The nature of life consists in a constructive becoming (see Analecta Husserliana vol. 70). Though caught up in its relatively stable, stationary intervals manifesting the steps of its accomplishments that our attention is fixed. In this selection of studies we proceed, in contrast, to envisage life in the Aristotelian perspective in which energia, forces, and dynamisms of life at work are at the fore. Startling questions emerge: `what distinction could be drawn between the prompting forces of life and its formation? Or, is this distinction a result of our transcendental faculties?' The answers to these questions reveal themselves, as Tymieniecka proposes, at the phenomenologically ontopoietic level of life's origination where transcendentality surges.

Inhalt

Acknowledgements. The Theme. Inaugural lecture. The life-force or the shaping-of-life? A-T. Tymieniecka. Section I. Force and dynamism in Aristotle and Heidegger: Becoming what you are... to be; C. Hanley. Von der Sinnkrise und der Wichtigkeit der Bedeutung für das menschliche Leben; H. Tatematsu. Les passions de l'âme et l'Ontopoiesie de la vie; M. Kronegger. The notion of 'humanity' in Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka's anthropological thought; M.P. Migon. Georg Simmel between Goethe and Kant on 'Life' and 'Force'; P. Giacomoni. Section II. Paleoanthropology from a phenomenological point of view. Some remarks about the genetic structures of the human life; B. de Villers. The function of autotopoi in the modification of a subject's activity; J. Slosarska. The irreversibility of natural processes and the meaning of the second principle of thermodynamics; A. Marchesin. The natural-scientific and phenomenological approaches to animals; S. Lijmbach. On the dynamical unity of instrument and substance; D. Rothbart. Section III. Life, power and measure in Nietzsche's work; F. Totaro. Three models of human dynamic towards integrity: Eliade, Jung, Wilber; M. Zowislo. The dispute between Shestov and Husserl as a reflection of approaches to axiology; Z. Majewska. Mass-media communication as a possible creative source of new shapes of life; M. Sehdev. Section IV. Does time move? Dogen and the art of understanding the moment; D. Holbrook. Reductive and nonreductive theories of the self: the phenomenology of performance; W.S. Haney II. Evolving life: constant turnover from inconsistencies to intensities; K. Matsuno. A phenomenology of proper timing in ancient China; J.D. Sellman.African theory of forces and the extended family relations: a deconstruction; J.I. Unah. Section V. Giving form to life according to Max Scheler. Part I: Processes of functionalization and of work. Part II: Human perception as cooperation of vital and spiritual forces; D. Verducci. Worries of a human person at the turn of century in the light of the history of medicine; B. Maroszynska-Jezowska. Virtutes et potentiae: the medical-biological tradition in the formation of the philosophical anthropology of the thirteenth century; R. Martorelli-Vico. Philosophical thanatology as a foundation of contemporary medical ars moriendi; A. Alichniewicz. Nature as the source of life; L. Pyra. Section VI. Zur Bedeutung des 'Blickes' und des 'Antlitzes' bei Georg Simmel und Emmanuel Levinas; A. Model. Human dignity in weakness &endash; Gabriel Marcel's conception of human dignity; J.J. Venter. From the 'Ego' to the 'World' for a community ethic; I.A. Bianchi. Appendix.