This paper will discuss how the theological turn within phenomenology has contributed to the further development of discussions concerning Husserl’s distinction between the lived body of the “flesh” and the extrinsically manifest “seen” body by re-appropriating Christianity’s emphasis upon incarnation, as exemplified in the work of Michel Henry and Emmanuel Falque. For Henry, an additional “reduction to the flesh” must be enacted in order to overcome the dualistic opposition between “phenomenal body” on the one hand, and the living medium of (...) flesh on the other, for the sake of returning to the original givenness of life. Yet, Falque criticizes Henry’s position as a kind of monism, just as problematic as the very dichotomy which it aims to criticize. Falque argues instead that the flesh must always be incorporated, “given back” to the body as a unity, possessing not only affect and life, but also solidity and visibility. (shrink)

The purpose of the present essay is to exposit and interpret the principal contours of the phenomenology of Christianity proposed by Michel Henry in dialog with his theological critics. Against the claims commonly made about him, Henry is not a Gnostic of any sort: neither a monist, nor a dualist, nor a pantheist, nor a denier of faith, nor a world- or creation-denier or anything of the sort. He rather proposes a form of “life-idealism” according to which life is the (...) foundation of the possibility of the world, life assumes a visible, external representation in its activities in the world, and the meaning of the world is that it is the arena in which life pursues the goal of its own perfection and growth. Interpreted in this light, his thought is not Gnostic. (shrink)