Violence and the Limits of Experience

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore the question of the limits of experience in light of the phenomenology of violence. I begin by emphasizing the specificity of the phenomenological concept of pre-theoretical experience, in contrast with the traditional concept of experience dominated by theoretical and epistemological motives. Consequently, I underscore that violence can be phenomenologically understood only as a lived experience, given in the first person, belonging to an embodied subject, and placed in an antagonistic intersubjective situation. In order to question how the lived experience of violence discloses the limits of experience, I focus on the concept of the limit and discuss its relevance to phenomenological thought, referring to the limits of phenomenology, limit-problems, limit-phenomena, and limit-situations. I then show that we can differentiate between normal and liminal modes of experience, but we are also dealing with a multitude of levels of experience (visual, auditory, tactile, embodied, affective, intersubjective, comprehensive, and discursive), each of which has its own specific limits. I conclude by analyzing how the phenomenon of violence delineates the limits of experience at each of these levels.

In this article, I wish to relate the general theme of this special issue—the limits of experience—to the phenomenon of violence. Can the phenomenon of violence shed light on the problem of the limits of experience? How does our experience reveal its own limits when we encounter a violently charged event? Do the limits of experience become more conspicuous when violence occupies the foreground of our daily lives?

These questions do not allow for hasty answers. Rather, they invite us to step back and first question how the concept of experience should be determined in this particular context. Only then, in a second step, can we ask how the limits of this experience can be specified. And only from there, in light of a certain understanding of experience and the determination of its limits, can we finally question how the phenomenon of violence becomes relevant to this issue.

The Lived Experience of Violence

It is true that the notion of experience has a bewildering multiplicity of meanings. As is well known, it traverses the entire history of philosophy, raising numerous problematizations regarding its nature and structure in each of its phases. We can recall the various significations of the Greek term ἐµπειρία, primarily thematized by Aristotle and continued in post-Aristotelian philosophy, and the meanings that the notion of experientia acquires during the Middle Ages¹. In this context, the concept of experience opens not only towards a theoretical-epistemological register, where experience is correlated with memory and placed between sensation and science—aiming at knowledge of the particular, not the universal—but also towards a practical or moral area, where it is linked with the idea of accumulated competence, and where “having experience” means “being experienced,” namely having practical knowledge following habitual sedimentation. Later, the emergence of modern science introduced an exclusively theoretical concept of experience, where lawfulness and regularity are decisive, making possible the verifiability and reiteration of scientific experiments in a controlled experimental context. This strong epistemological orientation of the concept of experience dominated modern philosophy, especially in the dispute between empiricism and rationalism, and later in Kantian transcendental idealism.

The way in which the phenomenological tradition initiated by Husserl approaches the concept of experience emphasizes the unilateral character of the dominant epistemological orientation that characterizes modern philosophy, along with its correlative scientific attitude. Also relevant is the gap between the strictly philosophical use of the concept of experience and its everyday, pre-philosophical, or extra-philosophical use. This is precisely why phenomenology focuses on the tension between predicative and pre-predicative experience, on the foundation of theoretical experience in pre-theoretical experience, and on the rooting of scientific experience in pre-scientific experience. In this sense, Husserl states that the “retrogression to the world of experience [Rückgang auf die Welt der Erfahrung] is a retrogression to the ‘life-world,’ [Rückgang auf die ‘Lebenswelt’] i.e., to the world in which we are always already living and which furnishes the ground for all cognitive performance and all scientific determination”.² Correspondingly, Heidegger emphasizes the relevance of pre-scientific experience (vorwissenschaftliche Erfahrung) and pre-phenomenological experience (vorphänomenologische Erfahrung)³ for his ontological project. Following these incentives, phenomenology understands experience in its pre-theoretical dimension, anchored in the subjectivity of an eminently embodied and affectively determined self, as a genuinely lived experience.⁴

Phenomenology, therefore, aims for the rediscovery of the concrete experience of the life-world, precisely what the theoretical attitude—centered exclusively on scientific experience—dissimulates or conceals. Of course, experience cannot occur in the absence of an experiencing pole (the one who “has” the experience) or in the absence of the world (the pole of what is experienced). This obviously involves the subject–object distinction that phenomenology analyzes correlatively but also deconstructs. At stake is not only the experience focused on a certain object but also the integrative and multilayered experience of being-in-the-world as such. Above all, the aim is to understand experience as a lived experience of one’s own self, in the first person, engaging various degrees of intensity and radicality, which sometimes call into question (if not actually put into crisis) the subjectivity of the subject as such. Therefore, in the tension between Erfahrung and Erlebnis,⁵ various experiential ways in which we encounter the world, others, and ourselves open before us. One can then ask: What are the structures of this experience? What are its fundamental modalities? How is experience constituted? What kinds of experiences are possible (or impossible) for a subject? How do these experiences affect the subjectivity of the subject?

Insofar as experience is concerned primarily with the pre-theoretical ways in which the self (ego, consciousness) encounters the world, others, and itself, discussing the phenomenon of violence presents certain difficulties. Of course, one may wonder what kind of violence we are talking about. As we well know, there are multiple forms or types of violence, as well as countless violent situations. Thus, one can refer to structural, systemic, or institutional violence; symbolic, psychological, or verbal violence; political or social violence; intra-specific or inter-specific violence, etc. Given that we are dealing with an indefinite plurality of forms of violence, what kind of violence are we referring to here?

The answer is prefigured precisely by the specificity of phenomenological reflection which, as we have pointed out, aims first to descriptively approach the pre-theoretical experience, lived in the first person by an embodied subject who, in actually encountering the world, makes sense of its own experience. Therefore, the problem of violence can enter under the magnifying glass of phenomenological investigation only as a lived experience of violence,⁶ namely as an experience of a subject confronted directly with the other in an antagonistic intersubjective situation. Thus, phenomenology can describe violence only starting from the experience of the first person, in a factical, emotionally charged interpersonal situation, lived in a fully embodied way of being. Consequently, if the originary meanings of violence are phenomenologically revealed in the concrete experiential situation in which two embodied and affectively charged subjectivities oppose and confront each other, then all other types of violence can be understood as derivative and secondary. This is equally because they are far removed from this originally experiential dimension and because they bring into play more complex layers of meaning, which can only be described regressively, starting from the more elementary ones.

It is equally true that the experience of violence, as lived in the first person, can manifest in various ways, from multiple perspectives, each generating a specific experiential configuration.⁷ For instance, when two subjectivities (mine and the other’s) are equally engaged in mutual confrontation, we refer to symmetrical violence, where each individual pole experiences the engagement symmetrically. Conversely, in situations where aggression is exerted by one subjective pole while the other passively endures it, we encounter asymmetric violence. In such cases, the first-person experience can either involve the exertion of violence or the endurance of it, namely the suffered violence.⁸ Additionally, we can consider the experience of violence from the perspective of a third party, referring to someone who witnesses, more or less voluntarily, the occurrence of violence between two subjectivities, whether it be symmetrical or asymmetric.

Phenomenology and Its Limits

Let us now take it a step further, this time addressing the question of limits. Given this phenomenological concept of experience, how should we determine its “limits”? How are the limits of experience constituted? Does the experience that phenomenology aims at, in this case, that of a subject understood in the first person, have a unique set of limits? Are we dealing with fixed and immutable limits? Should these limits be understood as impassable boundaries? What is the nature of these limits and how exactly do they delimit our own experience? Above all, in what way can the phenomenon of violence shed light on these limits of one’s own experience?

But before we actually pose the question of the limits of experience, we need to step back again and see how the concept of limit as such can be specified. It is true that, even without resorting to the laborious play between πέρας and ἄπειρον in the Philebus,⁹ the idea of limit can be determined conceptually in various ways. For instance, the relation between limits and what they limit can be understood either negatively or positively. On the one hand, we can say that limits deny the possibilities of a phenomenon, and prevent it from showing itself: they block it and restrict its manifestation. In this sense, limits are coercive; they obstruct and constrain; they deny the object and oppose it. The limit in its negative sense already has a violent charge, in that it is exercised coercively. Any attempt to breach these limits of coercion elicits a violent response from them or from the agents who implement them. But on the other hand, for any reality, being means having its own limits, existing within its own limits, inasmuch as the originary limits of a thing are primarily the limits of its essence. In this latter sense, the limit contains, encompasses, delimits, and makes possible the essential structure of a thing.

How, then, can the relation between the limit and what it limits be conceived? We could say that at play is the tension between “belonging” (in the sense that the limit belongs to the limited thing) and “externality” (the limit does not belong to it but is external to it). This relation can cover several situations. It can be seen in a strictly disjunctive sense (either/or), for instance in the situation where we question whether the limit is external to that which it limits or whether, on the contrary, it belongs to it. The question can also be put in the conjunctive sense because the limit can be understood both as belonging to that which it limits and also as being external to it. Finally, the limit can also be determined by a double exclusion (neither/nor), as in the situation in which we affirm that it neither belongs to that which it limits nor is it purely external to it. All these possibilities are constituted as alternative answers to the central question: does the limit deny the thing or, on the contrary, affirm it? Is the limited thing in conflict with its own limits, or, on the contrary, is its own being precisely conferred by its limits, for without these limits it could not even be what it is? Accordingly, the limit does not only have a negative meaning but can also be understood positively, in the sense that it gathers the thing together within its essential boundaries. Such a limit that rather makes possible the essence of the thing could be understood as a “limitation that does not limit,”¹⁰ being rather a limit that guarantees the being of the entity, opening its own possibilities.

But let us move away from purely conceptual analysis to the concrete-descriptive area of phenomenology. In this context, the idea of a limit appears on several levels, related but somewhat distinct: for we can speak of “limits of phenomenology,” of its “limit-problems” and “limit-phenomena,” of “limit-situations,” or, finally, of the “limits of experience”. Is the problem of the limit posed in the same sense when we refer to the “limits of experience” and when we thematize “limit-problems,” “limit-phenomena,” or “limit-situations”? Is violence a “limit-phenomenon” or rather a “limit-situation”?

For instance, when the question of the “limits of phenomenology” is raised, it refers to its disciplinary boundaries, methodological frontiers, and thematic demarcations. At stake, therefore, is the contrast between those approaches that carelessly transgress the frontiers of phenomenology (moving toward a “beyond”) and those that, on the contrary, cautiously withdraw toward the core of meaning that makes phenomenology what it properly is, thereby defending a so-called phenomenological “orthodoxy” in relation to its possible “heretical” deviations. In this sense, one can say, for example, that a certain approach exceeds the legitimate limits of phenomenology, entering a territory that is foreign to it. Similarly, an approach can be criticized for distancing itself from the genuine descriptive character of phenomenology, abandoning the specific method of phenomenological interrogation.

Moreover, one can also say that certain problems are placed “outside” the phenomenological domain, beyond the limits of its legitimate and secure territory. This assumes that phenomenology has a well-defined domain and that any transgression of these limits would be, if not phenomenologically illegitimate, at least quite reckless. It would involve those problems that phenomenology if it wants to remain what it is, cannot (or even must not) address with its traditional methods. In relation to this unapproachable horizon, one can place the “limit-problems” of phenomenology, namely those “problems that overstep the limits of phenomenological description” (Heffernan, 2022: 19).

Among these “liminal problems” or “marginal problems” (Limesprobleme, Randprobleme),¹¹ referring to “liminal phenomena” or “limit-phenomena” (Limesphänomene, Grenzphänomene),¹² Husserl mentions not only birth, death, dreamless sleep, fainting, the unconscious,¹³ but also generation, animal existence, drive, and instinct.¹⁴ Therefore, these liminal phenomena should be engaged with methodological prudence, in a privative approach that primarily emphasizes their fundamental inaccessibility.¹⁵ Indeed, they are not given as such; they do not show themselves in the fullness of manifestation and, therefore, are not regular phenomena. This topic has recently been reprised by Anthony Steinbock, starting from the question of how those phenomena that remain essentially at the limit of the phenomenal field, or “on the limit of givenness,” could be approached—not being given in themselves, but remaining “on the edge of accessibility”¹⁶ or “on the edge of experience”.¹⁷ In relation to these “limits of givenness,” the stake is to see how those phenomena that “are given as not being able to be given” can however be questioned. Besides Husserl’s examples, Steinbock discusses as limit-phenomena, for instance, the experience of the stranger, and the relationship between one’s own world and the foreign world. He emphasizes that although limit-phenomena are not arbitrary, they can still be relative to the type of phenomenological investigation at stake, for what appears as a limit-phenomenon in the context of static phenomenology can be understood as an ordinary phenomenon in the framework of genetic phenomenology; likewise, what appears as a limit-phenomenon on the level of genetic phenomenology can be understood as a regular phenomenon in the register of generative phenomenology.

Making a step forward, let’s emphasize that the problem of “limit-phenomena” does not overlap with that of “limit-situations,” discussed by Jaspers in Psychologie der Weltanschauungen (1919) and in Philosophie II: Existenzerhellung (1931). For Jaspers, human existence is a constant fact of being in situations; however, one cannot exit one individual situation without entering another. There are also “ultimate situations” from which one cannot escape, unavoidable situations determined as such as “limit-situations”. These include death (Tod), struggle (Kampf), guilt (Schuld), and suffering (Leiden). It is noteworthy that all these limit-situations are connected in various ways to the phenomenon of violence.¹⁸ As is well known, Heidegger also addressed the issue of “limit-situations” in Sein und Zeit, particularly in discussing the concept of being-toward-death (Sein zum Tode).¹⁹ Certainly, the concept of limit-situation can encompass other experiences that fundamentally alter the constitutive structures of subjectivity.

The Limits of Experience and the Phenomenon of Violence

We can now approach the core of our inquiry and explore the notion of “the limits of experience”. This formula suggests, at first glance, that our ordinary experience always takes place within certain boundaries. Of course, this spatial determination of an “interior contained within certain limits” can be misleading and must therefore be taken with caution. However, we can say that these limits circumscribe the “normality” of the experience and have an inevitable normative function.²⁰ Just as we speak of normal experiences, we can also speak of limit-experiences (abnormal, privative, liminal, etc.). Within the register of normality, we deal with the usual ways in which we relate to the surrounding world and the entities we discover within it, the normal ways in which we encounter others in our shared world, and the ordinary ways in which the self discovers, has, and keeps itself, constantly relating to itself.

In each of these three dimensions (in relation to the world, others, and oneself), the normality of experience occurs within certain limits, without necessarily reaching those limits. As we approach these boundaries, as we “tempt” them, our experiences become less “usual,” “normal,” or “typical,” and more “liminal”. In such cases, we can speak of the so-called “limit-experiences,” which are encountered in “limit-situations”. These experiences directly engage with the boundaries of experience, targeting and confronting them.

Therefore, the core issue of our problem lies in the contrast between “limit-experiences” and “normal experiences,” and the distinction between “limit-situations” and everyday or usual situations. While experience is considered “normal” when it occurs within certain limits without targeting or approaching them, it becomes “liminal” precisely when it confronts and explicitly targets these limits. It is evident that violence can be categorized as a “liminal experience” because, during a violent event, and especially in enduring violence, we are confronted in various ways with the limits of our being in the world.²¹

But perhaps we should also consider a third case, one that involves an actual shattering of these limits. Beyond the constant possibility of confronting the limits, as in the case of “liminal experiences,” we can explore an even more radical possibility where the limits of normal experience are entirely crushed. Here, the tension between normality and abnormality can be understood in light of the collapse of being in the world, under extreme circumstances where the limits of experience are dissolved. If the experience of violence is generally a “liminal experience,” namely an experience in which we are confronted with the limits of our being in the world, could we say that in certain forms of extreme violence—such as prolonged torture—the subjective experience as a whole is ruined? As Scarry (1985) suggests, in such cases, the world is dismantled, and with it, the being-in-the-world as such is destroyed. It is, of course, ethically difficult to differentiate between so-called “normal” violence—understood as a “liminal experience” in which the subject, though confronted with its limits, is still able to remain oneself, preserving an experiential coherence of one’s own self—and “abnormal” violence, where experience as such disintegrates, and the subjectivity of the subject is crushed. Nevertheless, the question remains.

Another important aspect must be emphasized here: when we talk about the “limits of experience,” we need to consider that our experience is not monolithic but always unfolds on multiple experiential levels, each with its own distinct specificity. Indeed, we can discuss experience (and its limits) both in terms of the strictly perceptual register—be it visual, auditory, tactile, etc.—and in terms of its modifications on the levels of memory, imagination, or dreams. We also refer to experience when focusing on the way one’s own embodiment or affectivity is experienced. Similarly, experience is equally at play when we encounter others in various configurations of intersubjectivity. Additionally, regarding the private sphere of one’s own self, we can focus on the experience of understanding or on the discursive experience in relation to oneself or to others. All these spheres are circumscribed to experience, and therefore they all represent distinct modes or types of experience. We can differentiate between perceptual experience, mnemonic experience, imaginative or imagistic experience, and dream experience. We can also differentiate between affective experience, intersubjective experience, comprehensive experience, and discursive experience. Furthermore, we can distinguish, in a completely different sense, between usual or everyday experience and other types of experience that are based on more complex layers of meaning, such as aesthetic experience, moral experience, or religious experience.

Thus, the monolithic phrase “limits of experience” should be “broken” in relation to this inherent plurality, allowing us to see not only the typological multiplicity but also the specificity of each experiential mode, with the particularity of its limits. At play is always a plurality that is concordant but differentiated and distinct. Therefore, rather than talking about the “limits of experience” (where experience is singular), we should recognize the diversity within it, emphasizing the “limits of modes of experience” instead. We should specifically analyze the limits of perceptual experience and discuss in detail—and in a differentiated way—the limits of visual experience, auditory experience, tactile experience, and so on. Additionally, we can question the limits of bodily experience, problematize the limits of affective experience, describe the limits of intersubjective experience, and outline the limits of discursive-comprehensive experience. Thus, the general theme of the “limits of experience” unfolds into multiple strands, depending on the experiential level we have in mind.²²

The underlying question obviously aims at how the phenomenon of violence sheds light on these limits at each experiential level. Maybe not in all cases, of course, but probably in most of them. For example, one can say that the phenomenon of violence cannot simply be described in terms of mere perception²³—referring to usual, typical, or normal perceptual experience, whether visual, acoustic, or tactile—precisely because of its disruptive and overwhelming character. However, what overwhelms our perceptual experience can still be understood as a limit of that experience.

For instance, the limits of visual experience can be interrogated in relation to the “visual field”. These limits would determine “how far the eye can see”. The question of the limits of visual experience can also be explored in the relationship between the “center,” on which sight is actually focused, and the vague periphery in the background of what is seen—the bordering area of penumbra surrounding the clarity of the visible given in the fullness of appearance. From here, the limit that separates the various layers of the visible could be sketched. The limit between the mere “visible” phenomenon and the more complex “visual” phenomenon occurring in the imaging appearance is also highly relevant. The problem of limits can equally be posed in the relation between the visible and the invisible, but also in relation to what is, let’s say, “blinding,” namely to what exceeds the power of the gaze to encompass the visible. We have a limit of the visible on the level of the imperceptible, just as a limit of the visible is given by what overwhelms the sight.

But the excess of the visible can be understood as an actual violation of the gaze, as a form of violence exerted on sight itself. In various contexts, the gaze can be downright “bombarded” or “besieged” by this visible excess that it cannot dominate or control, revealing itself as being completely overwhelmed. This violence exerted upon sight can take multiple forms that we cannot detail here. However, it is relevant to recall that, in certain forms of torture, the victim is often assaulted by prolonged exposure to excessive light. In this limit-experience, the victim is deprived of even the last possibility to “close one’s eyes” and “stop seeing,” thus being denied the retreat into the darkness of non-visibility. Light is therefore weaponized: it is used as a weapon against the victim. This limit-situation is marked by the fact that the victim can neither see (due to the perceptual excess) nor not see, being forbidden to recoil in the face of this excess. The violation of the victim occurs precisely in being forced to remain within the limit between these two impossibilities: one cannot see, but one cannot not see either. The liminal experiencing (living the limit, and living in the limit) that violence involves on the level of sight is thus deployed in the logic of neither/nor.²⁴

Similarly, the limits of auditory experience can be defined between the audible and the inaudible, but also in relation to the “silence” that enables all audibility. In this context, we can refer to the acoustic perceptual field and attempt to delineate its limits (as far as hearing reaches), as well as trace the boundaries separating the elements within the auditory flow of our experience. However, we can also consider experiential excess, where the limits of auditory experience are defined in relation to “what is deafening,” exceeding hearing’s capacity to capture, encompass, and assimilate. Hearing can be assaulted and subjected to acoustic violence, with sound instrumentalized as a weapon. Exposure to screams of anger and menace is a form of violence, but there are also torturous practices involving excessive noise, deafening sounds, and even extreme music, which can be violently charged. Multiple studies have analyzed the institutionalized use of music and sound in torture,²⁵ not only in wartime but also within penitentiary frameworks.²⁶ Excessive noise can thus be exploited “on the limit between psychological and physical torture”.²⁷ The violence is equally exerted here in the logic of neither/nor, as the victim of auditory violence cannot truly hear due to the acoustic excess, yet cannot avoid hearing the terrible uproar, the deafening noise. The ego is besieged by sonic horrors, without the possibility of retreat, forbidden to withdraw into the private space of one’s own silence, where one could reconstruct a cohesion of personal experience.

Turning to the question of the limits of tactile experience, it becomes evident that it can be understood in terms of the extent of the tactile perceptual field. The limits of the tangible are coextensive with the limits of one’s own body. Moreover, limits emerge in the relationship between the tangible and the intangible. The limits of the intangible can be understood both in the sense of what cannot be touched and what must not be touched. Central to this inquiry is the phenomenological tension between “touching” and “being touched,” in the chiasmatic circularity between the active and passive dimensions of touch. The active dimension of tactility manifests in exploration, groping, discovering the world, seizing and grasping things, and subsequently mastering and dominating them. On the other hand, the passive dimension entails facing the limit of one’s own vulnerability. Being “touchable” involves the inherent vulnerability of the embodied subject: one is vulnerable because one is tangible. One’s tangibility is primarily in relation to one’s own skin,²⁸ the overall limit of one’s body, which also delineates the boundary between “inner” and “outer,” the limit between the embodied self and the world. The bodily limit of the skin serves as both a protective cover and a surface through which one is exposed to injury and aggression, a boundary that can be breached. This exposure is dramatically intensified in cases of violence, where the problem of the limit is constantly played out in the tension between vulnerability and an unattainable invulnerability. The aspiration to invulnerability is not only a desire to become intangible but also a yearning to become impenetrable, through a substitution or doubling of the skin’s fragility with the materiality of armor, a shield, a defensive wall, etc.

It is obvious that these limits of tactility define the embodied being of subjectivity. As such, they are correlated with the “limits of bodily experience”. But how could the “limits of embodiment,” these “limits of incarnation” of the subject, be determined? Of course, we can refer to the limits of the “I can”²⁹ that define the bodily dimension of our being in the world, primarily through the fundamental ability to move one’s own body, through the autonomy of this self-movement, as well as through the factic possibilities arising from it. Now, to the extent that the limits of the experience of embodiment primarily refer to the limits of the possibility of self-movement, it is relevant that in the experience of endured violence, it is precisely this primary mobility that is put into crisis. It is well-known that, in most situations, violence is exercised precisely by immobilizing the victim, thus suppressing his/her possibility to move. Thus, the subject’s subjectivity is violated by the fact that one’s intrinsic ability to dispose “as one pleases” of the mobility of one’s own body is taken away, and the self is thereby deprived of one’s autonomy as a subject.

But the limits of bodily experience can also be envisioned in relation to the phenomenological emergence of spatiality, which is constituted, as we well know, starting from the zero-point of the space that is one’s own body, the absolute here. This “absolute here” can thus be understood as a limit of phenomenological space. The near and the far, proximity, the surrounding, and the reach of our concrete possibilities, the relationship between “here” and “there,” all these are constituted in relation to one’s own body. Therefore, this dynamic of spatialization is accomplished within the parameters of some already configured limits, which inevitably define the normality of the experience, namely the coherent unfolding of our spatial experiences. But this experiential spatialization is equally disturbed when radical violence is experienced in one’s own body. The excruciating pain endured in extreme violence impales the subject within one’s own body, and the subject finds oneself trapped in a “no way out” situation where everything is suffocatingly “here”. It is a “here” fatally folded back on itself, one that no longer points out to any “there,” a “here” that no longer makes the relation with exteriority possible. The self is thus malignantly fixed in the absolute here of one’s own spatiality, a limit that no longer opens to the meaningful worldhood of the world. On the contrary, the entire blunt materiality of the world seems to press in the most oppressive way on the here of one’s own vulnerability, lived in the tumult of besieged affectivity.

We are, of course, dealing with a powerful affective experience, with an excessively emotional experience. But in what sense can we speak of the limits of experience when affectivity is at stake? How can we delineate the limits of affective experience? Violence is par excellence an affectively charged phenomenon; it involves an emotional combustion on all its levels, whether we focus on the subject exerting violence, on the one enduring it, or on the position of the third party entangled in violence as a witness. In the phenomenon of violence, a wide variety of affective situations manifests itself, and an applied phenomenological analysis can describe how this emotional field metamorphoses in the various contexts of violence.³⁰ On this experiential dimension, we are dealing with volatile borders between the various emotions, with fluid demarcations that separate and connect one affect to another. Most often, emotions intertwine, even if they can be distinguished individually, against the background of a generic affectivity that constantly accompanies us.

However, we could say that the “lower” limit of affectivity becomes manifest precisely in situations of extreme violence. For example, on the active side of its exertion, the sadistic violence of the torturer might emerge due to a total lack of affectivity, a complete insensitivity to the suffering of the other, a radical deficiency of any empathy for the pain of the other. Thus, we are dealing with a drastic minimization of the subjective emotional capacity of the aggressor. At the other experiential pole, in the passive dimension of enduring violence, we can discover the other limit of affective experience, a “higher” one, involving an overwhelming character in the proximity of paroxysm, in bearing the unbearable. It is true that even when we refer to experiences in the realm of normality, enduring what currently happens to us is always emotionally determined. We can speak of a passive bearing of the presence of the world, of others, or of oneself, but all this can be given such that the way of being of the subject still remains cohesive and concordant. However, when the event of violence takes center stage in our existence, we emotionally live “on the edge,” and this affective experience unfolds in the tension between what is “bearable” and “unbearable,” between what can be endured and what is “unendurable”. Extreme violence is marked by the fact that it compels the subject to endure continuously, without any possibility of escape, precisely confronting the extreme limit of what is unsupportable.

All these levels of experience converge in the intersubjective relationship, which involves not only perceptual dimensions (visual, auditory, tactile, etc.), each with its inherent limits, but also bodily and affective dimensions. The other is given in this cohesive multiplicity of experiential levels, in the concordant variety of possible experiential modes. However, when referring to the limits of intersubjective experience, we are tempted to first bring into discussion the liminal figures of alterity. Among them, one stands out in relation to the phenomenon of violence: the stranger who manifests hostility, the threatening other, the adversary, or the enemy. Violence settles the limit between me and the other; it precisely challenges the boundary between my experience and the experience of the other. Insofar as violence arises from the conflict over this boundary that separates us and places us in antagonistic positions, the limit can be described as a “front line” figure in the conflict between self and the other.

In a different sense, we can refer to the limits of intersubjective experience inasmuch as they constitute its normality. The deviations from this normality also delineate the boundaries of typical intersubjective experience. Therefore, the issue of the limit can also be framed in relation to the privative modalities of intersubjectivity. More precisely, the limits of intersubjective experience manifest in relation to those types of subjectivities with which we cannot achieve a concordant or complete co-constitution of the world: the mentally ill or animals are some of the well-known examples that Husserl analyzes in detail, demarcating the line between normality and abnormality.³¹ And perhaps it is not coincidental that we often allude to extreme violence in terms of madness or dementia, thus implicitly referring to mental illness, and also in terms of bestiality, implying an abyssal animality that pre-constitutes us.

Finally, all this problematic of the limits of experience cannot avoid the epicenter of the world of the self (Selbstwelt), where self-understanding articulates both the understanding of the world and the understanding of others. In this space of the interiority of the self, we are dealing with a comprehensive experience and, at the same time, with a discursive experience. Here, discourse is not reducible to the act of communication, but it also articulates the meaning of one’s own world, in the space of the immanence of the self. In this experiential context, the problem of the limit plays out in the tension between the comprehensible and the incomprehensible, but also between the sayable and the unsayable. The figure of the limit can be concretized here in the collapse of understanding and in the muteness of speech, more precisely in the impossibility of articulating in speech and capturing in understanding what happens to the troubled subject. Violence is indeed one of the radical experiences in which the limits of discourse and understanding stand out in a conspicuous way. On the one hand, the experience of violence often leads to a regression of language, to a decay of articulate speech into a wild pre-linguistic layer, whether we consider the active dimension of the exertion of violence (accompanied by howls and screams of anger) or the passive dimension of its endurance (in the cry of pain, in the groan of helplessness).³²

Moreover, in the experience of violence, the subject is confronted with a drastic limitation of the constitution of meaning.³³ Especially at the level of the endured violence, the subject finds oneself unable to give meaning to one’s own experience and to the world as such. Extreme violence, therefore, proves incomprehensible, as our understanding collapses and can no longer operate a coherent assimilation of our own experience. This limit of Sinngebung, in the extreme situation in which one’s own experience no longer makes sense, is often correlated with the hindering of one’s speech, with the inhibition of one’s discourse. Instead of articulating meaning, discourse disarticulates itself, firstly as discourse to itself, and then as discourse addressed to the other. This implosion of discursivity can be glimpsed especially in the retrospective experience of recollection, namely when, in the attempt to testify about a traumatic past, the survivor of extreme violence often finds oneself unable to put the terrifying lived experience into words.³⁴ And precisely this powerlessness leads in certain cases to the silence of the surviving witness, to one’s retreat into silence. This inability to return to discourse is therefore due to the fact that, in extreme violence, the comprehensive and discursive experience is radically shattered, together with one’s own world as such.

Conclusion

In this article, I aimed to show how the question of the limits of experience can be explored in light of the phenomenology of violence. To this end, I first discussed the specific manner in which phenomenology approaches the question of experience. I emphasized that, in contrast to how the problem of experience has been discussed in the history of philosophy, particularly from a dominant epistemological-theoretical perspective, phenomenology consistently advocates uncovering the pre-theoretical and pre-scientific dimensions of experience. Since experience is phenomenologically understood as a lived experience of the subject, the question of the limits of experience needs to be addressed with respect to the structures of subjectivity, and more precisely in relation to the multifarious experiential layers that constitute our existence.

Thus, I stressed that experience should not be taken in a monolithic way but should be tackled in its manifold sense, as we encounter a multitude of levels of experience, each with its specific sets of limits. This perspective involves that the question of the limits of experience must be specifically determined in each of these layers by analyzing how limits are particularly constituted. For instance, the limits of perceptual experience should be delineated specifically in relation to visual experience, auditory experience, or tactile experiences. Similar descriptions are necessary regarding the limits of embodied experience, affective experience, intersubjective experience, comprehensive experience, and discursive experience.

The notion of limit also opens a variety of inquiries in the area of phenomenological reflection. I have shown that the question of limits can be addressed through attempts to define the limits of phenomenology (the limits of phenomenological discourse or the limits of the phenomenological domain itself), in efforts to explore the limit-problems and limit-phenomena that one might encounter at the edge of givenness, or even in the struggle to determine the relevance of limit-situations for human existence.

But the question of the limits of experience also makes possible the differentiation between normal modes of experience, lived within the usual limits, and liminal modes, where the subject confronts the limits of experience. Moreover, the possibility of shattering these limits, resulting in the collapse of experience as a whole, is an extreme case of this problematic. Given the complexity of this topic, I argued that the phenomenology of violence is especially able to offer a concretization of the question of the limits of experience. This viewpoint involves considering violence mainly in its fundamental experiential dimension, as a lived experience given in the first person.

Emphasizing that the lived experience of violence engages an affectively charged and fundamentally embodied existence, situated factically in a conflictual intersubjectivity that makes possible a direct confrontation with the other, allows us to differentiate a plurality of phenomenological perspectives. Indeed, the lived experience of violence can be seen as a symmetric phenomenon if there is an active violent engagement of both conflicting subjects or as an asymmetrical one when only one subjective pole is actively exerting violence upon the rather passive other. Thus, the overwhelming givenness of violence can be phenomenologically deciphered from the perspective of two combatants, from the perspective of the victim, from the perspective of the perpetrator, and also from the perspective of a witness. I showed that, in all these situations, the tremendous phenomenality of violence has the potential to bring to light the specific limits of experience pertaining to each experiential layer indicated above.

It is true that the description in the present study focused on the so-called individual or interpersonal violence, seen as an elementary phenomenological dimension. Now, at the end of our investigation, the natural question is how the problem of the limits of experience can be tackled if we aim to analyze more complex or indirect violent situations, moving away from the basic first-person lived experience of violence to more intricate situations that engage not only individual experiential subjects but also collective subjects, institutions, practices, or habitualities in which violence is sedimented. How can collective violence be approached phenomenologically? Is social or political violence a possible object of reflection for phenomenological thought, or does this topic already involve a different type of discourse? Can this be seen as a limit of phenomenology itself, or as a boundary that phenomenological reflection is able to cross? How do social violence, political violence, religious violence, structural violence, symbolic violence, and institutional violence determine the limits of experience?