La phénoménologie de la vie chez Erwin Straus
Résumé
This paper focuses on Erwin Straus’ phenomenology of life. I start by clarifying its object – the human being – and its purpose – to found a human nosology. I then reframe two well-known aspects of his thought. First, the “primary animal situation” which includes many conceptual dualities (animal/human, sensing/perceiving, landscape/geography, life-world/world of perception, schizophrenia/melancholy) as well as a major philosophical proposition: the identity between sensing and movement. Second, I look at the I-World relation, understood by Straus as a relation to and within totality. Third, I examine his
little known conception of existence as verticality, which leads the human being to the status of a privileged living being. Only human beings can oppose resistance to the world and realize their individuality.