Ontoloogilise diferentsi kogemine negatiivsusena. Fenomenoloogilise analüüsi katse / Experiencing Ontological Difference as Negativity: An Attempt at a Phenomenological Analysis

Abstract

Teesid: Artiklis kirjeldatakse, kuidas on võimalik kogeda ontoloogilist diferentsi – oleva suhtes täiesti teist. Säärane ontoloogiline kogemus leiab siinse arutluse kohaselt aset negatiivsuse, ei(miski) kogemises, mis omakorda seisneb tähendusloome luhtumises olulisimate üldisemate probleemide puhul ning sellega kaasnevas negatiivses häälestuses. Ontoloogilise diferentsi kogemine leiab aset afektiivsel väljal, häälestustes, mis toimivad üldjuhul intentsionaalsete aktide taustal horisondina, kuid muutuvad erilistel puhkudel keskseks, halvates sujuva kogemuse, muutes tähenduslikkuse tõrke sedavõrd intensiivseks, et negatiivne häälestus haarab kogeja läbinisti enda võimusesse.

The aim of the article is to describe how it is possible to experience an ontological difference —i.e. something completely different from all beings. Such an ontological experience, the author argues, takes place in the experience of negativity, of nothingness, which in turn consists in the failure of meaning-making in the most important general problems and the negative attunements (Stimmung) that accompanies it. Thus, the experience of ontological difference takes place in the affective field.

Experiences of this kind have been analysed to some extent in the light of Martin Heidegger’s thought. The originality of this article lies in its attempt to describe the experience of ontological difference in the vocabulary of classic, Husserl-inspired phenomenology. According to the mainstream interpretation, Heidegger’s ontological radicalism abandons the original idea of phenomenology to remain within the boundaries of things themselves (i.e. given to consciousness as intentional objects). This interpretation is also deepened by Heidegger’s post-turning renunciation of the description of his own thinking as phenomenology. Inspired mainly by Husserl (and often also by the sections of Heidegger’s Being and Time devoted to everyday experience), contemporary phenomenology analyses all kinds of phenomena and spheres of subjectivity given to everyday experience, leaving nothingness, ontological difference, etc. as a mystical-paradoxical remnant about which nothing can be said.

In the first chapter of the article, ‘The Radical Failure of Significance in the Clash of Horizons’, ontological experience is reconstructed in terms of the concept of the horizon. Already in his late phenomenology of the lifeworld, Husserl pays considerable attention to the horizonal construction of experience. Horizons in experience are either not given intentionally at all or have a weak, background intentionality. It is true that in ordinary perceptions it is possible to transform the horizon into a full-blooded intentional object. However, according to the discussion here, this is not the case for special boundary horizons, for general horizons that maintain the overall coherence of meaning-making, e.g. world, death, infinity. The urge for meaningful fulfilment inherent in consciousness in general (and philosophy in particular) tries to thematise these too, but unsuccessfully, incompletely.

While there is much that is horizontally non-intentional in the simple acts of meaning-making, all the parts play together to produce meaning. In the case of a negative boundary experience, it is the failure that becomes the central seized sense (Auffassungssinn), rather than—which is amplified in the absence of meaningful content, in the case of empty intentionality—the attunement. This is the focus of the second chapter of the article, “Ontological Experience in Negative Attunements”. The chapter begins by discussing the question of the intentionality of attunements, and, following Husserl, arrives at the premise that attunements thus constitute a horizon of emotionality and have an ambiguous intentionality inherent in the horizon. As a horizon, attunement not only organises the general palette of conscious sensations, but also ‘colours’ the experience of all objects, even the world as a universal horizon of all experience. In the ontological experience, only a few particular negative attunements, which, using the vocabulary of existentialism, can also be called marginal experiences, are present. In the case of these strange, frightening (unheimlich) states, the affective horizon intrudes, so to speak buries the person under itself, but not in the manner of an emotion (together with the intentional object in relation to which the emotion is felt), but in a non-objective way, without any apparent cause, thus creating—as in the reflection on the universal horizons discussed above—a total repulsion in the movement from object to object. Such an experience also dispels self-consciousness.

Regarding the relationship between the themes explored in the two chapters, the article argues that, while it seems that creative activity (including philosophy) inspired by the fundamental problems of a strained ontology, clashing with so-called universal horizons, is often accompanied by a persistent negative attunement, so that the creative person falls out of everyday life, the causal links between these phenomena remain open.

The specificity of the human being does not lie in the mere operation of linguistic meanings, but in the fact that it is inherent to him/her to philosophise: to push towards the most important horizons of experience and to experience in relation to them the failure of the creation of meaning, to experience the ontological differentiation of not-ness. Here, the article remains in the position of the phenomenological epoché: it is not possible to know that such a mode of not-ness is something proper (Ereignis), as Heidegger implies throughout. However, the derivation of such experiences from the valorisation of language, as naturalists and pragmatists proclaim, remains equally unproven. It remains the task of phenomenology to bear the human incongruity, to remain—to paraphrase Husserl’s famous slogan—directed towards the things themselves (zu den Sachen selbst).