From Life to Existence: A Reconsideration of the Question of Intentionality in Michel Henry’s Ethics

Michel Henry has renewed our understanding of life as immanent affectivity: life cannot be reduced to what can be made visible; it is – as immanent and as affectivity – radically invisible. However, if life (la vie) is radically immanent, the living (le vivant) has nonetheless to relate to the world: it has to exist. But, since existence requires and includes intentional components, human reality – being both living and existing – implies that immanence and intentionality be related to one another, even though they are conceived at the same time as radically distinct modes of appearing in Henry’s phenomenology of life. Following this line of thought, we are faced with at least two questions: First, what reality does immanent appearing have for us as existing and intentional beings? And second, from an ethical point of view, what does Henry’s opposition of “barbarism” and “second birth” mean in terms of existence? As will be shown, it follows from the standpoint of radical phenomenology itself that immanent affectivity has reality for us only insofar as it finds its expression or translation in the realm of the intentionally visible and that, with regard to ethics, both “barbarism” and its overcoming in “second birth” are effective only insofar as they are mediated through representations. Henry’s critique of representation and intentionality needs therefore to be revised, especially in the field of practical philosophy, where the essential role played by intentionality has to be acknowledged even by radical phenomenology

L’argent, double irréel de la vie

L’œuvre de Michel Henry (1922-2002) a été consacrée à l’édification d’une phénoménologie de la vie qui situe la vie comme un mode de phénoménalisation à la fois différent et plus fondamental que celui qui caractérise l’horizon de la transcendance. Ce nouveau paradigme permet une interprétation phénoménologique renouvelée de l’économie à la lumière d’une pensée de la subjectivité radicale et immanente. C’est surtout dans les travaux qu’Henry consacre à Marx que l’on trouvera ses développements concernant l’économie et l’argent. L’article résume la position de l’auteur sur ce dernier point en le reliant aux axes fondamentaux de sa pensée.Michel Henry's work has been dedicated to the edification of a phenome­nology of life that places lifr as a means of phenomenalisation both different and more fundamental than that characterising the horizon of transcend­dence. This new paradigm enables a renewed phenomenological interpreta­tion of economics seen through the light of radical and immanent subjectivity. It is mainly in Henry's works on Marx that one can find his developments about economy and money. This article summarises the au­thor's position on this latter point, linking it to the fundamental axes of his thought

La dimension éthique du concept d’affectivité dans l’œuvre de Michel Henry

L’article se propose de thématiser le problème de la médiation tel qu’il se pose dans le cadre de la philosophie de l’affectivité de Michel Henry. Celle-ci, en effet, pense la subjectivité en termes d’immanence, ce qui rend problématique l’intervention de médiations, notamment éthiques et politiques, dans le devenir de la subjectivité. Pourtant ces aspects ne sont pas absents de l’œuvre de M. Henry, par exemple lorsque ce dernier élabore le concept de barbarie (1987). Comment concilier ces deux exigences, immanence et critique éthico-politique, alors qu’elles semblent pourtant s’exclurent mutuellement ?The theme of the article is the problem of ethical and political mediations in the works of Michel Henry, especially in his essay on barbarity (1987). Henry’s philosophy of affectivity relies nevertheless on the concept of immanence as the essence of subjectivity. The link between this concept and ethical-political critique turns out to be rather problematic because ethical and political mediations must be thought of in terms of transcendence, i.e. with no connection to the changes in subjectivity and affectivity

Introduction à la lecture de Ästhetische Existenz heute de Rolf Kühn

Paru en 2007, Ästhetische Existenz heute étudie, comme son sous-titre l’indique, le rapport de l’art avec la vie. Ce thème, qui peut paraître indéterminé au premier abord, est précisé par Rolf Kühn de deux manières : d’une part, en effet, il s’agit de penser ce rapport à l’aide de « l’outil » phénoménologique et, plus exactement, de la phénoménologie radicale de la vie développée par Michel Henry. Or, cette approche permet de déterminer ce qu’il convient d’entendre par vie, à savoir l’auto-af..

Accéder au transcendantal ?

L’auteur figure aujourd’hui parmi les meilleurs connaisseurs de la phénoménologie husserlienne en France. Son premier ouvrage – Husserl et la naissance de la phénoménologie, Paris, PUF, 2005 – traitait de la genèse de l’idéalisme transcendantal dans l’œuvre husserlienne avant 1913, c’est-à-dire avant la parution des Ideen I. Déjà, cette première recherche défendait une véritable thèse, celle d’un Husserl idéaliste avant l’avènement explicite de l’idéalisme transcendantal, notamment en ce qui ..

Low- water maps of the groundwater table in the central Amazon by satellite altimetry

Groundwater plays a fundamental role in rainforest environments, as it is connected with rivers, lakes, and wetlands, and helps to support wildlife habitat during dry periods. Groundwater reservoirs are however excessively difficult to monitor, especially in large and remote areas. Using concepts from groundwater-surface water interactions and ENVISAT altimetry data, we evaluated the topography of the groundwater table during low-water periods in the alluvial plain of the central Amazon. The water levels are monitored using an unprecedented coverage of 491 altimetric stations over surface waters in the central Amazon. The groundwater table maps interpolated at spatial resolutions ranging from 50 to 100 km are consistent with groundwater wells data. They provide evidence of significant spatiotemporal organization at regional scale: heterogeneous flow from the hillslope toward the main rivers is observed, as well as strong memory effects and contrasted hydrological behaviors between the North and the South of the Amazon

Recommended β-lactam regimens are inadequate in septic patients treated with continuous renal replacement therapy

Introduction: Sepsis is responsible for important alterations in the pharmacokinetics of antibiotics. Continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT), which is commonly used in septic patients, may further contribute to pharmacokinetic changes. Current recommendations for antibiotic doses during CRRT combine data obtained from heterogeneous patient populations in which different CRRT devices and techniques have been used. We studied whether these recommendations met optimal pharmacokinetic criteria for broad-spectrum antibiotic levels in septic shock patients undergoing CRRT.Methods: This open, prospective study enrolled consecutive patients treated with CRRT and receiving either meropenem (MEM), piperacillin-tazobactam (TZP), cefepime (FEP) or ceftazidime (CAZ). Serum concentrations of these antibiotics were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography from samples taken before (t = 0) and 1, 2, 5, and 6 or 12 hours (depending on the β-lactam regimen) after the administration of each antibiotic. Series of measurements were separated into those taken during the early phase ( 48 hours).Results: A total of 69 series of serum samples were obtained in 53 patients (MEM, n = 17; TZP, n = 16; FEP, n = 8; CAZ, n = 12). Serum concentrations remained above four times the minimal inhibitory concentration for Pseudomonas spp. for the recommended time in 81% of patients treated with MEM, in 71% with TZP, in 53% with CAZ and in 0% with FEP. Accumulation after 48 hours of treatment was significant only for MEM.Conclusions: In septic patients receiving CRRT, recommended doses of β-lactams for Pseudomonas aeruginosa are adequate for MEM but not for TZP, FEP and CAZ; for these latter drugs, higher doses and/or extended infusions should be used to optimise serum concentrations. © 2011 Seyler et al. licensee BioMed Central Ltd.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Satellite-based estimates of groundwater storage variations in large drainage basins with extensive floodplains

International audienceThis study presents monthly estimates of groundwater anomalies in a large river basin dominated by extensive floodplains, the Negro River Basin, based on the synergistic analysis using multisatellite observations and hydrological models. For the period 2003-2004, changes in water stored in the aquifer is isolated from the total water storage measured by GRACE by removing contributions of both the surface reservoir, derived from satellite imagery and radar altimetry, and the root zone reservoir simulated by WGHM and LaD hydrological models. The groundwater anomalies show a realistic spatial pattern compared with the hydrogeological map of the basin, and similar temporal variations to local in situ groundwater observations and altimetry-derived level height measurements. Results highlight the potential of combining multiple satellite techniques with hydrological modeling to estimate the evolution of groundwater storage

Dynamics and distribution of bacterial and archaeal communities in oil-contaminated temperate coastal mudflat mesocosms

Mudflats are ecologically important habitats that are susceptible to oil pollution, but intervention is difficult in these fine-grained sediments, and so clean-up usually relies on natural attenuation. Therefore, we investigated the impact of crude oil on the bacterial, diatom and archaeal communities within the upper parts of the diatom-dominated sediment and the biofilm that detached from the surface at high tide. Biodegradation of petroleum hydrocarbons was rapid, with a 50 % decrease in concentration in the 0–2-mm section of sediment by 3 days, indicating the presence of a primed hydrocarbon-degrading community. The biggest oil-induced change was in the biofilm that detached from the sediment, with increased relative abundance of several types of diatom and of the obligately hydrocarbonoclastic Oleibacter sp., which constituted 5 % of the pyrosequences in the oiled floating biofilm on day 3 compared to 0.6 % in the non-oiled biofilm. Differences in bacterial community composition between oiled and non-oiled samples from the 0–2-mm section of sediment were only significant at days 12 to 28, and the 2–4-mm-sediment bacterial communities were not significantly affected by oil. However, specific members of the Chromatiales were detected (1 % of sequences in the 2–4-mm section) only in the oiled sediment, supporting other work that implicates them in anaerobic hydrocarbon degradation. Unlike the Bacteria, the archaeal communities were not significantly affected by oil. In fact, changes in community composition over time, perhaps caused by decreased nutrient concentration and changes in grazing pressure, overshadowed the effect of oil for both Bacteria and Archaea. Many obligate hydrocarbonoclastic and generalist oil-degrading bacteria were isolated, and there was little correspondence between the isolates and the main taxa detected by pyrosequencing of sediment-extracted DNA, except for Alcanivorax, Thalassolituus, Cycloclasticus and Roseobacter spp., which were detected by both methods