What remains beyond every act of classification?
This study develops the concept of the ontological remainder as a theoretical framework for examining the persistent excess of being over conceptual determination. Every act of classification, interpretation, or representation makes phenomena intelligible through reduction and stabilization. Yet no conceptual system fully coincides with the reality it seeks to describe. Something always remains beyond totalization.
Drawing on phenomenological insights from Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, the study argues that this remainder should not be understood as an unknown object hidden behind appearances. Rather, it designates the structural impossibility of exhausting being through conceptual forms. What escapes classification is not a failure of knowledge but a constitutive feature of appearance itself.
The theoretical model is explored through literary analyses of Rainer Maria Rilke's Archaïscher Torso Apollos, Mircea Eliade's La țigănci, and Jorge Luis Borges's The Aleph. Through these works, the study investigates residual presence, interpretative undecidability, and the limits of representation as different manifestations of the same ontological structure.
Situated at the intersection of ontology, phenomenology, and literary theory, this book offers a new approach to the relationship between being and classification, arguing that every conceptual order necessarily leaves behind an irreducible remainder.
Table of Contents
1. Methodological Note
2. The Ontological Remainder That Resists Classification
3. The Phenomenological Horizon of the Remainder
4. Literature as the Appearance of Excess
5. Excess and the Crisis of Representation
6. The Remainder as the Internal Limit of Classification
7. Conclusion
Research Objectives and Core Themes
This study aims to establish the concept of the ontological remainder as a robust theoretical framework for examining the persistent excess of being over every act of classification, representation, and interpretation, demonstrating that being cannot be fully exhausted by conceptual determination.
- The structural non-coincidence between being and finite conceptual forms
- The phenomenological dimensions of horizon, disclosure, and concealment based on Husserl and Heidegger
- Literary manifestations of ontological excess through works by Rilke, Eliade, and Borges
- The hermeneutic implications of ambiguity, fragmentation, and representational crisis
- The redefinition of ontology as the investigation of reality's continuous excess beyond classification
Excerpt from the Book
3. The Phenomenological Horizon of the Remainder
To understand the remainder exclusively as an effect of classification would leave the theory excessively dependent on the conceptual act. Such an account might suggest that being initially presents itself as a complete totality and that the remainder emerges only after classification intervenes, as a portion omitted or distorted in the process of representation.
Phenomenology requires a more radical shift: what exceeds the concept is not produced by the latter’s inability to reproduce in full an already constituted object. Rather, this excess is already implicit in the very mode through which the object gives itself to appearance.
Within phenomenological experience, no thing ever presents itself in the totality of its determinations. Every appearance is perspectival: it offers a particular profile while simultaneously withdrawing other possible modes of manifestation. What appears is neither an illusion nor a fragment detached from the object. It is a real presence accompanied by a horizon that can never be fully actualised.
The notion of the horizon occupies a central place in the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, where it is closely connected to intentionality, the constitution of meaning, and the consciousness of the world as the encompassing horizon of experience (Husserl 2011a; 2011b).
A perceived object is therefore present through what it offers and absent through what it retains in reserve. Absence does not stand outside presence as its simple opposite. It actively participates in the constitution of presence itself.
Summary of Chapters
1. Methodological Note: Outlines the textual background, translation details, and the foundational positioning of the ontological remainder as an independent theoretical instrument in dialogue with phenomenology.
2. The Ontological Remainder That Resists Classification: Examines how classification involves necessary reductions and boundaries, establishing that the resulting difference between existence and concept forms the basis of the ontological remainder.
3. The Phenomenological Horizon of the Remainder: Draws upon Husserl and Heidegger to show that excess is rooted in the perspectival nature of appearance and the structural horizon of objects rather than mere informational deficits.
4. Literature as the Appearance of Excess: Analyzes literary texts by Rainer Maria Rilke and Mircea Eliade to demonstrate how structural fragments and narrative ambiguity serve as concrete manifestations of ontological excess.
5. Excess and the Crisis of Representation: Explores Jorge Luis Borges’s "The Aleph" to illustrate how total simultaneity overwhelms sequential language, placing the limits of representation in direct crisis.
6. The Remainder as the Internal Limit of Classification: Argues that the remainder acts as an inherent boundary within the classificatory act itself, urging a lucid tension between conceptual determination and existential exhaustion.
7. Conclusion: Synthesizes the core findings, framing ontology not as an attempt to construct a closed system of reality, but as an inquiry into the fertile impossibility of closing meaning completely.
Keywords
ontological remainder, ontology, phenomenology, classification, horizon, literary theory, representation, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Rainer Maria Rilke, Mircea Eliade, Jorge Luis Borges, ambiguity, excess, totality
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary focus of this research paper?
The paper proposes the ontological remainder as a theoretical framework to examine the persistent excess of being over every act of classification, representation, and interpretation.
What are the central thematic fields explored in the text?
The study investigates ontology, phenomenology, the limits of conceptual systems, hermeneutic ambiguity, and the literary manifestations of excess.
What is the primary research question or objective?
The study seeks to determine whether reality can be fully exhausted by classification or if an irreducible reserve continuously exceeds conceptual determination.
Which philosophical traditions and thinkers are primarily engaged?
The argument develops in close dialogue with the phenomenological traditions of Edmund Husserl, focusing on horizons, and Martin Heidegger, focusing on disclosure and concealment.
What is analyzed in the main body of the work?
The main body examines the structural limits of classification and provides deep literary analyses of works by Rainer Maria Rilke, Mircea Eliade, and Jorge Luis Borges.
Which keywords best characterize the scope of the study?
Key terms include ontological remainder, phenomenology, classification, horizon, representation, and literary theory.
How does Rilke’s "Archaïscher Torso Apollos" contribute to the author's argument?
Rilke's poem serves as an image of a fragment that maintains the presence of an absent whole without requiring its physical restoration, exemplifying residual presence.
In what way does Mircea Eliade’s "La țigănci" demonstrate the concept of the remainder?
Eliade's narrative generates hermeneutic ambiguity through multiple coexisting explanatory frameworks, showing that interpretative plurality stems from the structural openness of the work rather than missing information.
How does Jorge Luis Borges’s "The Aleph" radicalize the crisis of representation?
The Aleph presents a simultaneous plenitude of all points in the universe, confronting sequential language with an impossible totality that surpasses descriptive capacity.
What is the ultimate conclusion regarding the task of ontology?
Ontology should not strive to create a definitive, closed classification of reality, but rather understand the conditions under which reality continuously exceeds every system designed to capture it.
- Quote paper
- Teofana Eremencu (Author), 2026, The Ontological Remainder, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1772531
