Mit Fink am Tisch. Zu Eugen Finks Philosophie der Sozialität

Abstract

With Fink at Table. On Eugen Fink’s Philosophy of Sociality Fink’s philosophy of sociality does not start from the experience of the individual other, but from the primacy of participation in the same world. Fink unfolds this idea in the context of material culture, that is, in his analysis of how we interact with everyday things, such as tables. Such things are not merely objects of use, but can become “meaningful things” that symbolically represent our existence, and they represent it as a fundamentally shared existence. The essay draws attention to the fact that not all sharing, as Fink claims, provides unity. Reference is made to Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the table and the world, which, like Fink, holds that human dependence on objects is essential, with the difference that she ascribes both unifying and separating significance to objects and the world. In the conclusion, some critical observations on Fink are made. Fink did not reflect on the ambiguity in the concept of sharing, and his claim that sharing establishes communal unity is thus rather unfounded. Further, his conviction that philosophy of sociality is based on the cosmological concept of the world is viewed in a critical light, since it tempts one to assume a unity of the world, which, however, is never guaranteed in advance.

Keywords

• eugen fink
• sociality
• table
• world
• hannah arendt