Mark Richir and the Refoundation of Phenomenology

Abstract

In my article I present the main thesis of Marc Richir’s late work, who is considered to be a central figure of the so-called new phenomenology in France. In Richir’s opinion, phenomenology cannot be grounded on the idea of the primacy of perception. Instead, he proposes a refoundation of phenomenology, which consists in an architectonical reversal of the registers of perception and fantasy. At the most basic level of this new phenomenology, we have to deal with fantasy-appearances, and perception is only made possible by some coagulations of fantasy. Richir finds this concept of phantasy in Husserl’s manuscripts. He proposes, however, an original interpretation of Husserl’s phenomenology of phantasy. In my paper I sketch out the main points of this interpretation by focusing on the difference between imagination and phantasy, temporality, “perceptive” phantasy and the transcendental deduction of perception.