PHENOMENOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY. FROM EDUARDO NICOL’S CONTRIBUTIONS

Abstract

This paper discusses why the work of Eduardo Nicol, still not translated and mostly unknown outside of the Hispanic context, deserves more attention, for two main reasons. First, the novelty of his meditations concerning phenomenology, following the steps of Husserl and Heidegger, but taking a different turn. Furthermore, several scholars have noted how his phenomenological project intertwines with the anthropological question, fostering a new approach to the question concerning “who are we?”. Our aim is to explore how Nicol, while setting foot in the founders of phenomenology, departs from previous interpretations of its method, to advance a new dialectical phenomenology that could contribute to the actual debates on anthropological phenomenology. In order to do so, we will first examine how his vision of the phenomenological task involves an historical interpretation of metaphysics and a critique of two fundamental concepts: the transcendental reduction (Husserl) and the thesis of an “occultation of being” (Heidegger). A careful reading of Nicol’s philosophy would allow us to go a step further and explain how, according to him, phenomenology should become an analysis of the dialectical presence between being/beings. Finally, we will show that the answer to the question “who are we?” is to be found inside this dialectic, in what Nicol identifies as the historical phenomenon of expression, encouraging a new dialogue with other phenomenologies of the body⸺and beyond.