English Language and Literature Commons^™

Michel Henry's Phenomenology Of Aesthetic Experience, Jeremy H. Smith

English Faculty Scholarship

In 'Voir l'invisible' Michel Henry applies his philosophy of autoaffection to the realm of aesthetics. Henry claims that autoaffection, as nonobjective experience, is essential not only to self-experience, but also to the experience of objects and their qualities. On the basis of an examination of Henry's aesthetic theory in the light of Husserl's analysis of our experience of visible objects, I conclude that revisions are required in both Husserl's and Henry's approaches: Husserl's noema must be considered to be a lived-through experience, and nonobjective lived-through experience must be recognized as primordial evidence; Henry's claim that …