Publication Details

Abstract

What makes phenomena such as birth, death, creation or fate specifically “limit phenomena” within Husserl’s phenomenology is not simply their difficulty, but also that they seem to threaten phenomenology as a transcendentalist project. As a transcendentalist project, phenomenology tries to overcome contingency by seeking the apodictic and necessary, leading Husserl to focus on normal, optimal, typical phenomena. It is at the margins that phenomenology is threatened by collapsing back into contingency. In my paper, I propose the concept of “rupture” as that which best expresses the limit-character of limit phenomena. The rupture in the normal course of experience calls for re-configuration that introduces novelty. I suggest that a systematic investigation into phenomenology of rupture may help phenomenology to address the problem of novelty.