Intro

Editorial
In Le matérialisme rationnel (Paris, PUF, 2021[1953]), Gaston Bachelard strictly

distinguishes between scientific materialism and the materialism of the imagination. Indeed,
the matter described by the sciences is different from the one that imagination can touch; this
latter being closer to an elemental matter. If we consider the distinctions between science, art
and philosophy proposed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (see Qu’est-ce que la
philosophie?, Paris, Minuit, 1991), we could say, that if science understands matter through
functives and prospects, then imagination – especially if it is poetic – has to deal with
“percepts” and “affects” of matter. The matter of science is different than the matter of art, so
be it. The question for us is, however, whether there is anything like a matter of philosophy.
And in the terms of Deleuze and Guattari, this means questioning the possibility of a concept
of matter. Can we have, alongside functions, affects, or percepts of matter, a philosophical
concept of it? And if so, could this concept be genuinely phenomenological, or shall
phenomenology fail to grasp materiality without giving up the a priori of correlation?
Parallelly to the recent developments of so-called “new materialism”, we can also observe,
within the contemporary phenomenological debates, the signs of a material turn (for a recent
example see the contributions in P-J. Renaudie, V. Spaak [eds.], Phénoménologies de la
matière, Paris, CNRS, 2021).
If we stick to the tradition, a phenomenological notion of matter should be related to a

possible description of phenomena. Such a concept should be won through the application of
phenomenological methodologies such as the transcendental epoché and reduction. And
indeed, we can find in Edmund Husserl such a phenomenological notion of matter under the
title of the hylé. This latter, as we know, is not the matter described by science, is not
something that would exist independently of consciousness, but makes up the very fabric of
lived experience. In more technical terms it is not real as are the objects of the natural world,
but in the best case only reell as a moment of consciousness. Edmund Husserl’s later
manuscripts have pushed this idea further by describing an Urhylé at the most basal
dimension of temporalization. However, these manuscripts remain equivocal on the status of
this primal phenomenological matter. If we look at later developments of phenomenology, we
can observe a tendency to address the genuine materiality of the physis, e.g. in Martin
Heidegger’s reflection on the Earth (Erde) in his essay on the origin of the work of art or in
Eugen Fink’s cosmological phenomenology. But one can also think of phenomenological
analyses of the materiality of the lived body or the organic body (e.g. in Michel Henry’s
reading of Maine de Biran) or this peculiar materiality of the flesh of the world, which we can
find in the late Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Recent developments on the links between classical
German idealism and contemporary phenomenology also permit for a more speculative
approach to materiality within transcendental phenomenology. Furthermore, in its more
critical function, phenomenology can also contribute to a discourse on materiality in the
context of analyses of historicity, sociological processes, and institutions. The aim of this
volume – far from trying to reduce the meaning of materiality to one of its dimensions – is to
explore the variety of notions of matter in phenomenology. The contributions of this issue
explore materiality in frameworks inspired by phenomenology, but also in discussion with
other disciplines.
Paula Lorelle, drawing on Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex questions the
materiality of the body beyond the traditional distinction of the Leib and the Körper. She
shows how already for the authors of German idealism such as Fichte, Schelling or Hegel the
lived body tends to be reduced to a mere property of the ego. Accepting the paradigm of the
body in German idealism, phenomenology repeats the same gesture. The danger, however, is
that conceiving the body as a property leads to the disappearance of the materiality and the
alterity of the flesh, which cannot be simply reduced to a Körper among the others. Indeed,
Paula Lorelle argues with Beauvoir, the body is first and foremost a sensed or lived
materiality (une matérialité sentie ou vécu) that appears in its alienation. Analyzing
Beauvoir’s descriptions of the menstrual cycle, Paula Lorelle proposes a phenomenological
material approach to the feminine body that also allows for a critical reassessment of the
limits of traditional phenomenological accounts of the lived body.
Ángel Alvarado Cabellos proposes a reinterpretation of Michel Henry’s material

phenomenology focusing on the excess or the transgression of enjoyment (or joy, la
jouissance). He argues that the adjective “material” in Henry does not in fact simply refer to a
purely hyletic dimension; rather – and at first sight paradoxically – it refers to a pure form of
phenomenality. As known, Henry proposes to find the essence of manifestation in auto-
affection. By mobilizing the notion of transpassibility (proposed originally by Henri
Maldiney), Ángel Alvarado Cabellos questions the very immanence of affectivity by laying
out its radical contingency. In order to account for the “density” of phenomenalization, auto-
affection cannot be understood as a mere affective tautology – where the self affirms nothing
but itself – but has to surpass itself, revealing its radical contingency as dependent on an
original contagion through contact.
Délia Popa investigates the material dimension of sense formation (Sinnbildung) in

general by taking a specific example: gestures. Indeed, if there is a genuinely
phenomenological concept of materiality, it must be related to the very object of
phenomenology which, according to the tradition Délia Popa takes up, is the sense in the
making. From this perspective, Délia Popa starts by analyzing the material dimension of the
sense (Sinn) of intentional acts in Husserl, which she contrasts with Michel Henry’s project of
material phenomenology. However, doubting the possibility of grasping the material
concreteness of experience in a dimension of pure immanence, she proposes to turn to a
specific mode of appearing of materiality: the way materiality functions in imagination. By
mobilizing the Finkian notion of depresentation (Entgegenwärtigung), Delia Popa argues that
the materiality of imagination can be understood as a specific excess, opening horizons of
absence: possible worlds, the past, the future. It is ultimately at the level of the entanglement
of temporalization and imagination that the materiality of sense formation becomes
describable, and the materiality of gestures offers a perfect example.
Pietro Braga explores a paradoxical notion of materiality by drawing on the analyses

of Jacques Lacan’s first seminars. Instead of situating the question of materiality in the
Imaginary or the Symbolic, Pietro Braga argues with Lacan that one must think a connivance
between matter and the Real through the common notion of resistance. However, as the khôra
in Plato, the Real can only be addressed by a “bastard reasoning” (Plat. Tim. 52b) since it is
indeterminate and undefined and shies away from any signifier. Pietro Braga shows how this
understanding of materiality through the psychoanalytic notion of the Real can be contrasted
with Aristotle’s understanding of the hylé that, precisely, does not resist the form but binds in
coalescence with it. The contrast between the Lacanian and the Aristotelian notions of matter
permits us to question the pathic and dynamic dimension of materiality and to show the
originality of the psychoanalytic understanding of matter that Pietro Braga proposes to grasp
through the analyses of the notion of the objet a.
Philip Flock takes a genuinely aesthetic approach to materiality by proposing a
phenomenological analysis of Tarkovsky’s Stalker. Materiality here is grasped through the
notion of affectivity. By drawing on Marc Richir’s phenomenology of an archaic register of
affectivity where selfhood arises, Philip Flock shows how cinema can offer a glimpse of this
originary dimension of a wild region of life and affectivity. To do this, the paper thematizes
the relation between reality and simulacrum and mobilizes the idea of aesthetic experience as
an exchange of glances (Kreuzung der Blicke, échange des regards). In the exchange between
the spectator’s and the movie’s “glances” the spectator is transported, beyond the narrative, to
the zone of affectivity. Indeed, as Philip Flock reminds us, Tarkovsky was against a symbolic
interpretation of his movies: the zone is not a “symbol”, it is “just the zone”: a non-positional
field of affectivity, an infinitely phenomenalizing life, before the institution of culture.
Paul Slama’s essay offers yet another perspective on materiality by exploring the
constitution of values and the social dimensions of experience, grounding it in the
phenomenological tradition and contrasting it with a classical sociological approach. This task
is achieved through a meticulous (re)construction of a dialogue between Max Scheler and
Max Weber on the history of capitalism. After the analyses of what he identifies as a psycho-
theology in the Weberian description of protestant ethics, Paul Slama first focuses on
Scheler’s reading of Weber by adopting the perspective of a phenomenological psychology.
He shows how the notion of historic intentionality allows for a genuinely phenomenological
interpretation of the processes described by Weber. This crossed reading thematizes
materiality from several perspectives: beyond the Schelerian idea of a constitution of values
inspired by the Husserlian invention of material a priori, Paul Slama shows how materiality is
always already at least entangled with or even produced by historical processes of institution
and idealization, arguing that, in fine, “the proté hylé itself is a product of history”.
The different phenomenological perspectives presented in this issue invite the reader to re-
evaluate traditional antinomies, be it that of matter and idea, of Leib and Körper, of the real
and the imaginary, or others. The idea of materiality being related to a certain kind of excess
seems to be a common thread in more papers. Is this excess to be situated in affectivity? Can
it be phenomenalized in and through imagination or art? Or is it inscribed in the very depth of
our bodily existence, perhaps even in our gestures? Is this excess to be understood as a
resistance, as something that cannot be properly exhausted by mineness or by signifiers? And
how is it transformed or even produced by historical and social processes? These are some of
the questions that the contributions of this issue raise and propose to answer from a
phenomenological perspective. The core-problem of materiality however is far from being the
only topic of these analyses. Indeed, the concept of matter functions here also as an operative
concept, allowing the authors to address issues like history, cinema, psychoanalysis, gestures,
the contingency of the self, or the feminine body. Perhaps this operative aspect of the concept
of matter also reveals insights into how materiality itself operates at several levels and
dimensions of phenomenalization.
István Fazakas
22. nov. 2023, Bruxelles

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Editorial

In Le matérialisme rationnel (Paris, PUF, 2021[1953]), Gaston Bachelard strictly

If we stick to the tradition, a phenomenological notion of matter should be related to a

Ángel Alvarado Cabellos proposes a reinterpretation of Michel Henry’s material

Délia Popa investigates the material dimension of sense formation (Sinnbildung) in

Pietro Braga explores a paradoxical notion of materiality by drawing on the analyses

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