MERLEAU-PONTY, PATOCKA - Phenomenology of intimacy, Renaud BARBARAS

Presentation: The challenge of this intervention is to question the very profound assumption that intimacy - in the sense of what is at the heart of the subject, of what is most appropriate to him - would refer to a sphere of interiority closed in on itself, defined by its opposition to the exteriority, to the great Outside the World. The point here is to establish that there is a secret and profound communication, even an identity between the most immanent and the most transcendent, between the centre of the subject and the heart of the world. Intimacy must therefore first be understood as intimacy with the world, not only in the sense of belonging and openness to it but also in the sense of access to its most distinctive features.
Renaud Barbaras is Professor of Contemporary Philosophy at the University of Paris1 (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. Latest published works : The opening of the world. Reading by Jan Patočka (Ed. de la Transparence, 2011); La vie lacunaire (Vrin, 2011) et Dynamique de la manifestation (Vrin, 2013)