Sexuality as Unity in Life: An Approach from Michel Henry’s Phenomenology of Incarnation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper evinces a strong and deep understanding of Michel Henry's work. It shows a very careful treatment of the themes of sexuality in his corpus—particularly Incarnation. At times, I wish a bit less time was spent following the contours of his argument, which is reproduced with considerable detail, and instead a bit more original contribution would be appreciated.

While you are directly following Henry's argument that women are "more marked by sexual determination" than men, the paper might be served by placing this rather strange (and I'd argue, ultimately indefensible) claim by Henry in question. It is nowhere clear in his work where this claim is phenomenologically grounded. And it appears rather to emerge from a failure to properly bracket his pre-phenomenological commitments. The result of this pre-phenomenological assumption is that Henry tends to repeat some fairly tired and misogynistic tropes about feminine anxiety, the unique "passivity" of women, and the particular "spiritual superiority" of women. These are claims which, despite the ostensible praise of the third, all ultimately serve to belittle women. Internally, they also sit rather poorly with his repeated insistence that in the night of love there is no man and woman. Importantly, for the present context, this portion of Henry's argument does not seem necessary to make the ultimate argument of the paper. I'd recommending cutting those sections or addressing their problems.

This article seems to presume, on a few occasions, that the phenomenon of sexuality involves a "man and woman." While this is undoubtedly most often the case, phenomenology should be more vigilant to the eidetic possibility of queer sexualities, wherein things are more complicated.

The content here is quite good, but is regularly phrased in a manner that appears overly complex, and that makes comprehension more difficult. Specifically, it is not the use of jargon or complex language, but circuitous sentence structures that complicate the text. It would be worth taking an editing pass to simplify some of the phrasing and present some of the more complex ideas in a more direct manner. For example, the sentence: "As a result of this reductive treatment, the second feature of a subjectivity abandoned to the presuppositions of worldly appearance appears as an inescapable correlate of masochism: sadism." is quite difficult to parse. Understanding would be eased with something like: "As a result of this reduction to worldly appearance, a second phenomenon appears as an inescapable correlate of masochism: sadism." There are many examples of this kind throughout. 

The use of masculine and feminine pronouns is sometimes difficult to parse. It is unclear when they are being used interchangeably, when substantive gendered claims are being made, etc. In one instance, the couplet "he/she" is used so many times in one sentence that it is quite distracting (" it demands that he/she shows himself/herself in such a way that he/she appears as alien to his/her own capacity to feel, as alien to that original modesty (Henry, 2000, ) by which his/her own corporeality is constituted as a living carnality."). It might be preferable to employ a grammatically neuter pronoun ("their") or to rephrase the passages to avoid the need of so many pronouns. At the very least, the text should consistently use masculine, feminine, or neuter pronouns in sections not dealing explicitly with gendered difference. 

There are a many instances in which periods or spaces are doubled. A final grammar edit would be helpful. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In this article the author sees sexuality or sexual relations as a typical example to illustrate Michel Henry's phenomenology of Life. For Henry, in sexual acts or sexual relations, it is life which conditions the feeling of one flesh with that of another flesh; it is a sexual relation between two singular individuals who, in sexual acts, feels itself as what is felt, and at the same time, feels the impossibility of the feeling of the other. It is in sexual acts that one feels one's own singularity and the alterity of the other singularity. As a matter of fact, sexuality is  just one of numerous examples to illustrate Henry's view of pathos-with. 

When the author emphasizes that in sexual acts what matters is the relation between two singular individuals in which one individualizes oneself in one's unique of feeling and being felt, and man and woman no longer expose themselves as man and woman, in other words, in sexual relations or acts, it has nothing to do with masculine and feminine determinations, the author fails to realize that without man or woman in sexual relations or acts, sexuality would no longer exist. For the author or for Henry as well, we can just use any kind of example between two living beings (including human beings) to illustrate Henry's concept of Life. I do not see why sexuality is important in Henry's phenomenology of incarnation. Any kind of enjoyment or suffering can be a form of pathos-with in which living beings individualize themselves as singular beings. 

On the contrary, Henry's phenomenology of incarnation cannot explain why in Life's self-generation two genders (or a plurality of genders) are generated in Life's feeling of itself. The identity of feeling and felt cannot lead to sexual or gender difference. It seems that Henry tends to think that sexual difference is a way of worldly thinking. 

It seems to me that the point of view defended in the article is not wholly convincing. 

no further commnets

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf