After the Flesh

Prof Claude Romano (University of Paris IV Sorbonne)

Few ideas benefit from a larger consensus among phenomenologists than that of the flesh (Leib) in its distinction from body (Körper).  The former concept has been adopted without strong modifications by many of the representatives of the phenomenological movement, from Scheler, Merleau-Ponty and Sartre to Michel Henry and Jean-Luc Marion.  But it seems that the dependency of this concept on a Cartesian and/or a transcendental framework has been severely underestimated.  Is not this dependency called into question by the very concept of life-world and its possible deepenings in the wake of the late Husserl?  This seminar seeks to give form to a different concept of body which would draw out all the consequences of the limitations of the Husserlian presuppositions.

Claude Romano is the author of books including Event and World (1998), Event and Time (1999), Au cœur de la raison: La phénoménologie (2010). He has been awarded the Prix Gegner (Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 2011) and the Grand Prix Moron (Académie Française, 2010).

Light Lunch provided