Waldenfels Bernhard: Osnovni motivi fenomenologije stranog

Bernhard Waldenfels: Basic motives of the phenomenology of the foreign

After successfully pointing out their basic thought motives, philosophers usually manage to do two important jobs at the same time. They approach a wider readership and further illuminate what they have done up to that point. They gain new devotees, and they help old worshipers to further clarify and complete the acquired knowledge. This is why Plato's Phaedo, Aristotle's Protreptikos, Kant's Prolegomena, Hegel's Propedeutics are almost equally attractive to beginners as well as those who have advanced in matters of philosophy.

The presentation of central thought motifs shows striking similarities with texts whose purpose was primarily to make those who do not care about philosophy interested. Namely, authoritative "persuasions" on philosophy are always something more than persuasions, since their significance becomes extremely questionable if they do not hint at the core of a certain philosophical position. Consequently, the presentation of the basic motives of a philosophical position becomes relevant only if it brings something more than a simple provocation that directs us to deal with it in more detail.

Indeed, the binding moment when presenting the basic motives for every thinker from the format is hidden in the necessary step out of seduction, in overcoming the sophistic traps of self-promotion. When it comes to readers, their standards certainly rely on the degree of concordance of certain thought motives with their own spiritual needs. In contrast to the boulevard press, which attracts the audience with its front pages citing sensational motives and reasons, in order for a thought motif to deserve the status of philosophical, it must first of all demonstrate an enviable level of agreement with the highest reaches of philosophical thought and the leading spiritual currents of its time. From this perspective, it becomes quite understandable why, instead of simulating the extraordinary and unusual, philosophy has always preferred to sympathize with the stable, verified, permanent and reliable. In this sense, the burden of proof is inevitably assumed by every innovative attempt, and this especially applies to a project whose intention is to affirm the significance of the unusual, extraordinary and unusual, whereby all three adjectives can be associated with the experience of being foreign. The permission to stay permanently among philosophical problems is unusually difficult to obtain.

The motives discussed in Waldenfels' book could be grouped around the problems of finitude, temporality, corporeality, attention, culture and responsiveness. It should be noted that Bochum's phenomenologist does not intend to legitimize himself in the sense of the original promoter of these motifs as key philosophical problems, but acts much more modestly. His main intention is to show the starting points of his own phenomenology of the foreign. To tell the truth, among the stated motifs only responsiveness is not known to philosophy, the roots of which are tied to twentieth-century medicine and biology, while all the others, to a greater or lesser extent, represent a recognized legacy of philosophical thought. If we keep this in mind, we will understand that the basic motives of Waldenfels' opinion are not completely unknown, and therefore not new. The novelty of his phenomenological procedure lies in the illumination of inherited motifs in the horizon of the foreign. However, isn't the foreign precisely the instance that darkens rather than illuminates things for us, hasn't the sphere of the intimate, certain and known been recommended since Aristotle, and especially by Descartes, as the only stable foothold when thinking about venturing into other people's, uncertain and unknown? Moreover, the question justifiably arises whether the foreign, given its inaccessibility, can serve as a starting point for the presentation of any philosophical motives?