[Andrzej_Wiercinski_(ed ... - WordPress.com

he might know intentionally that which he always already is affectively: the effective andtriumphant “obtaining of self” in and as a Suffering that is also and always Joy. 59This originary and affectively structured “obtaining of self” in the immanent dialecticof suffering and joy, powerlessness and plenitude, is so truly the very essence of manifestationitself that it can even manifest itself both to and through that which it alwaysexceeds and eludes. Living ipseity can and does give itself to intentionally structuredconsciousness through the resituated text. The self-manifestation of existential pathos inand through the text is one of the many ways in which the Life that man is in a dependentand participated manner overcomes the existentiell experience of alienation that man has.As Audi points out, this original pathos of human reality that Henry evokes through themediation of the text is identically “that which Rousseau evokes under the name of‘natural goodness’.” 60 Henry’s theory of textuality thus coincides with that of Rousseau.The “truth of the text” arises otherwise than from “reason” such as the latter is construedby the promoters of “Enlightenment.” The text in its effective conditions of possibilityarises from and witnesses to the manifestation of the “Self of Being” which is always andalso the authentic Life of man. Paradoxically, the text is possible precisely becausephilosophy itself “always comes too late,” since “what it says was at the beginning.” 61to Henry’s understanding of both the limits and the possibilities inherent in the philosophical enterpriseaccomplished through the mediation of the text: “La philosophie n’est pas la vie mais l’un de ses effets,celui dans lequel, ivre d’elle-même et s’éprouvant soi-même comme l’absolu, la subjectivité vivanteentreprend de se connaître soi-même, se proposant ainsi à elle-même comme son thème propre.” Philosophyis not itself the Absolute, “la vie,” but rather a necessary and salutary effect of the Absolute,allowing for the human ego’s “reconduction” in thought to that which it always already in its affectivelystructured Being that both exceeds and makes possible thought itself.59Cf. M, 830: “L’impuissance du souffrir, la souffrance, est l’être-donné-à-lui-même du sentiment,son être-rivé-à-soi dans l’adhérence parfaite de l’identité et, dans cette adhérence parfaite à soi, l’obtentionde soi [italics mine], le devenir et le surgissement du sentiment en lui-même dans la jouissance de ce qu’ilest, est la jouissance, est la joie.”60REP, 162-63. “cette impuissance qui est la sienne et dont il ne peut se délivrer, loin de porter lamarque d’une quelconque négativité, est ce qui, justement, ne laisse de faire échec à celle-ci.L’impuissance inhérente à l’excédence est en soi ‘positive’; et c’est cette positivité-là qu’abrite en son fondce que Rousseau évoque sous le nom de ‘bonté naturelle.’” It is worth pointing out here that for Henryit is precisely this “ontological excessiveness” proper to human subjectivity that renders it relational andintersubjective in principle. As Audi goes on to say, speaking both of Rousseau and Henry, the soi’s“ontological excessiveness” with respect to itself is that which ensures that the “moi” is always also the“nous.” Cf. REP, 172: “Ils disent que l’être-Soi, l’ipséité, est toujours pour le moi, non pas un ajout, unsupplément, un surcroît, mais un ‘plus’ de soi-même, une excédence irréductible de son affectivité, unesurabondance de vie qui rend possibles le vivre-ensemble et la morale. Car c’est sur cette excédenceirréductible de la subjectivité naturelle absolue, qu’un phénomène comme celui de ‘nous’, de la communauté,devient enfin possible. Ou, pour le dire autrement, c’est parce que la vie a pour essence son propreaccroissement ontologique, qu’une communauté d’êtres vivants peu exister a priori.”61EM, 169.151