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A Phenomenology and the absurdity of a situation that, until re- 1

cently, seemed impossible. In a spirit similar
of Disquietude: The to that of Depraz, I would like to extend her
2
3
ad pathologicum Reduction remarks from my own perspective, using the 4
terms of Husserlian phenomenology and re- 5
Jean-Daniel Thumser ferring to new insights on Fernando Pessoa’s 6
Archives Husserl de Paris, France literature. 7
PHILOSOPHICAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS IN First-Person Research

thumser.jd/at/hotmail.fr 8
An ad pathologicum reduction 9
> Abstract • While it is possible to con- « 3 »  On a phenomenological level, the 10
sider that the pandemic and the lock- Covid-19 crisis can be considered a singular 11
down have produced a collective aware- reduction, ad pathologicum, insofar as it en- 12
ness of our fragility, it is also possible to gages each subject to reflect on herself in a 13
go further by considering that fragility situation where the world as a whole (totum) 14
uncovers the possibility of disquietude, is itself reduced to the strict private sphere 15
which would be anxiety about our ex- or even to the intimate and transcendental 16
istence. In this sense, the return to im- sphere. Whereas transcendental reduction 17
manent life illustrated by Husserl by the allows the subject to focus on the constitu- 18
transcendental reduction is replaced tive acts of consciousness (which permits 19
by an entirely different reduction, an ad us to comprehend how we intersubjectively 20
pathologicum reduction, insofar as it constitute the world), an ad pathologicum 21
modifies our perceptions in a pathologi- reduction can be seen as a heightened em- 22
cal way. In the interest of maintaining a phasis on our sense of existing in a world 23
first-person perspective, I will also illus- that is becoming absurd; absurd in that it 24
trate this type of experience by applying offers no other horizon than an everlasting 25
Pessoa’s thought. time in a restricted environment. 26
Handling Editor • Alexander Riegler « 4 »  While each human being is de- 27
fined by her participation in a common 28
Introduction world, the Covid-19 crisis has plunged us 29
« 1 »  To rationalize the absurdity of the into deep loneliness. Students and workers 30
situation and to face circumstances that ex- have moved from a social world to living 31
ceed our understanding; to find ourselves in front of a computer screen, morning to 32
alone confronted with our fears; to face in- night, in predominantly tight spaces. The 33
somnia and awakenings in cold sweats; to only possible interactions and meetings 34
self-diagnose ourselves; to develop anxious have been made possible by virtual rela- 35
symptoms; to be in denial; to face a time that tionships on applications designed for these 36
516 does not end; to hope that the situation will types of interactions. The younger genera- 37
improve; and to forget everything in order tions, already faced with precariousness and 38
not to recall a traumatic moment: these are uncertainty, are struggling to envision a de- 39
all elements of existential crises that affect sirable future. There is no home (οἶκος) for 40
the entire population in times of health cri- those who are not surrounded by others, 41
sis. Natalie Depraz’s target article sheds light contrary to Depraz’s assumption (§6). The 42
on this exacerbated self-presence during the ad pathologicum reduction can thus be de- 43
pandemic, namely fragility. It is about a bur- scribed as an undergone asceticism: a void 44
densome awareness of our condition, its lim- which is an absence of the familiar world, as 45
its, and the risk of this irreversible disease. well as a revealed and sometimes untenable 46
« 2 »  The author invites us to revisit our fragility, to paraphrase Depraz. 47
lived experience of lockdown and the pan- « 5 »  Transcendental reduction, which 48
demic from a first-person perspective and a can also be described as another birth for 49
non-argumentative method. The richness of the subject, induces the presence of inter- 50
such a description lies in the fact that the au- subjectivity: 51
thor’s experience has universal value insofar 52
as each individual has suffered the pandemic
and shares with her contemporaries similar
“  The first birth is a bodily birth, exteriorized. 53
Only the second birth, relying, however, on the 54
feedback on herself, her physical condition, first, a second, carnal birth, is birth to oneself, is the 55
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 First-Person Research
A Phenomenology of Disquietude Jean-Daniel Thumser

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1 ‘true’ birth, the transcendental birth. Now, this car- « 9 »  Depraz’s intuition about fragil- disquietude and angst into narratives. From 1
2 nal birth, in order to be able to rise up out of strict ity indeed addresses an existence. Yet, can this perspective, Pessoa writes in The Book 2
3 corporeality, requires the experience of a co-pres- this existence – an isolated life with no dis- of Disquiet in the first person and explores 3
4 ence (Mitgegenwart), which is experience of the tinct horizon – be summed up by this single the depths of subjectivity confronted with 4
5 other as a constituent of this conversion of the body term? If fragility suggests the idea of a flaw the anguish produced by the absurd and by 5
6 into the flesh. Transcendental birth is through and that we discover in ourselves, a fallibility metaphysical questioning of the self. 6
7 through, as birth to oneself, an experience of co- shared by all human beings, it may seem « 12 »  His description of disquietude 7
8 birth.
9
” (Depraz 1993: 91f, my translation) to us that disquietude corresponds more
strongly to feelings that we have during mo-
echoes that of Depraz, but goes further by
corresponding to the definition of an anx-
8
9
10 « 6 »  To the contrary, ad pathologicum ments of anxiety or during depressive states, ious or depressed state, as worries of the 10
11 reduction obliterates the intersubjective insofar as the subject is in constant tension soul reverberate through the body, and vice 11
12 world and leaves the subject to herself in a and turned towards the possibility of a crisis. versa. Here, the relationship between flesh 12
13 concrete and not only transcendental solip- « 10 »  The term disquietude corre- (Leib) and body (Körper) is exposed in its 13
14 sism, which may lead to anxiety and depres- sponds to the following description: “A anomalous tenor: 14
15 sive symptoms. In a nutshell, we face the world dominated by anguish – the anguish 15
16
17
same concern that Albert Camus expressed: of life, an intolerable discomfort that gnaws
at its roots, a fragile being, who even makes
“  The abstract intelligence produces a fatigue
that’s the worst of all fatigues. It doesn’t weigh
16
17
18
19
“  To live with one’s back to a wall is a dog’s life.
But people of my generation and of the generation
it exist, in itself, is unbearable” (Laye 2013:
563, my translation), as the French transla-
on us like bodily fatigue, nor disconcert like the
fatigue of emotional experience. It’s the weight
18
19
20 just now taking its place in factories and class- tor of Pessoa described it. Disquietude may of our consciousness of the world, a shortness of 20
21 rooms have lived and are living more and more therefore be conceived of as the feeling that breath in our soul. […] The mystery of life dis- 21
22
23
”
like dogs. (Camus 2006: 257) characterizes a subject concerned with her
own fragility and which then leads to a new 2002: §43)
”
tresses and frightens us in many ways. (Pessoa 22
23
24 « 7 »  As the pandemic has affected all of and distorted understanding of her exis- 24
25 humanity, the symptoms of psychopatholo- tence in the world. Disquietude may then « 13 »  From this perspective, literature 25
26 gies like anxiety and depression have been also be conceived of as the result of the dis- sheds new light on the anomalous and path- 26
27 massive and have affected hitherto healthy covery of our own fragility. ological experiences. It also enlightens us as 27
28 individuals, as an article in Lancet Psychia- « 11 »  The hypothesis of an ad pathologi- to what we can feel when fragility gives way 28
29 try points out: “The levels of depressive cum reduction during lockdown leads us to to disquietude and anxiety. This phenom- 29
30 symptoms, anxiety, worry, and loneliness think of disquietude as a reduction of our enological description of anxiety comes at a 30
31 increased more in people with no or less immanent life and of the world as we per- time when authors such as Samuel Beckett, 31
32 severe or chronic mental health disorders” ceive it, as well as to consider the anxieties Maurice Blanchot, Camus or Eugène Iones- 32
33 (Pan et al. 2021: 127). With this in mind, the that animate us then and the emptiness that co have already highlighted the absurdity 33
34 ad pathologicum reduction can be described we feel as a result of these anxieties. We may of our condition by implementing a reduc- 34
35 as a closure on ourselves imposed by a con- then consider this reduction to be an inverted tion close to that proposed by Husserl, but 35
36 text that transcends us: a reduction that does reduction, which disorganizes our inner ex- which would be a reductio ad nihilum inso- 36
37 not make us born again, but which causes a perience. It is thus that we go from a healthy far as it confronts us with the futility of our 37 517
38 solipsism of a very particular type and per- and optimal state to an anomalous state, to existence. According to Blanchot, we have 38
39 haps what we already depicted as the “con- the progressive constitution of a pathological “to sustain, to fashion our nothingness […]. 39
40 stitution of a pathological world” (Thumser world as our perceptions gradually change We must be the figurers and the poets of our 40
41 2019: 216). and as the symptoms of anxiety and depres- death” (Blanchot 1989: 125). 41
42 sion impose themselves in our everyday « 14 »  Therefore, we may then wonder 42
43 Fragility and disquietude lives. As Edmund Husserl puts it: “If my Leib about the possibility of describing this kind 43
44 « 8 »  In order to pursue Depraz’s words becomes anomalous, then the appearance of of reductio ad pathologicum in extraordinary 44
45 about fragility, which she describes as “this all natural objects as I experienced them as a experiences such as lockdowns and pan- 45
46 feeling of absolute distress, of immersion in physically normal person will change” (Hus- demics: Would literature not be one of the 46
47 a situation where the unpredictable disori- serl 2008: 651, my translation). Disquietude best pathways to a fully phenomenological 47
48 ents all control” (§24) and to contribute to a would thus be a modified perception of the description of anomalous experiences?  Q1 48
49 revised understanding of this notion, I will world, the result of an exacerbated awareness And, would (micro-)phenomenology, as a 49
50 confront it with the notion of disquietude of our own fragility and of our condition in precise description of our experience, not be 50
51 used by Pessoa. Such a revision aims to a situation and a universe that we do not able to bridge the gap between normal and 51
52 highlight the possibility of a life oriented to- understand. While phenomenology offers a anomalous experience from the perspective 52
53 wards the absurdity of existence and a world descriptive method for disclosing the struc- where the latter appears as a discordance in 53
54 that sometimes seems insignificant, hollow, ture of experience, literature – especially that the process of the intersubjective constitu- 54
55 or desolate. of the early twentieth century – translates tion of a common world?  Q2 55
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https://constructivist.info/16/3/501.depraz
 1 References
2
3 Blanchot M. (1989) The space of literature.
4 Translated by Ann Smock. University of
5 Nebraska Press, Lincoln NE. French original
6 published in 1955.
7 Camus A. (2006) Neither victims nor execution-
PHILOSOPHICAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS IN First-Person Research

8 ers. In: Camus at combat: Writing 1944–

9 1947. Edited and annotated by Jacqueline     
10 Levi-Valensi, translated by Arthur Goldham-
11 mer. Princeton University Press, Princeton:
12 255–276. French original published in 1946.
13 Depraz N. (1993) Naître à soi même [To give
14 birth to ourselves]. Alter, revue de phénomé-
15 nologie 1: 81–105.
16 Husserl E. (2008) Die Lebenswelt: Auslegungen
17 der vorgegebenen Welt und ihrer Konstitu-  
18 tion [The lifeworld: Interpretations of the
19 given world and its constitution]. Kluwer,
20 Dordrecht.
21 Laye F. (2013) Le livre de l’intranquillité de
22 Fernando Pessoa [Fernando Pessoa’s book
23 of disquiet]. Bulletin hispanique 115(2):
24 565–569.
25 Pan K.-Y., Kok A. A., Eikelenboom M., Horsfall
26 M., Jörg F., Luteijn R. A., Rhebergen D.,
27 van Oppen P., Giltay E. J. & Penninx B.
28 W. (2021) The mental health impact of the    
29 COVID-19 pandemic on people with and
30 without depressive, anxiety, or obsessive-
31 compulsive disorders: A longitudinal study
32 of three Dutch case-control cohorts. Lancet  
33 Psychiatry 8(2): 121–129.
34 Pessoa F. (2002) The book of disquiet. Penguin
35 Classics, London.
36 Thumser J.-D. (2019) The constitution of a
37 pathological world: Phenomenology as
38 an experiential and constitutive approach.
39 Constructivist Foundations 14(2): 216–218.
40 ▶︎ https://constructivist.info/14/2/216  
41
42 Jean-Daniel Thumser is an associate member of the
43 Husserl Archives (École Normale Supérieure de Paris).
44 His first book, La vie de l’ego (2018), aims to clarify how
45 phenomenology and cognitive science may contribute to
46 defining a global science of subjectivity. His second book,
47 Husserl (2021), offers insight into Husserl’s entire corpus.
48
Funding: No external funding was received
49
while writing the manuscript.
50
Competing interests: The author declares
51  
that he has no competing interests.
52
53 Received: 10 June 2021
54 Revised: 25 June 2021
55 Accepted: 25 June 2021
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