Abstract

The recent interpretation of Michel Henry’s thought as a ‘phenomenological vitalism’ raises fundamental questions regarding the reception of his phenomenology. The issue raised, however, is not primarily about radical phenomenology being inspired (or not) by more or less vitalistic philosophies like those of Maine de Biran, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and even Freud, rather it concerns the ‘how’ of purely immanent appearing in affect and force understood as immediate corporeality. Does the latter, being original affectivity, require temporality in order to free the affect from its passivity (Passibilit%t) and, thus, in order to enable action? This, however, would lead to an impossible intentional gap or difference within the original phenomenality of life itself. As an alternative, flesh can be seen as a potentiality, inwhich the concrete transcendental possibility and the phenomenological power of appearing as ‘I can’ are already united prior to any formal exercise of freedom. Such inquiry into the reception of the phenomenology of life provides at the same time a framework for the contemporary phenomenological debate.