Conference: A Phenomenology of Nearness and Distance

A Phenomenology of Nearness and Distance

May 7–9, 2025, Landau i.d. Pfalz, Georg-Friedrich-Dentzel-Straße 24, Room 003

University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU), Forschungsstelle für Phänomenologie und Hermeneutik

Organizers: Anne Kirstine Rønhede & Nikola Mirković

Funded by the Research Fund, RPTU

Our experiences are pervaded by a constant sense of nearness and distance. When we make our way in the world, we encounter things, others, and events as being nearby or farther away. Traditionally, this basic characteristic of experience has been linked with spatiality and temporality. This approach can be found within the phenomenological tradition as well. “All spatial being,” Edmund Husserl says, “necessarily appears in such a way that it appears either nearer or farther […]”, namely, in relation to one’s body: “The ‘far’ is far from me, from my Body” (Ideas II, 166). At the same time, nearness and distance figure into the very experience of the flow of time itself according to Husserl: “To my consciousness, points of temporal duration recede, as points of a stationary object in space recede when I ‘go away from the object.’” (Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness, 45). Martin Heidegger, on the other hand, accounts for closeness and remoteness in terms of belonging-to (“Zugehörigkeit”) within our human projects and purposes. Thus, what is closest to me strictly speaking is not what is closest to my body in space. For example, when walking on the street, one “feels the touch of it at every step as one walks; it is seemingly the closest and realest of all that is ready-to-hand, and it slides itself, as it were, along certain portions of one’s body – the soles of one’s feet. And yet it is farther remote than the acquaintance whom one encounters ‘on the street’ at a ‘remoteness’ [“Entfernung”] of twenty paces when one is taking such a walk.” (Being and Time, 107). Emmanuel Levinas, in a further step, identifies the ‘touch’ that allows for nearness with “the ethical event of communication” (En découverant l’existence avec Husserl et Heidegger, 236).

As this makes clear, nearness and distance may be approached phenomenologically from different angles. Furthermore, it is possible to observe how the lifeworld constantly constitutes and plays out ever new types of nearness and distance. The recent increase in online interaction and the imposed (bodily) isolation during the pandemic are two examples of developments and events that invite us to reexamine these concepts. Generally speaking, we experience nearness and distance with respect to various matters: One is either close or distant to one’s family, to one’s friends, to one’s history and cultural background, to certain political visions and aspirations. Moreover, one experiences nearness and distance in relation to one’s own body, or even to one’s own sense of selfhood. When one experiences alienation, for example, one undergoes a distancing from others, or from one’s own self. And in turn, one can also experience an increasing closeness through familiarity and intimacy. Nearness and distance likewise play a role in the very practice of philosophy itself. Husserl’s famous maxim “To the things themselves” already assumes that we have drifted apart from the things, that we are not near them. Phenomenology, in this spirit, seems to seek an overcoming of distance. At the same time, however, there is a danger that close familiarity will make the phenomena fall into forgetfulness and neglect. Thus, it seems that distancing may as well possess a positive role in gaining essential insights about experience – and so, it is no coincidence that the compilation of papers and lectures by the prominent phenomenologist Eugen Fink from 1976 carries the title Nähe und Distanz.

Indeed, in most cases, the relations between nearness and distance are not as simple as they seem. For example, concerning the spatial and temporal sense of nearness and distance, ‘here’ necessarily assumes a relative ‘there’, and ‘now’ makes no sense without a distant past and future. In such a way, many experiences come forth out of a dialectic of nearness and distance. This is true even when we deal with our own sense of self. In the words of Bernhard Waldenfels: “When I hear my voice on a tape or see my face in a video I get into a situation where proximity and distance are entangled, and where all direct reflection is diverted by a peculiar form of deflection. Old photo albums in which I see myself as a child show who I was and who I could have been” (Phenomenology of the Alien, 49). 

The papers that will be presented at the conference will treat the topics indicated above in ways that connect with the various research-interests and ongoing research of the invited speakers.

If you wish to attend the conference, please register here:

https://rptu-anmeldungen.procampus.de/de/registrationa-phenomenology-of-nearness-and-distance/