Incarnation: A Philosophy of Flesh

by Michel Henry

Michel Henry defends the illuminating thesis that Incarnation is not existence in a body, but existence in the flesh. It is not in a body that flesh appears originally, but being in the flesh that comes first. For only in flesh can one see or touch, feel joy or sorrow, hunger or thirst--and undergo each of these impressions as one's own. But how does flesh come into this condition? How is life given to it so that it can feel itself, or anything else, in this way? Christianity's fundamental thesis, on which its fate plays out in every generation, is that "the Word was made flesh." Henry then asks what revelation must be for it to be accomplished as flesh, and what flesh must be to be revelation. He pursues such questions with lucidity and rigor in this astonishing meditation on the human condition.

Genres: Philosophy

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first reading was five years ago, and I understood it fairly well. My second time reading it was slower, more thorough, and more critical.

I respect Henry a lot for the ambitiousness of his philosophical thesis and the passion with which he advances it. Like all the great phenomenologists, Henry has a tidy conceptual narrative, complete with its protagonists (Life, Flesh, God, immanence), its antagonists (objectivism, scientism, ontological monism, transcendence, world, etc.), and its dramatic action (Galileo, phenomenology, forgetting, etc.). Just as Heidegger makes Being his thing, which is threatened by Western metaphysics, so Henry makes Life thing, which is likewise threatened by Western metaphysics, of which Heidegger is now a part. This is typically how it goes for the phenomenologists.

Henry's argument is clearly structured; you can tell he put a lot of thought into this work. His philosophy is, on the face of it, coherent, far-ranging, and powerful. Life is the only true, invisible reality; the world is its unreal appearance. Hence, science, despite its pretensions, will never get to the bottom of life; it can never do away with subjectivity, for this is already a subjective act! For the living to deny life is absurd. Before we are a body, we are flesh: We feel ourselves experiencing and experience ourselves feeling, and all this precedes thought. However, the gift of life is just that—a gift. It has been given to us—whence? Absolute Life, i.e., God. Thus, we are not the source of our own existence, nor is our power our own; instead, it's borrowed. If God is Life, and if Life gives us our lives, then we are given in God. Hence, Christianity is transcendental, and phenomenology—that is, true phenomenology, viz., radical, material phenomenology—attests to its truth.

Needless to say, I don't buy this. It's a noble and grand thought, but no matter how many times the prefix arch- is used, and no matter how much Henry might proclaim the Truth of Christianity, I'm firmly on the side of Janicaud, who saw in Henry the consummation of the "theological turn." Henry is decidedly an apologist who, like the Church Fathers and early Scholastics, subordinates phenomenology to theology, reason to revelation. Unlike many who started as believers and then turned to philosophy for justification, Henry developed his philosophy first and subsequently saw it confirmed in/by/as Christianity, prompting his conversion. Many of his phenomenological "intuitions," I now see, are simply phenomenological (i.e., subtle) recastings of classical arguments for the existence of God, e.g., ontological and from contingency.

Additionally, one can easily see the invisible(!) presence of Berkeley and Schopenhauer since, ultimately, Henry here develops a form of vital idealism. While he insists that he's not a dualist and that the duplicity of appearing is phenomenal rather than substantial, I think his phenomenological commitment complicates this to his detriment. I think he ends up, as I said of The Essence of Manifestation, in solipsism. Of course, he escapes—or claims to—the charge of solipsism the same way Descartes and Berkeley did: By appealing to God! A most delicious move...

Also, I don't think he solves the problem of other minds, because he either succumbs to the same problem as Husserl, bringing in intentional constitution, which yields only unreality, or must resort, as always, to God. Then there's the matter of death. Death isn't real for Henry; he can't account for it. By distinguishing between the self (moi) and the Self (soi), by introducing the Ipseity of infinite Life, Henry ironically imitates Schopenhauer, subordinating my empirical existence to a universal, anonymous life.

And God, moreover, is a gooner: All He does is feel Himself eternally! God just keeps coming into Himself, always arriving, infinitely! The Parousia! Aristotle's god only thought itself; Henry's God masturbates, and we are His toys! Brilliant!

In all seriousness, though, Henry is a profound thinker and a brilliant writer (when he wants to be). He has many lyrical passages, and his passion for existing is so palpable throughout. I may not agree with his religiosity, but I appreciate the deeply humanistic thought behind it—the denunciation of scientism and transhumanism, the inherent value of every individual, the binding power of love, the validation of feeling, etc. Heidegger had to surpass Husserl; Henry, Heidegger; and Henry in his turn...

If you want a section-by-section exploration of the book, I'm doing a series on my blog, Neologikon.