Pasividad y sustancia
Pasividad y sustancia en Filosofía y fenomenología del cuerpo de Michel Henry
Publicado en: PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, Vol. 3: Selected Essays from the Euro-Mediterranean Area: The Horizons of Freedom. Edited by Ion Copoeru, Pavlos Kontos, and Agustín Serrano de Haro (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010). pp. 91-114.
Michel Henry's Philosophy and Phenomenology of the Body shows some primal and the most important resolutions which are the parting points for his thought and phenomenology. Philosophy and Phenomenology of the Body was written from 1948 to 1949 as a chapter for The Essence of Manifestation, focusing on the ego and the subjectivity. In these works, Maine de Biran is Henry's traveling companion. Henry tries to respond to an intuition about the problem of the knowledge through the body and the subjectivity shared with Maine de Biran.
Henry's interpretation of Maine de Biran in Philosophy and Phenomenology of the Body mainly affirms that the achievement of Maine de Biran is to locate phenomenology as the foundation of ontology. It is clear that Henry tries to revise an ontological base supported by phenomenology of the body which has been showed by Maine de Biran. Henry aims to exclude himself and Maine de Biran from dualism, monism, idealism and empiricism. In this sense Henry improves two theses, and these are the base of his phenomenology: the ontological unity manifests itself and is anticipated by the subjectivity, and the originary passivity shows the basis of ontology.
By improving these two points, it is possible to see a clue to phenomenology of the body which indicates the basis of ontology. This article deals with the passivity in Philosophy and Phenomenology of the Body concerning its relation with the category (faculty) of substance. It indicates one possible substantialization of the body and that of the world.