H e r m e n e V t I k a in humanistika II

301

P

HENOMENOLOGY

 

ON

 

THE

 S

TAGE

: T

HE

 W

ORLD

 

CONGRESS

 

AT

 O

XFORD

sensibility and emotionality emerge.” Here we can appropriate some of the original concept of the

“ontopoietic design of life,” enlightening our understanding as regards the logos of life which car-

ries by its forces all of the shaping devices of life, seeing that, “Logos reveals itself as a force.”

In their papers speakers addressed several of the Tymieniecka’s ingenious concepts: “ontopoiesis

of life,” “phenomenology of the Human Condition,” “the creative experience,” “Imaginatio Crea-

trix,” “the bestowal of sense,” “self-interpretation-in-life,” “self-creation.”

Activating phenomenology in quest of a better comprehension and explanation of the “logos of

life,” the participants in the Congress focused on particular issues, among them, “constitution,

givenness, and transcendence”; “phenomenological time”; “Self, subjectivity, essential individual-

ity, and Alterity, Otherness”; “meaningfulness”; “the invisible,” “presence and non-presence”; “al-

ienation and wholeness”; “light – shadow”; “differentiation and unity,” “identity and globalization,”

“the ego-making principle and coexistence”; “intercultural sense”; “historicity”; “humanness and

the environment”; “moral values, moral consciousness”; “memory and memorial”; “the phenom-

ena of encounter and hope.”

Some directions of research that have been articulated are the potentialities and the limitations of

phenomenology of religion: ontology and hermeneutic phenomenology; phenomenological theo-

ries of literature, the fine arts, music, architecture, and cinema; phenomenological interpretations

of scientific experience, and of philosophy of education; the phenomenological scrutiny of lan-

guage; phenomenological aesthetics and ethics; cultural phenomenology in the information and

communication technologies era; the phenomenology of the living body; phenomenological psy-

chotherapy; phenomenology and ecophilosophy; the phenomenology of resistance; phenomenol-

ogy of the emotions; phenomenology of the countenance.

A wealth of accents were heard on phenomenological investigation in various domains in the dia-

logue between West and East as it was unfolded at a separate session on “Islamic Philosophy and

Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue. Around the Perennial Issue: Microcosm and Macrocosm,”

which session was organized and presided over by Nader El-Bizri of the University of Cambridge.

This was a good opportunity to be exposed to some strains of Persian thought, of Islamic metaphys-

ics, especially through the presentations of Iranian scholars but also through those of scholars at

North American and British universities. In making the session’s “Concluding Remarks,” Anna-

Teresa Tymieniecka said that this novel symposium had the merit of offering a larger audience for

an important intercultural exchange.

In an enthusiastic atmosphere, the presentation to the world of a monumental reference volume An

Encyclopedia of Learning: Phenomenology World-Wide, Foundations – Expanding Dynamics –

Life-Engagements was formally made on this occasion. This “Guide for Research and Study” in

Phenomenology edited by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka is Volume 80 of the Analecta Husserliana

series. The main discussants were Jadwiga Smith (Bridgewater State College, United States) and

Kathleen Haney (University of Houston, United States). The very cogent and at the same time

passionate commentary of these presenters convinced the audience of the great value of this re-

source work.

PHENOMENOLOGY ON THE STAGE.pmd

19.1.2006, 8:32

301

---

302

P

HAINOMENA

14/53–54                                                   R

EADING

Again the presence of Professor Tymieniecka stimulated lively general discussion. Ideas and opin-

ions about this extraordinary achievement and laudatory appreciation of it were expressed by promi-

nent phenomenologist Angela Ales Bello (Lateran University, Rome), one of the chief members of

the editorial board of the encyclopedia; Gary Backhaus (Morgan State University, United States);

Maija Kule (University of Latvia); Konrad Rokstad (University of Bergen, Norway); and Carmen

Cozma (Al. I. Cuza University of Iasi, Romania). All of them insisted on the immense value of this

truly “world-wide” encyclopedia of phenomenology, which should be placed in all university li-

braries around the globe.

We know well enough that this our report is a modest effort. But it should show something of the

important lived experience that was the Third World Congress of Phenomenology that was gath-

ered in August 2004 at Wadham College, Oxford University by the dynamic World Institute for

Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning and presided over by the impressive Anna-

Teresa Tymieniecka.

Certainly, good testimony of this congress will be given across time by the five volumes of Logos of

Phenomenology and Phenomenology of the Logos, which are being prepared for publication, thanks

again to Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, truly a functionary of the functionaries of humanity. All is

owing to her exemplary love for philosophy and for the major signs able to give sense to our lives.

Prof. Dr. Carmen Cozma

“Al. I. Cuza” University of Iasi, Romania

PHENOMENOLOGY ON THE STAGE.pmd

19.1.2006, 8:32

302

---