Event and subject: how does appearance appear?

Daniel Neumann

Authors

Daniel Neumann University of Klagenfurt

Keywords:

Heidegger, event, phenomenology, transcendental constitution, subjectivity

Abstract

In Heidegger’s phenomenology, an event concerns the ontology of experience. The event is not merely an occurrence in my world, but the point from which my world is constituted. The event does not relate to any ontic reality, but the coming about of reality, the presence and “presencing” of Being itself. One problem arising here is that this cannot be described in experiential terms: the event is appearance which itself does not appear. To be able to describe the experience of the ontological coming about of reality, I propose considering the idea of the event as presenting me with an involuntary aspect of my experience. While the appearance of things is grasped by me as a subject, consciously experiencing them and being able to reflect on them, at the same time the appearing of that appearance confronts me with the fact of having experiences, reformulating the event in subjective terms.

Author Biography

Daniel Neumann, University of Klagenfurt

Daniel Neumann is a research associate at the Department of Philosophy, University of Klagenfurt, Austria. He holds an MA in philosophy, media theory and art studies from the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. His PhD project concerns the “thinking bodies” of Rationalism and their reception in the 17th and 18th century. Among his current research interests are the phenomenalization of the event, as well as the phenomenology of futurity and intersubjectivity.

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