From the night, the spectre

Joseph Cohen

pp. 133-140

in: Dorothée Legrand, Dylan Trigg (eds), Unconsciousness between phenomenology and psychoanalysis, Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

Can there be a phenomenology of the night? Can there be a phenomenology of the "un-world", of that which so absolutely obscures the world that it leaves it, the world, void of form, of unity, dismantling and shattering all possibility of a correlation between thinking and being? Can there be a phenomenology of that which gives itself always and already as other than "presentation", always and already as other than according to the order of possible constitution, and thereby outside or beyond any horizon of intentionality? With these questions, we seek in the following contribution, to deploy a phenomenological analysis of the "unconscious" whereby the very idea of phenomenology will undergo a profound shift of its Husserlian orientation and require its own "deconstruction". This deconstructive shift, it is argued, with Husserl and against Husserl opens towards the singularity of an event, the spectre, which projects thinking towards that which resists its enclosure in the intentional horizon of presence.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund