Originally published in

Continental Philosophy
Review 32/3, 1999, 223-240.
Dan Zahavi
Please quote only from
University of Copenhagen published version.

MICHEL HENRY AND THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE INVISIBLE

The present paper has two aims. On the one hand, I would like to present and discuss
some central aspects of Michel Henry’s philosophy. On the other hand, I would like to call
attention to a peculiar, if not to say paradoxical, feature that characterizes recent French
phenomenology, namely the idea that a radicalisation of phenomenology must necessarily lead
us to a phenomenology of the invisible.

One of Henry’s persisting theses is that a revitalisation of phenomenology can only take
place through a radical reconsideration of its proper task, and that such an enterprise must
necessarily criticize the account provided by classical phenomenology.
According to Henry there is a common leitmotif in Kant’s, Husserl’s and Heidegger’s
philosophy. All of these philosophers have, despite all the other difference that might prevail,
had a common aim, namely to analyse the conditions of possibility for appearance or
manifestation. If we for instance look at Husserl his concept of epoché and reduction should
exactly be understood as a methode that permits us to gain a distance from the natural attitude,
thereby making a philosophical reflection possible which permits us to analyse something
which we are surrounded by, but which we seldom thematize, namely appearance. The task of
phenomenology is not to describe the objects as precisely and meticulously as possible, nor
should it occupy itself with an investigation of the phenomena in all their ontic diversity. No,
its true task is to examine their very appearance or manifestation and to disclose its condition
of possibility.1
What has classical phenomenology had to say on the issue of appearance? According
to Henry, it has focused almost exclusively on its self-transcending nature; no appearance is
independent and self-reliant, it always refers to something different from itself. On the one
hand, every appearance is characterised by a dyadic structure; it is an appearance of something
for someone. Every appearance has its genitive and its dative. On the other hand, every single
appearance is chacterized by its horizontality, that is by its reference to a plurality of other
appearances. If we for instance examine a perceptually given apple tree, it is necessary to
distinguish that which appears and the very appearance, since the apple tree is never given in
its totality, but always in a certain finite perspective. It is never the entire apple tree, the front,
the backside, the exterior and the interior which is given perceptually but only a single profile.
One can wonder why we would nevertheless insist that we have an experience of the apple tree
itself, and not simply of the front of the apple tree, and the explanation that Husserl originally
provided was that our consciousness of the present profile of the object is always accompanied
by a consciousness of the object’s horizon of absent profiles.2 It is only due to these references
that the appearing profile is given as an object-appearance.

Die uneigentlich erscheinenden gegenständlichen Bestimmtheiten sind mit

aufgefaßt, aber nicht ‘versinnlicht’, nicht durch Sinnliches, d.i.
Empfindungsmaterial dargestellt. Daß sie mit aufgefaßt sind, ist evident, denn
sonst hätten wir gar keine Gegenstände vor Augen, nicht einmal eine Seite, da
diese ja nur durch den Gegenstand Seite sein kann.3
 These considerations have typically provoked a question with which both Kant, Husserl
and Heidegger fought. If it is acknowledged that the appearance of, say, books and apples is
characterized by horisontality and a dyadic structure, what about the subject for whome the
appearance is given? Does this subject also manifest itself, and if the answer is yes, does it then
also appear perspectivally, does its appearance also have a dyadic structure, i.e., is it also an
appearance of something for somebody?4 The answer to the last question presumably must be
negative. If the appearance of subjectivity were dyadic, it would involve us in an infinite
regress, insofar as there would always be yet another dative of manifestation. Against this
background it is tempting to answer no to the first question as well. The (transcendental) subject
that must be taken into account if we are to speak of an appearance does not itself appear, is
not itself a phenomenon. But although this option might have been available to Kant, it is not
available to the phenomenologists. To deny that transcendental subjectivity manifests itself, is
to deny the possibility of a phenomenological analysis of transcendental subjectivity. And to
deny that, is to deny the possibility of transcendental phenomenology altogether.
It is in the light of these problems that the dominant thesis of Henry asserts itself: A
radicalisation of phenomenology must necessarily investigate the dimension of self-
manifestation (or to use a more well known expression ‘self-awareness’). Unless
phenomenology were able to show that there is in fact a decisive and radical difference between
the phenomenality of constituted objects and the phenomenality of constituting subjectivity,
i.e., a radical difference between object-manifestation and self-manifestation, its entire project
would be threatened. 5 Not only would its own preferred reflective methodology remain
unaccounted for and obscure, but without an adequate understanding of self-manifestation, its
detailed analysis of act-intentionality and object-manifestation would also lack a proper
foundation, and phenomenology would consequently be incapable of realising its own proper
task, namely, to provide a clarification of the condition of possibility for manifestation. In other
words, if phenomenology is to account for object-manifestation it must also account for the
subject for whome the object appear, but it is exactly this subject which threatens to elude the
phenomenological analyses. To clarify the subject’s self-manifestation is consequently not
only a phenomenological detail-analysis, but in Henry’s view a precondition for a philosophical
comprehension of any manifestation whatsoever.
How does Henry reach such a fichtean sounding thesis? Let me first specify how the
term self-manifestation is being used. Obviously I can be aware of a piece of garlic, a shining
pearl, or a tune by Mingus, but I can also be aware that these objects are smelt, seen and heard,
that different perceptions are taking place, and furthermore that I am the one experiencing
them, just as I may be aware that I am sad, curious, or tired. According to Henry, self-
manifestation should be understood in a broad sense. It is not only legitimate to speak of self-
manifestation when I realize that it is myself who acts, thinks and perceives; it is also something
that occurs the moment one is acquainted with an experience in its first-personal mode of
givenness, i.e. it is possible to speak of self-manifestation the moment I am no longer simply
conscious of a foreign object, but of my experience of the object as well, for in this case my
subjectivity reveals itself to me. 6 Thus, Henry’s discussion of self-manifestation is not
primarily a discussion of how consciousness is aware of a self (understood as a distinct pole of
identity, the one having or possessing the different experiences), as it is a discussion of how
subjectivity can be aware of itself, that is of how subjectivity experiences itself, how it is given
to itself, how it manifests itself.
Now, according to Henry, we are never conscious of an object simpliciter, but always
of the object as appearing in a certain way (judged, seen, feared, remembered, smelt,

2
anticipated, tasted, etc.). However, I cannot be conscious of an intentional object (a tasted
lemon, a touched table, a remembered New Year’s eve) unless the experience which constitutes
this object, that is the experience through which this object is made to appear (the tasting, the
touching, the recollection), is to some extent given to me. The object is given through the act,
and if there is no awareness of the act, the object does not appear at all. But this is not to say
that our access to, say, the lemon is indirect, namely mediated, contaminated or blocked by our
awareness of the experience, since the given experience is not itself an object on a par with the
lemon, but instead constitutes the very access to the lemon. If I lose consciousness, I (or more
precisely a body) will remain causally connected to a number of different objects, but none of
these objects will appear. Nothing will manifest itself unless it is encountered by a self-
manifesting mind.7 Henry consequently argues that we can only be conscious of objects if the
objects appear, and that every object-appearance is necessarily an appearance of the object for
a (self-manifesting) subject. It is only a self-manifesting subject which can be conscious of
foreign objects, and it is only because we are already given to ourselves that object-
manifestation becomes possible.8 Phrased in a slightly more familiar vocabulary, Henry argues
that intentionality presupposes self-awareness, and that the very self-transcending that we
encounter in intentionality is founded upon the absolute self-coincidence of subjective
immanence. It is in the light of these reflections that Henry will insist that the analysis of the
structure of self-manifestation is at the same time an investigation into the principal topic of
phenomenology: the condition of possibility of manifestation. This is why, he can write: “la
manifestation de soi est l'essence de la manifestation.”9
Obviously, self-awareness or self-manifestation has been analyzed in the course of
time, and particularly within phenomenology one finds detailed analyses of a pre-reflective,
non-objectifying self-awareness. But according to Henry all of the previous analyses have
failed to conceive of self-manifestation in a sufficiently radical manner. 10 If one goes to
Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas and Derrida one will often encounter the
claim that division, separation and opposition are structural elements in all kinds of
manifestation, including self-manifestation, and that it consequently implies a form of internal
splitting, self-alienation or self-transcendence.11
For Henry however these claims are merely expressions of one fundamental and fatal
misunderstanding. A misunderstanding that has dominated most of Western thought, and
which Henry has dubbed the ontological monism. This is Henry’s term for the assumption that
there is only one type of manifestation, only one type of phenomenality. Thus it has been taken
for granted, that to be given, to appear, was always to be given as an object. Needless to say, it
is exactly this principle of ontological monism which has been behind the persisting attempts
to interpret self-awareness in terms of reflection or introspection. The model of intentionality
has been the paradigm; self-awareness has been understood as the result of an objectifying,
intentional activity, and self-manifestation therefore as a special form of inner object-
manifestation, characterized by horisontality, duality and transcendens.12
I have already mentioned some of the reasons why Henry would claim that self-
manifestation possesses a different structure than object-manifestation But his disclosure of
absolute self-manifestation is by no means to be taken as a regressive deduction of a
transcendental precondition, but as a phenomenological description of an actual and
incontestable dimension in lived subjectivity. This is clear from what might be one of Henry’s
most central claims, namely that the self-manifestation of subjectivity is an immediate, non-
objectifying and passive occurrence, and therefore best described as a self-affection.13

3
 As illustration, Henry calls attention to the way in which we are aware of our feelings
and moods. When we are in pain, anxious, embarrassed, stubborn or happy, we do not feel it
through the intervention of a (inner) senseorgan or an intentional act, but are immediately aware
of it.14 There is no distance or separation between the feeling of pain or happiness and our
awareness (of) it, since it is given in and through itself. 15 According to Henry, something
similar holds for all of our conscious experiences. To make use of a terminology taken from
analytical philosophy of mind, Henry would claim that all conscious experiences are essentially
characterized by having a subjective ‘feel’ to them, that is, a certain quality of ‘what it is like’,
or what it ‘feels’ like to have them. To undergo an experience necessarily means that there is
something it is like for the subject to have that experience.16 This is not only the case for
sensuous experiences. There is something it is like to taste coffee, but there is also something
it is like for the subject to entertain abstract beliefs, yes there is even something it is like to
contemplate the problem of self-manifestation. And insofar as there is something it is like for
the subject to have these experiences, there must be some awareness of these experiences
themselves; in short, there must be some kind of rudimentary self-awareness.17 And as Henry
would say, this way of ‘feeling’ the experience does not presuppose the intervention or
mediation of any sense organ or higher-order intentional act, but is simply a question of a direct
and immediate self-affection.18
Henry conceives of this self-affection as a purely interior and self-sufficient occurrence
involving no difference, distance or mediation between that which affects and that which is
affected. It is immediate, both in the sense that the self-affection takes place without being
mediated by the world, but also in the sense that it is neither temporally delayed nor
retentionally mediated. 19 It is in short an event which is strictly non-horizontal and non-
ecstatic.20 Insofar as the self-manifestation of subjectivity is distinguished by this unified self-
adherence and self-coincidence, insofar as subjectivity reveals itself directly and immediately,
without temporal delay, and without passing through the world, Henry characterizes it as an
atemporal and acosmic immanence.21

Affectivity reveals the absolute in its totality because it is nothing other than its
perfect adherence to self, nothing other than its coincidence with self, because
it is the auto-affection of Being in the absolute unity of its radical immanence.22

Henry is not the first to have accounted for self-manifestation in terms of self-affection.
One finds related considerations in both Kant, Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. In Kant
und das Problem der Metaphysik Heidegger takes the essence of time to be pure self-
affection.23 And as he then points out, the concept of self-affection does not merely designate
a process in which something affects itself, but a process that involves a self. Not in the sense
that self-affection is effectuated by an already existing self, but in the sense that it is the process
in and through which selfhood and subjectivity is established.24 Thus, qua pure self-affection,
time turns out to be the essence of subjectivity. This line of thought is continued by Merleau-
Ponty, who claims that it is the analysis of time which gives us access to the concrete structures
of subjectivity, and which permits us to understand the nature of the subject’s self-affection.25
Ultimately self-temporalisation and self-affection are one and the same: “The explosion... of
the present towards a future is the archetype of the relationship of self to self, and it traces out
an interiority or ipseity.”26
According to Henry, however, these temporal interpretations are ruinous to a correct
understanding of self-affection. When self-affection is conceived as an ecstatic and self-

4
transcending process it is furnished with a ruptured structure which is completely foreign to its
nature. Somewhat surprisingly Henry now launches a similar criticism against Husserl.
Whereas post-Husserlian phenomenology has generally tried to rectify what was believed to
be an imbalance in Husserl’s account of the relation between immanence and transcendence,
namely his disregard of exteriority, Henry has accused Husserl of never having managed to
disclose the true interiority of subjectivity in a sufficiently radical and pure manner. Thus,
according to Henry, the basic problem in Husserl’s phenomenology is not that it somehow
remained unable to free itself from immanence, but on the contrary, that it kept introducing
external elements into its analysis of this immanence. As Henry even puts it, it is absurd to
accuse Husserl of having advocated a philosophy of pure presence, since Husserl never
managed to conceive of a presence liberated from horizontality.27
This accusation might at first seem strange, since Husserl has often pointed to the
decisive difference between the perspectival givenness of spatial objects, and the absolute
givenness of our conscious experiences. Whereas the object always transcends its present
appearance, for which reason we can always experience it from other perspectives as well, this
is not the case when it comes to the givenness of consciousness itself. When I am aware of my
perceptual act it has no hidden backside, and it does not make sense to operate with a
corresponding difference between the appearance and that which appears. But although Husserl
denies that the act appears in spatial perspectives, he does emphasize the temporality of the
act, and therefore acknowledges that it appears in temporal perspectives. That is, instead of
conceiving of pre-reflective self-awareness as a truly immanent, non-horizontal, and non-
ecstatic self-manifestation, Husserl treats it - according to Henry - as a givenness in inner time-
consciousness, that is, as a givenness which is intrinsically caught up in the ecstatic-centred
structure of primal impression-retention-protention. 28 But as we have already seen, Henry
takes this conception to be disastrous.

Dès ce moment, en effet, la donation extatique de l'impression dans la

conscience interne du temps a remplacé son auto-donation dans
l'impressionalité et la question de l'impression est perdue de vue.29

Against this background it is hardly surprising that Henry would also object strongly to
Derrida’s interpretation of the temporal self-givenness of consciousness. Derrida argues that
consciousness is never given in a full and instantaneous self-presence, but that it due to the
intimate relation between primal impression and retention presents itself to itself across the
difference between now and not-now. That is, self-presence must be conceived as an originary
difference or interlacing between now and not-now, it is in short a self-presence across a primal
fracture.30 To claim that the self-manifestation of the primal impression is due to a retentional
mediation is in Henry’s eyes however tantamount to a complete nihilation of subjectivity.
Henry certainly acknowledges the ecstatic nature of inner time-consciousness, but in contrast
to other phenomenologists, he does not take inner time-consciousness to be the original self-
manifestation of subjectivity; instead, he understands it as the primary self-objectivation.31
Thus, Henry can reproach classical phenomenology for having been so pre-occupied with the
analysis of the self-objectivation of transcendental life that it overlooked the truly fundamental
level of self-manifestation.32
We have seen that Henry takes subjectivity to be absolute in the sense of being
completely self-sufficient in its radical interiority. It is immanent in the sense that it manifests
itself to itself without ever leaving itself, without transcending itself, without producing or

5
presupposing any kind of fracture or alterity. Thus, Henry insists that the originary self-
manifestation of subjectivity excludes all kinds of fracture, separation, alterity, difference,
exteriority, and opposition,33 and as he adds

A la structure intérieure de cette manifestation originelle n'appartient aucun

Dehors, aucun Ecart, aucune Ek-stase: sa substantialité phénoménologique n'est
pas la visibilité, aucune des catégories dont use la philosophie, depuis la Grèce
en tout cas, ne lui convient.34

Ultimately, it must be realized that one cannot approach absolute subjectivity as if it

were merely yet another object. For Henry, absolute subjectivity does not reveal itself in the
world. It is impossible to grasp this unique form of immediate and non-ecstatic manifestation
through any categories pertaining to worldly appearance, and it will consequently remain
concealed for a type of thinking which adheres to the principle of ontological monism, and
which only conceives of manifestation in terms of horison, transcendence and ecstasis.35 The
manifestation of subjectivity is not only utterly different from the visibility of worldly objects,
it is also characterized by a certain elusiveness, not in the sense that it does not manifest itself,
but in the sense that there will always remain something which eludes reflective
thematisation.36 Since the essence of manifestation cannot appear in the visibility of worldly
exteriority, it is called obscure and invisible, and it is exactly at this point that the radicality of
Henry's thought is revealed: According to him, the self-manifestation of absolute subjectivity
must exactly be characterized as an invisible revelation.37

The foundation is not something obscure, neither is it light which becomes

perceivable only when it shines upon the thing which bathes in its light, nor is
it the thing itself as a ‘transcendent phenomenon’, but it is an immanent
revelation which is a presence to itself, even though such a presence remains
‘invisible’.38

One might perhaps criticize Henry for making use of an unnecessarily paradoxical
terminology, but his point is quite clear. The fundamental invisibility of absolute subjectivity
should not be interpreted as a mode of non-manifestation. It is invisible, it does not reveal itself
in the light of the world, but it is not unconscious, nor the negation of all phenomenality, but
rather the primary and most fundamental kind of manifestation.39
Henry’s entire oeuvre is devoted to a study of exactly this kind of manifestation, and it
can therefore best be described as an ambitious attempt to develop a phenomenology of the
invisible.

The presentation so far could easily give the impression that Henry conceives of self-
manifestation in a way that excludes every mediation, complexity and alterity. To a certain
extent this is certainly true, but it is nevertheless possible to unearth certain passages which
challenges or perhaps rather modifies this interpretation.
(1) First of all, Henry acknowledges that absolute subjectivity does transcend itself
towards the world. Ultimately, absolute subjectivity is nothing but the immanent, non-ecstatic,
self-revelation of the very act of transcendence. To put it differently, Henry does acknowledge

6
that an analysis of subjectivity confronts us with an ontological dualism: in every experience
something is given to absolute subjectivity which is different from subjectivity itself. It is the
Other, the non-ego, which appears: “Certainly, subjectivity is always a life in the presence of
a transcendent being.”40 To speak of an ontological dualism, to distinguish a pure interiority
and a pure exteriority, is by no means to accept a classical cartesian dualism. It is merely to
insist upon the existence of an absolute dimension of subjective self-manifestation, without
which no hetero-manifestation would be possible.41
(2) When taking Henry’s occupation with pure immanence into account it might be
natural to conclude that reflections concerning the bodily nature of subjectivity would be
foreign to him. But this would be a mistake. In fact, Henry clearly belongs in the French
phenomenology of the body. However, Henry insists that a phenomenological clarification of
the ontological status of the body must take its point of departure in our original non-
objectifying body-consciousness. 42 When I am conscious of my bodily movements and
sensibility, then I am conscious of it by virtue of the body itself. More precisely, by virtue of
the very self-affection of bodily life, and not because the body has become my intentional
object. According to Henry the body is originally given immediately, non-horisontally, and
non-ecstatically, and he consequently characterizes it as a radical interiority.43
(3) Finally, Henry is even prepared to ascribe a certain complexity and diversity to the
life of the ego:

When we speak of the unity of the absolute life of the ego, we in no way wish
to say that this life is monotonous; actually it is infinitely diverse, the ego is not
a pure logical subject enclosed within its tautology; it is the very being of
infinite life, which nevertheless remains one in this diversity [...].44

As we have already seen, Henry does not conceive of self-affection as an ecstatic temporal
self-positing, but recently he has admited that the very notion of self-affection is a dynamic
and by no means a static notion. After all self-affection understood as the process of affecting
and being affected is not the rigid self-identity of an object, but a subjective movement.45 A
movement which Henry has even described as the self-temporalisation of subjectivity. But as
he then adds, we are dealing with a quite unique form of temporalisation, which is absolute
immanent, non-horizontal and non-ecstatic.46 We are dealing with an affective temporality,
and even though it seems to involve a perpetual movement and change, nothing is changed. In
fact, it would be wrong to characterize absolute subjectivity as a stream of consciousness. There
is no streaming and no change, but always one and the same Living Present without distance
or difference. It is always the same self affecting itself.47
Are these precisions—or perhaps rather modifications—sufficient? Henry is
undoubtedly the phenomenological thinker who has been most attentive to the problem of self-
manifestation. His demonstration of its phenomenological significance is distinguished by its
conceptual clarity. Furthermore, Henry delivers a quite interesting counter-attack against the
customary critics of subject-philosophy. Whereas it has often been claimed that subject-
philosophy is merely the reverse side of an object-fixated philosophy, Henry would claim that
it is the critics of subject-philosophy that have never escaped the ontological monism, and who
have never realized that there is a genuine alternative to object-manifestation.
But of course, it must also be admitted that Henry’s intense (almost monomanic)
preoccupation with this topic makes him vulnerable to criticism. Henry operates with the notion
of an absolutely self-sufficient, non-ecstatic, irrelational self-manifestation, but he never

7
presents us with a convincing explanation of how a subjectivity essentially characterized by
such a complete self-presence can simultaneously be in possession of an inner temporal
articulation; how it can simultaneously be directed intentionally toward something different
from itself; how it can be capable of recognizing other subjects (being acquainted with
subjectivity as it is through a completely unique self-presence); how it can be in possession of
a bodily exteriority; and finally how it can give rise to the self-division found in reflection.
Self-awareness is definitely an important feature of our subjectivity, but so is temporality,
intentionality, reflexivity, corporeality and intersubjectivity, and an analysis of self-
manifestation which does not leave room for these aspects is hardly satisfactory. To put it
differently and very concisely (I have addressed the question in more detail elsewhere) I would
argue that Henry's approach is problematic and insufficient because it conceives of self-
awareness in abstracto, rather than accounting for the self-awareness of the self-transcending
temporal, intentional, reflexive, corporeal and intersubjective experiences. 48 This prevents
Henry from clarifying the relation and interdependency between the self-presence and the self-
transcendence of subjectivity, and I believe this must be the task. As Merleau-Ponty has once
formulated it:

[T]he question is always [...] how the presence to myself (Urpräsenz) which
establishes my own limits and conditions every alien presence is at the same
time depresentation (Entgegenwärtigung) and throws me outside myself.49

Let me conclude by first pointing to some interesting parallels between Henry’s

description of self-manifestation and the analysis that one can find among two other thinkers
of self-awareness, and then briefly addressing the question concerning to what extent one can
find a counterpart to his ‘phenomenology of the invisible’ among other phenomenologists.
(1) Dieter Henrich is often regarded as a keyfigure in the contemporary discussion of
self-awareness.50 He is primarily known for his criticism of the reflection-theory, that is the
theory which claims that self-awareness comes about the moment consciousness directs its
‘gaze’ towards itself, thereby taking itself as an object. More generally, Henrich has criticized
every attempt to understand self-awareness as a relation, be it a relation between two acts, or
between the act and itself. Every relation - in particular the subject-object relation - implies a
distinction between two (or more) relata, and according to Henrich this fact is not consistent
with the immediacy and unity of self-awareness. When Henrich then adds that the pre-
reflective self-awareness of an experience is not mediated by foreign elements such as
concepts, nor by any internal difference or distance, but that it is an immediate and direct self-
acquintance, which is characterized by its absolute irrelationality, the similarities to Henry
should be obvious.51
Henrich further argues that the original self-acquintance is not something we ourselves
bring about. In contrast to reflective self-awareness which we can initiate ourselves, the pre-
reflective self-awareness is not the result of our own achivement, but a given state. In Henry
we find a similar view, since he claims that self-affection is not the result of our own activity
or spontaneity, but an expression of a fundamental and radical passivity. Self-affection is
exactly a given state, it is neither something that one can initiate or control, nor something that
one can reject, escape or transcend.52

8
 [T]he relationship to self of the ego in its original ontological passivity with
regard to self, his unity with self as an absolute unity in a sphere of radical
immanence, as unity with self of life, permits itself neither to be surmounted
nor broken.53

If we briefly turn our gaze from Germany to Denmark, we also find some striking
parallels between Henry’s position and the description that Erich Klawonn has given of the
ego-dimension’s self-presence. Whereas Henry speaks of the absolute self-sufficiency of
immanence, Klawonn speaks of the ego-dimension’s first-personal autonomy. The ego-
dimension’s first-personal givenness is sui generis, it is given by itself, and is in that sense self-
sufficient and self-determining. Moreover its self-manifestation must be understood in the light
of its own simple nature, which is free from any duality or relationality. And whereas Henry
denies that the self-manifestation is characterized by any temporal ecstasis, Klawonn argues
that the primary self-presence is free from any temporal declination.54
(2) In his book Le tournant théologique de la phénoménologie française from 1991
Dominique Janicaud has criticized a recent turn in French phenomenology (apart from Henry,
Janicaud is also thinking of Lévinas and Jean-Luc Marion). All of these thinkers have tried to
radicalize phenomenology by going beyond a so-called surface phenomenology. They have not
been satisfied with mere analyses of object-manifestation or act-intentionality, but have tried
to disclose a more profound and original dimension, be it the radical Other, the pure immanence
or God.55 Janicaud asks whether this movement still deserves to be called phenomenological,
or whether it should not rather be called metaphysical or theological. Is it not paradoxical to
characterize a thinking that abandons the precision and clarity of vision and delves into the
dark and mystical regions of invisibility, phenomenological? In short, is it not simply an
absurdity to speak of a phenomenology of the invisible?56
I think it is worthwhile to distinguish two questions. The first is whether the movement
from visibility to invisibility is phenomenological motivated. The second is whether the very
investigation of this invisibility still deserves to be called phenomenological, or whether it
should rather be left to a metaphysical or speculative thinking.
As for the first issue, it would be a mistake to think that the movement towards the
invisible were merely a recent French trend. On the contrary, one finds a similar tendency
among all the major figures in phenomenology. If we start with Husserl, he often talked of his
own investigation into time-consciousness as an analysis of the absolute dimension.57 Husserl
very well knew that every description of this passive and anonymously functioning constitutive
dimension were beset with difficulties, mainly because the concepts we have at our disposal
all originates from our interaction with intra-mundane and intra-temporal objects. 58 The
decisive problem is consequently whether it is at all possible to describe and conceptualize the
condition of manifestation without treating it as an object, thereby falsifying it decisively.
Husserl’s realization of the difficulties connected to an investigation of lived subjectivity was
perhaps never expressed more acutely than in the following passage from the Bernauer
Manuscripts:

In diesem Sinn ist es also nicht ‘Seiendes’, sondern Gegenstück für alles
Seiende, nicht ein Gegenstand, sondern Urstand für alle Gegenständlichkeit.
Das Ich sollte eigentlich nicht das Ich heissen, und überhaupt nicht heissen, da
es dann schon gegenständlich geworden ist, es ist das Namenlose über allem
Fassbaren, über allem nicht Stehende, nicht Schwebende, nicht Seiende,

9
 sondern ‘Fungierende’, als fassend, als wertend usw. - Das alles muß noch
vielfach überdacht werden. Es liegt fast an der Grenze möglicher
Beschreibung.59

If we turn to Heidegger, he already in Sein und Zeit remarks that the specific task of
phenomenology is to disclose that which ‘zunächst und zumeist’ remains hidden from view,
namely Being. It is exactly because there are phenomena which do not reveal themselves
immediately that we are in need of a phenomenology.60 Much later, in a conference from 1973,
Heidegger explicitly speaks of a ‘phenomenology of the inapparent (Unscheinbaren)’.61 In
L’être et le néant Sartre writes that the lived body is invisibly present in every action, exactly
because it is lived and not known;62 and I hardly need to mention the title of Merleau-Ponty’s
last book: Le visible et l’invisible. If one finally takes a look at the two phenomenologists that
in certain respects might be called Henry’s absolute antipodes, Derrida and Levinas, one can
also find similar ideas. According to Derrida, the ultimate condition of manifestation is not
intuitively graspable. It cannot become the object of a reflection, it does not offer itself to
vision, but remains forever the nocturnal source of light itself.63 For Lévinas, to encounter the
Other is to be affected in radical passivity by something ‘invisible’ in the sense of not being
representable, objectifiable, thematizable, etc.64 Henry describes the absolute passivity of self-
affection in very similar terms. And whereas Henry emphasizes the absolute difference
between any worldly, horizontal object-manifestation, and the non-horizontal, immediate
character of self-manifestation, Lévinas says the same of the Other: it offers itself immediately,
i.e., independently of all systems, contexts and horizons.65 Thus the philosopher of immanence
and the philosopher of transcendence meet in their criticism of the object-fixated surface-
phenomenology. In fact their description of the self and the Other are amazingly identical:
Functioning subjectivity and radical alterity both belong to a totally different ontological
dimension than the one dominated by vision.66 But perhaps this is not so strange after all. In
both cases we are dealing with subjectivity.
In so far as practically all of the major phenomenological thinkers eventually realized
that it would be necessary to transcend a mere analysis of act-intentionality and object-
manifestation if they were to approach and clarify the phenomenological question concerning
the condition of possibility for manifestation, I do not - contra Janicaud - think that there is any
reason to deny that the move towards the invisible is phenomenologically motivated. And again
let me emphasize that to speak of the invisible is not to speak of that which for ever remains
hidden, it is not speak of that which never manifests itself, but simply to speak of something
that manifests itself in a radically different way than the visible.
As for the second question, it might very well be that there are aspects concerning the
nature of manifestation which phenomenology cannot explore and answer itself. But to admit
that, is definitely not to accept a narrow definition of phenomenology that equates it with an
analysis of act-intentionality and object-manifestation, that is which identifies phenomenology
with surface-phenomenology.67 So although one might, as I have already mentioned, criticize
Henry for using an unnecessarily paradoxical formulation, he is certainly right in arguing that
there are other forms of manifestation than the visible and that phenomenology is bound to
investigate these as well. That it can in fact do so, is evident from his own investigations of
self-manifestation.

10
 References

Derrida, J.: La voix et le phénomène (Paris: PUF, 1967a).

Derrida, J.: De la grammatologie (Paris: Les Éditions de minuit, 1967b).
Derrida, J.: La dissémination (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1972).
Derrida, J.: An Introduction to Edmund Husserl’s ‘Origin of Geometry’ (University of
Nebraska Press, 1989).
Derrida, J.: Le problème de la genèse dans la philosophie de Husserl (Paris: PUF, 1990).
Flanagan, O.: Consciousness Reconsidered (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994).
Hart, J.G.: “Intentionality, Phenomenality, and Light,” in Self-awareness, Temporality, and
Alterity, ed. D. Zahavi (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998).
Heidegger, M.: Sein und Zeit (Tübingen, Max Niemeyer, 1986a).
Heidegger, M.: Seminare (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1986b).
Heidegger, M.: Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio
Klostermann, 1991).
Henrich, D.: “Fichtes ursprüngliche Einsicht,” in Subjektivität und Metaphysik. Festschrift
für Wolfgang Cramer, eds. D. Henrich & H. Wagner (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann,
1966), 188-232.
Henrich, D.: “Selbstbewußtsein, kritische Einleitung in eine Theorie,” in Hermeneutik und
Dialektik, eds. R. Bubner, K. Cramer, R. Wiehl (Tübingen: 1970), 257-284.
Henrich, D.: Fluchtlinien (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1982).
Henry, M.: L’essence de la manifestation (Paris: PUF, 1963).
Henry, M.: Philosophie et phénoménologie du corps (Paris: PUF, 1965).
Henry, M.: “Le concept d’âme a-t-il un sens?” Revue philosophique de Louvain 64 (1966),
5-33.
Henry, M.: “Philosophie et subjectivité,” in Encyclopédie Philosophique Universelle, Bd.1.:
L’univers philosophique, ed. A. Jacob (Paris: PUF, 1989), 46-56.
Henry, M.: Phénoménologie matérielle (Paris: PUF, 1990).
Henry, M.: “Phénoménologie de la naissance,” Alter 2 (1994), 295-312.
Henry, M.: C’est moi la vérité (Paris: Seuil, 1996).
Husserl, E.: Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie I,
Husserliana III/1-2 (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976).
Husserl, E.: Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phä
nomenologie, Husserliana VI (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962.
Husserl, E.: Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewußtseins (1893-1917), Husserliana X
(Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966).
Husserl, E.: Ding und Raum, Husserliana XVI (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973).
Janicaud, D.: Le tournant théologique de la phénoménologie française (Combas: Éditions de
l’éclat, 1991).
Klawonn, E.: Jeg’ets Ontologi (Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag, 1991).
Lévinas, E.: En découvrant l’existance avec Husserl et Heidegger (Paris: Vrin, 1949/1988).
Lévinas, E.: Totalité et infini (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1961/1990).
Lévinas, E.: Le temps et l’autre (Paris: Fata Morgana, 1979).
Lévinas, E.: De Dieu qui vient à l’idée (Paris: Vrin, 1982/1992).
Marion, J.-L.: Réduction et donation. Recherches surHusserl, Heidegger et la
Phénoménologie (Paris: PUF, 1989).
Marion, J.-L.: “The Saturated Phenomenon,” Philosophy Today 40/1 (1996), 103-124.

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Merleau-Ponty, M.: Phénoménologie de la perception (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1945).
Nagel, T.: “What is it like to be a bat?” The Philosophical Review 83 (1974), 435-450.
Sartre, J.-P.: L’Étre et le néant (Paris: Tel Gallimard, 1943/1976).
Searle, J.R.: The Rediscovery of the Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992).
Sebbah, F.-D.: “Aux limites de l’intentionnalité: M. Henry et E. Lévinas lecteurs des
Leçons sur la conscience intime du temps,” Alter 2 (1994), 245-259.
Zahavi, D.: Husserl und die transzendentale Intersubjektivität. Eine Antwort auf die
sprachpragmatische Kritik (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996).
Zahavi, D.: Husserls Fænomenologi (København: Gyldendal, 1997).
Zahavi, D.: “The Fracture in Self-awareness,” i Zahavi (udg.): Self-awareness, Temporality
and Alterity (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998), 21-40.
Zahavi, D.: Self-awareness and alterity. A phenomenological Investigation (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1999).

NOTES

1. Henry 1963, pp. 14, 32, 64, 67, 1966, p.5.

2. Hua VI 161.

3. Hua XVI 55.

4. Henry 1963, pp.36, 50.

5. Henry 1963, pp. 47, 52.

6. On this account, the only type of experience which would lack self-awareness, would be an
experience I were not conscious of, that is, an ‘unconscious experience’.

7 . As Dieter Henrich would write: “Im Bewußtsein ist aber kein Erscheinen ohne ein
Erscheinen des Bewußtseins selber.”Henrich 1970, p.260. Cf. Hart 1998.

8. Henry 1963, pp. 47, 52, 168-169, 173, 584, 576, 598-599, 613.

9. Henry 1963, p. 173. Cf. pp. 168-169.

10. It is interesting to notice that Henry takes the distinction between the reflective and the
pre-reflective cogito to be equivocal, and he himself does not use the term pre-reflective as a
designation of the originary self-manifestation (Henry 1965, p.76). Presumably, this is because
the notion betrays a certain affiliation with the paradigm of reflection. To designate self-
awareness as pre-reflective indicates that reflective self-awareness is still the yardstick.

11. Henry 1963, pp. 86-87, 95-96, 138, 143, 262. Cf. Zahavi 1998 og 1999.

12. Henry 1963, pp. 44, 279, 329, 352, 1966, pp.22-23.

12
13. Henry 1963, pp.288-292, 301.

14. Henry 1963, pp.578, 580, 590.

15. Henry 1990, p.22.With an argumentation very similar to one found in Sartre (1943, pp.18,
20, 28), Henry claims that our sentiments can only exist self-aware. Their self-manifestation is
not separated from or external to their being, but the ontological foundation of it. To be in pain,
embarrassed, happy or stubborn is to be (self)aware of it. It is, so to speak, both a way of being
and a way of being aware.

16. Nagel 1974, p.436, Searle 1992, pp. 131-132.

17. Cf. Flanagan 1994, pp.194-195.

18. Henry 1963, pp.578, 580, 590.

19. Henry 1990, p.166, 1966, p.33, 1965, p.139.

20. Henry 1963, pp.576, 349, 858.

21. Henry 1990, p.166, 1966, p.33, 1963, p.858.

22. Henry 1963, pp.858-859.

23. Heidegger 1991, p.194.

24. Heidegger 1991, p.190. Cf. p.189.

25. Merleau-Ponty 1945, p.469.

26. Merleau-Ponty 1945, p.487.

27. Henry 1989, p.50.

28. Henry 1990, p.32. For an account of Husserl’s theory of inner time-consciousness which
relates it to the issue of self-manifestation, cf. Zahavi 1999.

29. Henry 1990, pp. 49-50.

30. Derrida 1967a, p.73.

31. Henry 1990, p.107.

32. Henry 1990, p.130.

33. Henry 1990, p.72, 1963, pp.279-280, 351, 352, 377, 419.

34. Henry 1990, p.7. Cf. Henry 1963, pp. 58, 279-280, 351-352, 377, 396, 419, 1990, pp.72,

13
111.

35. Henry 1963, p.477.

36. Henry 1963, pp.480-482, 1990, p.125, 164.

37. Henry 1963, pp.53, 480-482, 490, 549, 1990, pp.125, 164.

38. Henry 1963, p.53. Cf. 1963, p.549.

39. Henry 1963, pp.53, 57, 550, 555.

40. Henry 1965, p.259. Cf. 1965, p.99.

41. Henry 1965, p.162.

42. Henry 1965, p.79.

43. Henry 1966, p.29.

44. Henry 1965, p.127.

45. Cf. Sebbah 1994, p.252.

46. Henry 1994, pp. 303-304, 310, 1996, pp.201-202.

47. Henry 1990, p.54, 1994, p.311.

48. Cf. Zahavi 1998 and 1999.

49. Merleau-Ponty 1945, p.417.

50. For a discussion of his contribution cf. Zahavi 1999.

51. Henrich 1970, pp.266, 273, 1982, p.142. These similarities are especially striking when
considering that Henrich has repeatedly claimed that the phenomenologists never managed to
escape the paradigme of reflection (Henrich 1966, p. 231, 1970, p.261, 1982, p.131).

52. Henry 1963, pp. 299-300, 422, 585, 1994, p.305.

53.Henry 1963, p.854. Cf. 1963, pp. 363, 371.

54. Klawonn 1991, pp. 79, 117-118, 154, 256.

55. In his article ‘The Saturated Phenomenon’ Marion argues that one should describe the self-
sufficient, unconditioned and non-horisontal manifestation as a revelation (Marion 1996,
p.120).

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56. Janicaud 1991.

57. Hua III 182.

58. Hua X 75, Hua X 371, Ms. C 3 4a, Ms. C 7 14a.

59. Husserl, Ms. L I 20 4a-b. I am grateful to the Director of the Husserl-Archives in Leuven,
Prof. Rudolf Bernet, for permitting me to consult and quote from Husserl’s unpublished
manuscripts.

60. Heidegger 1986a, p.35. Cf. Marion 1989, pp.90-97, Marion 1996.

61. Heidegger 1986b, p. 399.

62. Sartre 1943, p.372.

63. Derrida 1972, p.297, 1989, p.137.

64. Lévinas 1979, pp. 9, 53, 78, 1949, pp. 194, 206, 214, 1961, p.209, 1982, p.183.

65. Lévinas 1961, p.72. Cf. 1949, p.229.

66. Lévinas 1974, p.158.

67. A narrow understanding that one occassionally encounters in both Lévinas and Derrida
(Lévinas 1949, p.199, 1979, p.87, Derrida 1967b, p.99).

15