Abstract
This paper aims to overcome the Eurocentrism of the conventional comparative philosophy by using phenomenology as a method. By doing so, it shows that phenomenology itself exceeds any negative duality and transforms itself into “positive phenomenology”. The paper further argues that comparative philosophy can be newly conceived as phenomenological metaphysics in which the oneness undergoes an immanent self-development. For this triple work, phenomenology needs to carry out a thorough reduction, dismantling the negative duality which underlies any consciousness and is the origin of representation. It thereby should enable us to simply affirm the present in our consciousness, an positivity that does not include any negativity. The proposal of such intrinsically positive phenomenology will provide us with a good opportunity to reconceptualize comparative philosophy as metaphysics. My reflection will not be based on Husserl’s and Heidegger’s phenomenology, which centers on the notion of negativity; rather, it will be guided by Henry Corbin’s phenomenological interpretation of Sufism of Ibn Arabî.
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Notes
- 1.
Paul Masson-Oursel: La philosophie comparée. Alcan, Paris 1923. (English: Comparative Philosophy, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., London 1926).
- 2.
Henry Corbin: Philosophie Iranienne et philosophie comparée. Buchet/Chastel, Paris, p. 21–p. 34.
- 3.
Such as Michel Henry, Emmanuel Lévinas et Jean-Luc Marion who first opened this direction in phenomenology.
- 4.
Ibid, Henry Corbin: Philosophie Iranienne et philosophie comparée. Buchet/Chastel, Paris, p. 23.
- 5.
Henry Corbin: L’imagination créatrice dans le soufisme d’Ibn Arabî. 2ème édition, Aubier, Paris.
- 6.
Corbin systematically investigated this concept in Avicenne et le récit visionnaire. Berg International, 1979.
- 7.
See especially Corbin’s L’imagination créatrice dans le soufisme d’Ibn Arabî.
- 8.
See Henry Corbin: Le paradoxe du monothéisme. L’Herne, Paris, 1981, I.Le Dieu-un et les dieux multiples.
- 9.
See Henry Corbin, op.cit., I.3. “Les diagrammes de l’Un unifique et des theosophies multiples.”
References
Corbin, Henry. 1969. L’imagination créatrice dans le soufisme d’Ibn Arabî. Paris: Aubier.
———. 1981. Le paradoxe du monothéisme. Paris: L’Herne.
———. 1991. Philosophie Iranienne et philosophie comparée. Paris: Buchet/Chastel.
Masson-Oursel, Paul. 1923. La philosophie comparée. Paris: Alcan.
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Nagai, S. (2019). Phenomenology, Metaphysics and Comparative Philosophy. Sketch for a Positive Phenomenology. In: de Warren, N., Taguchi, S. (eds) New Phenomenological Studies in Japan. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 101. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8_13
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