Topics in 20th Century French Philosophy II:
“The Phenomenology of Desire”
Prof. Miguel de Beistegui
Dr. Marjorie Gracieuse
S2.56 – M.J.Beistegui@warwick.ac.uk
S2.52 Marjorie.gracieuse@warwick.ac.uk
Week 1:
Lecture: Desire beyond Pleasure
Reading: Freud, ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’, in Beyond the Pleasure Principle and other
writings, Penguin Modern Classics, 2003.
Week 2:
Lecture: The two senses of desire in Husserl’s Phenomenology
Reading: Husserl, “Static and Genetic Phenomenological Method” (1921), in Analyses
Concerning Passive and Active Syntheses: Lectures on Transcendental Logic + “Intuition and
Representation, Intention and Fulfilment” (1893).
Week 3:
Lecture: Sartre: Desire as lack and intentionality
J. P. Sartre, Being and Nothingness, part 2 “Immediate structures of the for-itself”, page 73 to
95 and The Transcendence of the Ego (New York: Octagon, 1972; orig. published 1936).
Week 4:
Lecture: The body and the Others: the Sartrian dead-end
Being and Nothingness (1943): “first attitude towards others: love, language and masochism”
(pages 364-378) and "second attitude towards others: indifference, desire, hate and sadism"
pages 379-413.
Week 5:
Lecture: Transcendence and metaphysical desire in Levinas
Reading: “Philosophy and the idea of infinity” (1957) in Emmanuel Levinas: Collected
Philosophical Papers, translated by A. Lingis. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987.
Pages 47-61 and Totality and Infinity (1961) translated by A. Lingis. Martinus Nijhoff
Publishers, 1979, pages 33-53.
Extension for possible essays/dissertation: Time and the Other (1947) published in Emmanuel
Levinas: Time and the Other and additional essays, trans. R.Cohen, Duquesne University
Press, 1987.
Week 6:
Lecture: Levinas’ critique of immanence: facing the Other’s trace
Reading: Totality and Infinity (1961), translated by A. Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne
University Press, 1969. Pages 109-130. “The Trace of the Other” (1963) translated by A.
Lingis, in Deconstruction in Context, edited by Mark Taylor, 345-359. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1986.
Extension for possible essays/dissertation: “From the One to the Other: transcendence and
Time” (1983) in Emmanuel Levinas, Entre Nous Thinking-of-the-Other, translated by M.
Smith and B. Harshav, Columbia University Press, 1998.
Week 7:
Lecture: Evil and non-erotic Goodness in Levinas
Reading: Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence (1974), translated by A. Lingis. Kluwer
Academic Publishers, 1991. Pages 3-21 and pages 173-187.
“Transcendence and Evil” (1978) translated by A. Lingis, in The Phenomenology of Man and
of the Human Condition, edited by A-T. Tymieniecka, Analecta Husserliana 14, 153-165.
Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1983.
Extension for possible essays/dissertation: “God and Philosophy” (1982), published in Of
God who comes to mind, trans. Bettina Bergo, Stanford University Press, 1998. Pages 55-79.
Week 8:
Lecture: Desire as the fabric of intentionality: Barbaras on the identity between fulfilment and
frustration.
Reading: Renaud Barbaras, “Life and perceptual intentionality”, article available at
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/rip/2003/00000033/00000001/art00009
and
Renaud Barbaras, “Life, Movement and Desire”, article available at
http://www.ingentaconnect.com//content/brill/rip/2008/00000038/00000001/art00001
Week 9:
Lecture: Desire beyond perception? Questioning the sense of life as self-limitation
Reading: Renaud Barbaras, Desire and Distance: Introduction to a Phenomenology of
Perception, Stanford University Press, 2006.
Week 10: Conclusion and general discussion
Bibliography:
Primary texts:
Husserl, Edmund. “Intuition and Representation, Intention and Fulfillment” (1893)
and “Appendices to Psychological Studies for Elementary Logic” (1893), in Husserliana,
Volume XXII, Aufsätze und Rezensionen (1890-1910). Edited by Bernhard Rang. The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979. Pp. 269-301 and 406-419, respectively.
------. Logical Investigations. Translated by J. N. Findlay. New York: Humanities
Press, 1970. Fifth Logical Investigation, § 15; sixth Logical Investigation, §§ 13-29.
------. “On Static and Genetic Phenomenological Method” (1921), in Analyses
Concerning Passive and Active Syntheses: Lectures on Transcendental Logic. Translated by
Anthony J. Steinbeck. Dordrecht/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001, pp. 624-634.
Levinas, Emmanuel. “Philosophy and the Idea of Infinity” (1957) and “Phenomena
and Enigma” (1965), in Collected Philosophical Papers. Translated by Alphonso Lingis.
Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993. Pp. 47-59 and 60-73,
respectively.
------. “The Trace of the Other” (1963), in Deconstruction in Context. Edited by
Mark Taylor and translated by Alphonso Lingis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986,
pp. 345-359.
------. Totality and Infinity (1961). Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh:
Duquesne University Press, 1969.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Transcendence of the Ego. Translated by Forrest Williams and
Robert Kirkpatrick. New York: Noonday Press, 1962.
------. Being and Nothingness. Translated by Hazel E. Barnes. New York:
Philosophical Library, 1943.
Secondary Texts:
On Husserl. For a complete chronology of his writings, visit The Husserl Page
(http://www.husserlpage.com)
Bégout, Bruce. “Problèmes d’une phénomenologie de la sexualité. Intentionnalité
pulsionnelle et pulsion sexuelle chez Husserl,” in Phénoménologie et psychanalyse. Edited
by J. C. Beaune. Champ Vallon, 1998, p. 41-59.
Lee, Nam-In. Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie der Instinkte.
Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer, 1993.
------. “Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology of Mood,” in Alterity and Facticity: New
Perspectives on Husserl. Edited by N. Depraz and D. Zahavi. Dordrecht/Boston/London:
Kluwer, 1998, pp. 103-118.
R. Bernet, « Zur Phänomenologie von Trieb und Lust bei Husserl », in Dieter Lohmar
and Dirk Fonfara (eds.), Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven der Phänomenologie, Dordrecht,
Springer, 2006, p. 38-53.
Rolf Kühn, Husserls Begriff der Passivität. Zur Kritik der passiven Synthesis in der
Genetischen Phänomenologie, Freiburg, Alber Verlag, 1998, especially Chapter 10 (« Triebund Instinktintentionalität »).
On Sartre. For a good selected bibliography, visit The Jean-Paul Sartre Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre)
Bernet, Rudolf. Conscience et existence. Perspectives Phénoménologiques. Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 2004. Part Two, Chapters 1 (“Negative consciousness as
Drive and Desire”) and 3 (“Corporeal Existence and the Power of the Gaze”).
Bernet, Rudolf. Conscience et existence. Perspectives Phénoménologiques. Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 2004. Part Two, Chapters 3 (“Corporeal Existence and the
Power of the Gaze”) and 5 (“The Traumatised Subject”).
Christina Howells: 'Sartre: Desiring the Impossible'. Published in Philosophy and
Desire, ed. by H.J Silverman, Routledge, 2000. Pages 85-96.
Katherine J. Morris (editor) Sartre on the Body, Palgrave McMillan, 2010.
Renaud Barbaras (editor) Sartre: desir et liberte, PUF, 2005.
On Levinas. For a full bibiliography, visit The Emmanuel Levinas Web Page
(http://home.pacbell.net/atterton/levinas/Primary.htm)
Drew Dalton, Longing for the Other: Levinas and Metaphysical Desire, Duquesne University
Press, 2009.
Derrida, Jacques, 'Violence and Metaphysics' in Writing and Difference, translated by Alan
Bass, Chicago, Chicago University Press and London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978, pp.
79-153.
Also highly recommended:
Barbaras, Renaud. Le désir et la distance. Introduction à une phénomenologie de la
perception. Paris: Vrin, 1999. Chapter 5.
------. Introduction à une phénoménologie de la vie. Paris: Vrin, 2008. Part Three
(“Life and Desire”).
Derrida, Jacques. “The Ends of Man,” in Margins of Philosophy. Translated, with
Additional Notes, by Alan Bass. London: The Harvester Press, 1982.