In:Surprise at the Intersection of Phenomenology and Linguistics
Edited by Natalie Depraz and Agnès Celle
[Consciousness & Emotion Book Series 11] 2019
► pp. 171–180
Chapter 9Is surprise necessarily disappointing?
Published online: 6 November 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/ceb.11.09ser
https://doi.org/10.1075/ceb.11.09ser
Abstract
The article examines the function and status of surprise from Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological point of view on experience. Firstly, it is shown that, when experience is defined through concordance and continuity, it becomes difficult to describe surprise otherwise than as deception or disappointment. Secondly, the paper attempts to overcome this negative characterization of surprise without completely abandoning Husserl’s method and description. It is indeed shown that conflict is as important and irreducible as concordance and that experience should rather be defined, in a more dynamic manner, as the intertwining of both. The motivational link between the past and the future is then re-evaluated, in order to maintain a balance between the motivation of the past (expectation) and the open possibilities of the future (free anticipation). Thus, surprise can receive a legitimate and consistent place within experience, and a paradoxical expectation of surprise becomes conceivable.
Keywords: surprise, disappointment, Husserl, phenomenology, experience
Article outline
- 1.Dissonance against harmony?
- 2.Protention versus unexpectedness?
- 3.Fulfillment or disappointment?
Notes References
References (13)
Blumenberg, Hans. (2001). “Wirklichkeitsbegriff und Möglichkeit des
Romans”. In Ästhetische und metaphorologische
Schriften, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp. “The Concept of Reality and the Possibility of the
Novel”, translation by David Henry Wilson, in New
Perspectives in German Literary Criticism: A Collection of
Essays, ed. Richard E. Amacher and Victor Lange, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1979.
Dastur, Françoise. (2004). “Phénoménologie
de l’événement: l’attente et la surprise (Husserl et
Heidegger)”, in La phénoménologie en
questions, Paris, Vrin, p. 161–173.
Depraz, Natalie. (2010). “Phenomenology
of Surprise. Levinas and Merleau-Ponty in the Light of Hans
Jonas”. In Advancing Phenomenology: Essays in Honor
of Lester
Embree, Dordrecht, Springer, p. 223–233.
Husserl, Edmund. (1962). Gesammelte
Werke – Husserliana, vol. IX: Phänomenologische Psychologie. Vorlesungen Sommersemester
1925, ed. by Walter Biemel, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff; Phenomenological
Psychology. Lectures, Summer Semester,
1925, translation by John Scanlon, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1977.
. (1966). Gesammelte
Werke – Husserliana, vol. XI: Analysen zur passiven Synthesis. Aus Vorlesungs- und
Forschungsmanuskripten
1918–1926, ed. by Margot Fleischer, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff; Analyses Concerning Passive
and Active
Synthesis, translation by Anthony Steinbock, Dordrecht, Springer, 2001.
. (1972
[1948]). Erfahrung
und Urteil. Untersuchungen zur Genealogie der
Logik, Hamburg, Meiner, ; Experience and Judgment: Investigations in a Genealogy of
Logic, translation by James Spencer Churchill and Karl Ameriks, Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 1975.
. (2001). Gesammelte
Werke – Husserliana, vol. XXXIII: Die Bernauer Manuskripte über das Zeitbewusstsein
(1917/18), ed. by Rudolf Bernet and Dieter Lohmar, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers.
. (2006). Gesammelte
Werke – Husserliana Materialien,vol. VIII: Späte Texte über Zeitkonstitution
(1929–1934). Die
C-Manuskripte, ed. by Dieter Lohmar, Dordrecht, Springer.