Possibility and generativity. From Plotinus to Husserl. 

Luz Ascárate (Universidad París 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) 

If we pay attention to passages from Treatise 38 of Plotinus’ Enneads and Husserl’s Husserliana XV, we find that both philosophers reflect upon the unified diversity of living things. For Plotinus, this unity is characterized as a “power of the whole”, which implies a concept of possibility, not as opposed to efficiency or as a manifestation of passivity, but as the generating principle of everything that exists in its various forms. For Husserl, this unity is characterized as generativity (Generativität), a concept that arises from a descriptive regression to biological genesis – which differs from the constitutive genesis carried out by the phenomenologizing ego (phänomenologisierenden ego). Generativity accounts for the interweaving of real and possible experiences of self and other. A dialogue between these two ways of understanding the unity of life, as a principle or as genesis, enables a definition of “possibility” as expressing the concrete diversity of living things.

The Temporality of sound. Phenomenological reflections. 

Quentin Gailhac (Universidad París Cité)

While writing the Bernau Manuscripts, Husserl wrote to Ingarden, in a letter dated April 5, 1918, that “the phenomenology of time cannot be resolved purely by itself.” This means that the phenomenology of time is related to the problem of individuation, namely, to the constitution of individual beings and their forms. The meaning of this statement is examined by revisiting Husserl’s research on time around his 1905 Lectures and their accompanying research manuscripts. This entails not only a redefinition of the conceptual couple form-matter, but above all a characterization of the specific phenomenological status of sound in relation to time. Our treatment of sound allows us here to distinguish between temporal unity and the individuation of temporal beings.

Presentation of “Fenomenología de la sopresa: un sujeto cardial” 

With the presence of Natalie Depraz, the presentation of the Spanish translation of her text, Fenomenología de la sorpresa, un sujeto cardial (Buenos Aires: SB, 2023, by J. Parra Bernal)—originally published in Bucharest, 2018—will take place in Lima. Although it is an experience that almost permeates everyday life, the phenomenon of surprise has hardly been examined by the history of philosophy. Faithful to a phenomenological approach, Depraz deals with surprise in highly complex microanalyses and conceptually rigorous descriptions. These not only address its experiential, subjective pole (temporal, emotional, attentional), but also deal with “what surprises” us, its objective pole (alterity in its wide diversity), hence, with their mutual dynamic correlation. The presentation will be in charge of Mariana Chu García and Rosemary R.P. Lerner. An open dialogue with the author will then ensue.