Monism, dualism, pluralism

Turning back to some fundamental coordinates of Michel Henry’s phenomenology

Abstract

Throughout its history, phenomenology’s most pressing and recurring question seems to have been whether it is necessary for it to assume either the label of “idealism” or that of “realism”, or whether, on the contrary, it is possible for it to consider that its ontologic-conceptual device preserves it from either, by situating it beyond their alternative. The hypothesis put forward here is that what we owe to Michel Henry is to have introduced another question: that of knowing whether, as such, phenomenology is or must be monistic or dualistic. To understand such a question and the reasons why it is legitimate, against all expectations, to ask it of phenomenology, and to understand Michel Henry’s answer to it, requires a series of historical and conceptual clarifications, of which the present study is an outline.