1es Kronegger and Anna-Teresa Tym1en1ecka.

p. cm. -- 125th ann1versary publ1cat1on ; bk. 21 (Analecta Husser 11 ana ; v. 491

Eng1 1sh and French. Proceed1ngs of the 34th International Phenomenology Conference.

he1d Aug. 22-25. 1994. 1n Graz, Austr1a. Includes 1n0ex.

1. Li fe--Congresses. 2. Idea I s ( Ph 1 1 osoohy 1 --Congresses. 3. Phi losophy 1n 11terature--Congresses. 4. Crlt1C1sm--Congresses. 5. Husserl, Edmuno. 1859-1938--Congresses. I. Kronegger. Mari 1es. 1932- II. Tym1en1ec•a. Anna-Teresa. III. International Phenomenology Conference 134th 1994 Graz. Austr1a> ~V. Ser1es. V. Ser1es, Analeeta Husserl 1ana ; v. 49. 83279.H94A129 vol. 4980435 142' .7--oc20 95-44240

Prepared with the editorial assistance of Robert S. Wise

Printed on acid-free paper

All Rights Reserved

ISBN 978-94-011-7663-7 ISBN 978-94-009-1604-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-009-1604-3

© 1996 Springer Science+Business Media New York Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1996

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1996

No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information

storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.

APPRECIATIVE THANKS

TO OUR COLLEAGUES AND AUTHORS

On introducing to the learned community this second volume marking our 25th Anniversary, I would like to express on behalf of all the Institute deeply feit thanks not only to all the contributors to this collection but to all of those who through these years have by their effort and inspi­ration pushed our work forward into the further, deeper, loftier realms of the spirit. Our specialists in philosophical reflection find in our dialogue with scholars in Iiterature and the fine arts a particularly boun­tiful source of fresh insight. And the latter find their intuitions deepened in the formulations of the philosophers.

In this volume the reader may sample this dialogue as it was played out at our XXXIVth International Phenomenology Conference, which took place August 22-25, 1994 under the direction of Prof. Marlies Kronegger. We owe special thanks to our hosts - Dr H. Konrad, Rector Magnificus; Rudolf Haller and Elisabeth List of the Department of Philosophy; and Mrs Sonja Rinoffer-Kreidl - for providing wonderful facilities and helping with local arrangements. Special thanks are due also to the Governor of Styria and the Mayor of the City of Graz for the hospitality of the lavish reception given for conference participants. Above all, it was due to the talent and grace of Marlies Kronegger, president of the International Society for Phenomenology and Literature, that this conference, like so many others of the Society, was truly an unforgettable expreience.

This 25th Anniversary of the Society is also an appropriate time to express the Institute's appreciation for the dedicated and faithful work of Mr Robert Wise Jr., who with painstaking effort has brought more than twenty-five of our volumes into printed form, as well as for the work that Louis Houthakker performs in the day-to-day operations of the Institute.

Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka

V

M. Kroneggerand A-T. Tyrnieniecka (eds.), Analeeta Husserliana, Vol. XLIX, v.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

APPRECIATIVE THANKS

MARLIES KRONEOGER I The Theme: The ldeas of/for Humankind

INAUGURAL STUDY

ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA I The Golden Measure: The Self-individualization of Life Bringing to Fruition the Ideal

V

xi

for a New Epoch 3

PARTONE

THE IDEAL: ASCENSION IN TROUBLED TIMES

GYÖRGY E. SZÖNYI 1 Occult Ascension in Troubled Times: The Ideals of Mankind in Rudolf Steinerand Bela Hamvas 29

JOAN B. WILLIAMSON I Jean Anouilh's Thirst for the Absolute and His Formulation of the Ideal 45

ALISON WEBSTER I Francis Hutcheson: Political Ideals 61 LA WRENCE KIMMEL I Human Kind in Literature: The Ideals

of Fiction- The Fiction of Ideals 71 MARIA AVELINA CECILIA I The Paradox of the Ideals of

Humankind: Paul Ricoeur's Approach 19

PART TWO

ON THE WAY

w. MSOSA I Narrative ldentity: Situating a Postmodern Ideal 99 JEAN THERESA STROMMER and JOAN ELIZABETH

STROMMER 1 Transeendeuce in Poetry, Music and Film: La Corona (lohn Donne, Ernst Krenek, Joan & Jean Strammer, 1609!194111987) Iconic Implications ofCircular Structures 107

vii

viii TABLE OF CONTENTS

WILLIAM E. CONKLIN I Husserl, the Differend and Kafka's The Trial 115

NANCY CAMPI DE CASTRO I Roland Barthes and Critical "Romanesque" 127

CYNTHIA OSOWIEC RU OFF I Le Clezio's L' /nconnu sur Ia terre: Man, Nature, Creativity and Cosmology 133

PART THREE

THE SEARCH FOR HARMONY

RICARDO PINILLA 1 Thinking about Harmony as Category and Value in the Aesthetics of Hege! and Krause 149

s IT ANs U RA Y 1 Shesher Kabita: Tagorean Ideals Towards the Man-Woman Relationship 165

BIANCA MARIA D'IPPOLITO I L. Binswanger sur Hofmanns-thal: L' Esprit et Ia souffrance 175

FRANCIS P. CRAWLEY I The Human Face of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein 195

PAULI PYLKKÖ I Dasein Naturalized 203

PART FOUR

PHILOSOPHY FOCUSING ON THE HUMAN BEING

EMILIO DI VITO 1 Materialistic and Poetic Humanism in G. Leopardi 221

ARASU BALAN 1 Subjectivism and Phenomenology 239 GARY E. OVERVOLD 1 Husserl, Mann, and the Modemist Crisis

of Culture 251 JESSE T. AIRAUDI 1 "A Rock of Defence for Human Nature":

Philosophical and Literary Approaches to the Causes of Violence 265

ROMANO ROMANI I Freedom and Philosophy 283

PART FIVE

THE EUROPEAN MESSAGE

ROSEMARIE KIEFFER I Le Message Europeen: Pierre Frieden (1892-1959) 297

T ABLE OF CONTENTS ix

GYÖRGY M. VAJDA 1 The Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy Approached from a Phenomenological Angle 301

s IT ANs u RA Y 1 European Schalars on Indian Music 311 WOLFGANG WITTKOWSKI I "Be Nice to One Another!":

Morality, the Embattled Ideal in Eighteenth Century German Literature 329

INDEX OF NAMES 339

MARLIES KRONEOGER

THE THEME:

THE IDEALS OF/FOR HUMANKIND

The phenomenological approach to literature, as illustrated by our par­ticipants from all over the world, transcends the conventional boundaries of literary study. lt represents a movement away from narrow, fragmen­tary specialization and towards broad integrative scholarship. While in 1900 Husserl introduced to the world the idea of a new philosophy demanding of philosophy both a new vigor and a new humanism, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka's phenomenology of life grasps the issues which are truly central for the world community since she has always feit solidarity with humanity regardless of frontiers, passports, or flags or, for that matter, regardless of disciplines. She presents a vision of life as an ever-expanding creative coherence which surpasses itself at every instant. She proposes that we act in such a way that our actions and most recent thoughts do not disturb the harmony of which they are elements. Tymieniecka's treatises propose a specifically human self-individualization-in-existence of which the creative act, always in conflict with the constituted world, is the vortex. For her the most vital function of the phenomenology of life is to foster the integral unfolding of individuals so that they be in accord with them­selves (the microcosm), their culture (the mesocosm), and the universe (the macrocosm) and with the ultimate mystery both beyond and within them­selves and in all things, in life and death, in inward sacredness and transcendence. It is the creative orchestration of human existence and of everything-there-is-alive that is Tymieniecka's path and vision. She takes the path in order to become the path herself. Her vision is the spontaneaus response of the poetic imagination to the challenges thrown before man.

Our situation is a microcosm of the world around us, the world in which we live, breathe pollution, suffocate, or transcend. Today the basic rhythms of life are overtumed. The violent rifts in today's world force their way through the rational control of consciousness and logical dis­course. The discordance of these invasions create a pervasive sense of violence. Basic areas of civilized order, the moral, aesthetic, natural, and intellectual orders are called into question. Various violations of these orders are present in our mass culture, which infiltrates our personallives resulting in a disturbing collocation of political, commercial, and domestic

xi

M. Kroneggerand A-T. Tymieniecka (eds.), Analeeta Husserliana, Vol. XLIX, xi-xii. © 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

xii MARLIES KRONEGGER

language that in turn implies a confusion of the civic and familial codes. The mediating function of language often breaks down as people sink below the Ievel of their humanity. So situated, exceptional individuals caught between the cosmic self and the social mold, toil to break out and away in order to cultivate their cosmic heritage. Our life, then, is at every moment at a crossroads where we must choose. Tymieniecka proposes a phenomenology of life and of the human condition as the ground for undertaking a new critique of reason. She invites us to rethink the post-Cartesian approach to rationality and especially to open new interrelations between literature, the fine arts, and philosophy. Art, literature, and philosophy are the languages of the human spirit, of creative synergies, of our feeling and thinking nature, of our will, inten­tions. Speaking these languages, we illumine all things with the rays of our soul. Thus can feelings aroused by Venetian art tauch our soul, play upon the senses by their creation of a luminous smiling atmos­phere and indeterminateness. This is the language of that which is not yet expressed in an escape from the web of conventions.

There is no exclusion of past ideals which can enhance the values of the future. Ever since Antiquity the nine Muses, symbols of human imagination, have been the daughters of Mnemosyne- Memory.

Let me conclude with a question and a possible answer to a law of nature. Is the reality of man 's vocation still friendship, Iove, solitude, anxiety, death in civilized society, or rather is it no more than that of the denizens of a pond? Gide, in Si Legrain ne meurt, suggests and warns us that when these denizens consist of only non-predatory fish, they gradually sicken and die due to Iack of aggression. Introduce a pike to activate their circulation and the whole Iot (except for a few victims) will flourish once again. Our international forum, "The Ideals of/for Humankind," proposes a rebirth of life, a discovery of the sources of life, the discovery of oneself in anger, Iove, joy, sadness, hate, greed, envy, aggression. If the primordial law of nature is aggression, is it a creative law? What is just sustains life, and what is unjust debilitates it. The golden mean, the "right measure", La justesse, might be the highest ideal to be attained and maintained. Material fire destroys, but sacred fire, which draws on all our human synergies, on our will, imagination, and memory, harmonizes any egoistically unbalanced life. Beyond the justice of ideals we expand and extend the sublimation of life to the biological justice of life, which is measure, rightness, La justesse.

Michigan State University M. E. KRONEGGER

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