On Two Versions of Phenomenological Transgression – Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka and Jean-Paul Sartre

Abstract

The present paper focuses on the problem of transgression, to wit, broadening upon, as well as the overcoming of the fundamental tenets of Husserlian phenomenology: epoché and the problem of the transcendental Ego. The author juxtaposes the concepts of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential phenomenology and Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka’s phenomenology and eco-phenomenology following the path of the logos of life. Apart from some substantial differences in their approaches to this challenge, the French and the Polish philosophers share the same opinion that in view of reaching the unmediated source of all being and its cognition one must give up all remnants of idealism and belief in the inner life of a personal Ego.

According to Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, diverse forms of the crisis characterizing the age of modernity, as well as postmodernity have had a definite metaphysical dimension. Viewed from the phenomenological (logos of phenomenology, resp. eco-phenomenology) existentialist angle, this condition, inimical to human development—our free, spontaneous, and creative aspect demands an overall and fundamental reconceptualization of human values, along with recognition of man’s eidos. The latter, within the frame of reference of the philosophical currents in question, is closely related to human consciousness, along with its intentional objects.

The following paper attempts to present the problem of consciousness (subjectivity, ego, or selfhood) as being part and parcel of this definite metaphysical dimension of which Tymieniecka spoke. The two ways of the transgressing Husserlian “orthodoxy” will be the main topic of our presentation.