Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies | The Turn of the Flesh - Professor Emmanuel Falque @HinduStudies | Uploaded February 2022 | Updated October 2024, 8 hours ago.
The translation of the word Leib into different languages, especially into French, constitutes a problem that guides the whole history of phenomenology, and even the philosophy of religion. Originally, Emmanuel Levinas translated the word Leib not by the French ‘chair’, corresponding to the English ‘flesh’, but by ‘organic body’. It is under the double impetus of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Paul Ricoeur that the French translation of the word Leib by ‘chair’ or ‘flesh’ came about. This ‘turn of the flesh’ then determined the whole history of phenomenology’s confrontation with the philosophy of religion. Superimposing the ‘Word made flesh’ (sarx) onto ‘the lived experience of the body’ (chair or flesh) or onto ‘the living body’ (the organic body), constitutes the way in which the Christic Incarnation is interpreted in light of phenomenological incarnation. With, or alongside, the ‘theological turn’, I will therefore here outline a ‘turn of the flesh’ [or ‘carnal turn’] of French phenomenology.
Professor Emmanuel Falque is Honorary Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Catholic University of Paris. He specialises in patristic and medieval philosophy, phenomenology, and philosophy of religion. Of particular interest are his ‘philosophical triduum’—The Metamorphosis of Finitude (Fordham UP, 2012), The Wedding Feast of the Lamb (Fordham UP, 2016), and The Guide to Gethsemane (Fordham UP, 2019)—, and Crossing the Rubicon: The Borderlands of Philosophy and Theology (Fordham UP, 2016).
The translation of the word Leib into different languages, especially into French, constitutes a problem that guides the whole history of phenomenology, and even the philosophy of religion. Originally, Emmanuel Levinas translated the word Leib not by the French ‘chair’, corresponding to the English ‘flesh’, but by ‘organic body’. It is under the double impetus of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Paul Ricoeur that the French translation of the word Leib by ‘chair’ or ‘flesh’ came about. This ‘turn of the flesh’ then determined the whole history of phenomenology’s confrontation with the philosophy of religion. Superimposing the ‘Word made flesh’ (sarx) onto ‘the lived experience of the body’ (chair or flesh) or onto ‘the living body’ (the organic body), constitutes the way in which the Christic Incarnation is interpreted in light of phenomenological incarnation. With, or alongside, the ‘theological turn’, I will therefore here outline a ‘turn of the flesh’ [or ‘carnal turn’] of French phenomenology.
Professor Emmanuel Falque is Honorary Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Catholic University of Paris. He specialises in patristic and medieval philosophy, phenomenology, and philosophy of religion. Of particular interest are his ‘philosophical triduum’—The Metamorphosis of Finitude (Fordham UP, 2012), The Wedding Feast of the Lamb (Fordham UP, 2016), and The Guide to Gethsemane (Fordham UP, 2019)—, and Crossing the Rubicon: The Borderlands of Philosophy and Theology (Fordham UP, 2016).
