Eugen Fink. De la surprise de l’apparaître : quand la surprise se perd dans la spéculation

I have long been interested in Eugen Fink’s phenomenology and, more broadly, in his thought. This presentation gives me the opportunity to revisit his thinking in the light of an experience and a notion that the author has given very little attention to, but which to my mind fully characterises his mode of philosophising. The notion of “surprise” is such a projector for rereading. Since it is not used topically by Fink, we are entitled from the outset to ask whether it is, by virtue of the known distinction he himself proposes, an “operative concept”. Why surprise? There are two reasons: 1) A reason de facto: this concept has fuelled my thinking for more than a decade, and it has gradually emerged as a major starting point into the question of experience itself. I have even come to see it as a possible key to the renewal of phenomenology and even philosophy. 2) A reason de jure: Eugen Fink’s thought is not external to surprise, far from it. In my opinion, it turns out to be the native place of openness that is characteristic of his philosophy. For these two reasons, the aim of the following investigation is to explore how surprise is a fundamental vector of meaning for appearing as such, and how the appearing, despite its frequent and uninterrogated overlap with the event, gives itself in its phenomenal purity and freshness as surprise.