Michael Staudigl

This article investigates phenomenology’s potential to deepen our understanding of violence. Its major aim consists in elaborating an integrative approach to the many faces of violence, i.e. to physical, psychic, social, and cultural violence. Approaching these various forms from the unifying viewpoint of the subject’s embodiment opens a renewed perspective on understanding violence. Displacing the very architectonics of Husserl’s “constitutive analysis,” this undertaking requires far reaching revisions of phenomenological method, which will be explicated respectively.

‚Phänomenologie des Politischen – was ist das?‘ Dies lässt sich in einer Neuauflage von Merleau-Pontys bekannter Frage nach dem Status der Phänomenologie, die er seiner Phänomenologie der Wahrnehmung voranstellte, zu Recht fragen. Besieht man die Vielfalt, in der seit den frühen Tagen der Phänomenologie einschlägige Themen aufgegriffen wurden, ist festzuhalten, dass es keinen Königsweg in eine Phänomenologie des Politischen gibt. Das „Politische“, angesiedelt zwischen alltäglichen Erfahrungen, der beweglichen Zwischenwelt des Symbolischen, den abgründigen Potenzialen des Imaginären und der Kontingenz kollektiver Schlüsselereignisse, die Lebensräume und auch -zeiten immer wieder neu gestalten und somit unumgängliche Bezugspunkte unserer Diskurse bilden, erfordert vielmehr eine methodisch flexible Herangehensweise.

Der vorliegende Band bietet einen Überblick über das gegenwärtig an Kontur gewinnende Forschungsfeld einer Phänomenologie des Politischen. Der Diskussion zentraler Methodenfragen wird dabei ebenso Raum gewidmet, wie der Präsentation aktueller Debatten und interdisziplinärer Themenstellungen, die sich im Zeichen einer v.a. gendertheoretisch und postkolonial motivierten Politisierung der Phänomenologie herauskristallisiert haben, in Kontexten globaler "Polykrise", "Rückkehr der Religion" und "Postfaktizität" aktuell noch an Relevanz gewinnen. Methodisch leitend ist angesichts solcher Grenzprobleme eine Annäherung an das Politische in Form eines Zwischenphänomens, das sich binären Deutungen radikal entzieht und so dazu anhält, die genannten Problemlagen konstruktiv ins Auge zu fassen. In Form von Schwerpunkten fokussiert der Band entsprechend Konstellationen des Politischen, wie sie sich exemplarisch zwischen Verfahrensordnungen und ereignishafter Performanz, affektivem Anstoß und emotiver Resonanz, Innen und Außen, Immanenz des Diskurses und transzendierender Sinngebung entfalten. Inhalt Der vorliegende Band bietet einen Überblick über das gegenwärtig sich zusehends ausdifferenzierende Forschungsfeld der Phänomenologie des Politischen. Der Diskussion ihrer zentralen Methoden ist dabei ebenso Raum gewidmet wie der Präsentation aktueller Debatten und interdisziplinärer Themenstellungen, die sich im Zeichen einer Politisierung der Phänomenologie herauskristallisiert haben. Zielgruppe Mit einer Mischung aus teils einleitend und überblickshaft angelegten, teils kritisch ins Detail gehenden Beiträgen bietet der vorliegende Band sowohl Lehrenden und Forschenden als auch fortgeschrittenen Studierenden der Phänomenologie und der politischen Philosophie ein reichhaltiges Arbeitsinstrument. Der Autor Michael Staudigl lehrt und forscht am Institut für Philosophie und am Forschungszentrum "Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society" an der Universität Wien. Seine Arbeits- und Forschungsschwerpunkte liegen im Bereich der Phänomenologie und ihrer kritischen Anwendung auf politische und sozialphilosophische Themen, insbesondere die Problematik vielgestaltiger Gewalt.

This introduction to James Richard Mensch’s thinking and writing starts with an overview of his thematic breadth, ranging from rethinking subjectivity to examining the complexities of embodiment and the temporality of experience. The authors argue that Mensch’s innovative approach merges classical phenomenology with contemporary issues and experiences. However, he does not attempt to radically transform the field, but rather to deepen its descriptive and analytical methods. Mensch emphasizes that philosophy thrives on the dynamic exchange of ideas, shaped by the interaction between self and Other. The introduction outlines Mensch’s engagement with three central phenomenological themes: Alterity, Intersubjectivity, and Embodiment. These concepts are framed as essential for any meaningful dialogue and understanding in phenomenology, challenging traditional notions of subjectivity and intentionality. Overall, this anthology aims to honor Mensch’s work by reflecting on his influence through various essays that critically engage with his work, demonstrating his impact on contemporary phenomenology and its future directions.

The discourse of violence is fraught with various aporias. Widely known is the truly vicious circle of violence and counter-violence. This correlation attests to a profound aporia since the parts of this circle are not simply tied to each other as opposites, incongruent counterparts, or exclusive determinations that we might clearly demarcate. Phenomenologically speaking, we rather need to understand them in terms of intertwining. Unfolding the implications of this concept, I hypothesize that the discourse of order (and the legitimate counter-violence that it entails) is not only interrelated to but rather parasitic upon (imaginations of) disorder. The unruly, disorderly, etc., thus viewed functions as the “originary supplement” of order, providing it with the “raw material” to keep the project of ordering alive. I argue that this parasitic relationship is exemplified most clearly in our practices of representing violence and the fascination that these frequently entail: violence thus viewed appears as the most ambiguous “tremendum fascinans,” embodying the kind of “negative transcendence” that our social orders cannot do without. This hypothesis is tested across a series of examples, bridging diverse historic cases. In light of this analysis, I argue that our tendency to symbolically appresent this “other of reason” testifies to the said intertwining that links our moral condemnations of violence to our existential incapacity to escape it. The question, in the last analysis, amounts to whether or not we may confront this invasive character of violence and imagine representations that may help us to escape our self-righteous posture toward this inherently social fact, which all too often eclipses our ways of affirming it.

This anthology offers a comprehensive introduction to the contemporary phenomenologist James R. Mensch, exploring his oeuvre and thought. Mensch's extensive body of work spans several decades, often concretely engaging with three intersecting conditions of dialogue: Alterity, Intersubjectivity, and Embodiment. By intertwining these concepts, Mensch exposes the ever-threatening soliloquy of modern reason, calling upon us to deconstruct the conflation of human freedom with sovereignty that figures at the core of Western political thought and practice. The contributors to this book pick up these themes and explore the fragility and potentiality of our conceptions of discourse, dialogue, and the political. Moreover, and in applying Mensch's idea of a post-foundational phenomenology, this anthology honors Mensch's expansive work, which spans key thinkers such as Husserl, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, and Patočka, and delves into subjects ranging from perception and time to ethics and ecology. The volume is meant for students and researchers and explores these three interwoven conditions in various ways.

It is common sense today that we need to relieve human living-together from claims that do not permit any compromise. Do such claims when taken as indispensable not really conjure up the worst forms of violence? In face of this danger the consequent renunciation of all allegedly incontestable truths that are taken to function as the foundations of the political is frequently stipulated and it is claimed that there is nothing as dangerous as the claim for some community founding truth. Viewed against this background, this anthology, which includes contributions from social philosophy, sociology, political theory, and religious studies, sets a threefold focus: in a first part, it deals with the phenomenology of unconditional ethical and political claims and their suspected potential of violence; in a second part, it focuses on the possible scope of action vis-a-vis such unconditional claims; in a final part, it concretely fathoms this scope with a view to the critique of religion.

This chapter sets out to demonstrate that phenomenology offers us a viable framework to productively think through the vexed relation between religion and violence. I hypothesize that this correlation needs to be reconsidered in a threefold perspective (religio triplex) in order to avoid reductionist conceptions of “religious violence” as merely atavistic, irrational, and merely destructive of meaning. I argue for distinguishing between (a) the originary violence implied in the experience of revelation, “absolute affection,” transcendence (mysterium tremendum et fascinans), and so on; (b) the violent implications of concrete socio-topologies of the sacred and the profane; and (c) the potentials for actual violence transmitted in the narrative semantics of religious traditions and the systems of knowledge they entail. In order to properly distinguish these three layers and to shed light on their complex interplay and possible dynamics in the context of the so-called “return of religion,” I propose an integrated phenomenological perspective. Concretely viewed, I will draw upon Schutz’s theory of “multiple realities,” Merleau-Ponty’s “phenomenology of embodiment,” and Ricoeur’s insight into the “poietic imperative” of human existence. In conclusion, this trajectory will lead me to conceptualize religion in terms of “making transcendence together”—a conceptualization that explicitly avows an intrinsic correlation of religion and violence but also stresses the perfect contingency of “religious violence.”

Das Werk des französischen Phänomenologen Jean-Luc Marion wird in diesem Buch in systematischer wie kritischer Hinsicht ausgeleuchtet. Schwerpunkte sind 1. eine historisch-kritische Verortung von Marions Denken im Kontext von Descartes, Kant und der Phänomenologie. 2. eine inhaltliche Entfaltung des Programms der „Phänomenologie der Gegebenheit“ und der daraus resultierenden Implikationen für die Grundbegriffe der Phänomenologie (Welt, Subjekt, Zeit, etc.). Der Band enthält zudem zwei Texte Marions in deutscher Erstveröffentlichung. Mit Beiträgen von Thomas Alferi, Jason W. Alvis, Lilian Alweiss, Katharina Bauer, Natalie Depraz, Peter Gaitsch, Branko Klun, Alwin Letzkus, Jean-Luc Marion, Karel Novotný, Marcus Schmücker, Claudia Serban, Emilie Tardivel und László Tengelyi.

Schutzian Phenomenology and Hermeneutic Traditions links Alfred Schutz to the larger hermeneutic tradition in Continental thought, illuminating the deep affinity between Schutzian phenomenology and hermeneutics. The essays collected here explore a broad spectrum of Schutzian themes and concerns, from Schutz’s concrete affinities to hermeneutic traditions, his interpretationism and the pragmatist nature of Schutz’s thought, to questions concerning the role of the media and music in our understanding of the life-world and intersubjectivity. The essays go on to explore the practical applicability of Schutz’s thoughts on questions regarding economics, literature, ethics and the limits of human understanding. Given its emphasis on the application of Schutzian ideas and concepts, this book willbe of special interest to a wide range of readers in the social sciences and humanities, who are interested in the application of phenomenology to social, political, and cultural phenomena.

This introductory essay discusses how the trope of “religious violence” is operative in contemporary discussions concerning the so-called “return of religion” and the “post-secular constellation.” The author argues that the development of a genuine phenomenology of “religious violence” calls on us to critically reconsider the modern discourses that all too unambiguously tie religion and violence together. In a first part, the paper fleshes out the fault lines of a secularist modernity spinning out of control. In a second part, it demonstrates how the “liberal imaginary” revolves around individualist conceptions of freedom and sovereignty that, on their part, become parasitic upon imaginations of disorder, otherness and violence. In a third part, the author demonstrates how these insights call for developing a transformed phenomenological framework in order to give a more sensible account of “religious violence.” Finally, in presenting the articles gathered in this “special issue” of Continental Philosophy Review, some pathways into such a sensibilized phenomenology of “religious violence” are outlined.

This paper examines the relationship between religion and violence from a phenomenological point of view. In the context of the so-called "return of the religious" and the crisis of contemporary social imaginaries, it deals with the supposedly disruptive and liberating potentials of religion in general, and religious violence in particular. The discussion revolves around the concept of "verticality" as developed by A. Steinbock and offers a generative interpretation of verticality's liberating and transformative potentials. The paper proceeds to demonstrate how religion and violence are interrelated on a variety of levels. In conclusion the author argues that we need to understand the relationship between religion and violence in terms of its contingent actualization and display but must avoid pitting it down as an essential feqture of religious systems of knowledge and practice.

This paper provides a phenomenological exploration of the phenomenon of collective violence, specifically by following the leading clue of war from Plato to the “new wars” of late globalization. It first focuses on the genealogy of the legitimization of collective violence in terms of “counter-violence” and then demonstrates how it is mediated by constructions of “the other” in terms of “violence incarnate.” Finally, it proposes to explore such constructions—including the “barbarian” in Greek antiquity, “the cannibal” in the context of Colonialism, or the contemporary cipher of religious irrationality—as mirror effects of one’s own disavowed forms of violence.

The basic intention of this paper is to approach the phenomenon of violence from the perspective of Jan Patočka’s “a-subjective phenomenology.” As I argue, violence is a “boundary phenomenon” that has not yet been analyzed adequately in the phenomenological tradition. Its analysis requires a revision of phenomenology. However, such a revision can not only be found in recent positions, but already in Patočka’s conception. Thus, I propose to reassess his basic ideas that are derived from both a strong criticism of Husserl’s subjectivism and Heidegger’s anti-intellectualism. In this context, I use Patočka’s respective insights concerning the “phenomenal field” and the “movement of human existence,” to develop a phenomenological analysis of the various ways violence affects our selves: As I argue, it does so by destroying incorporated patterns of understanding, by oppressing the meaningful frameworks of our pregiven life-world, and, finally, by undermining our primordial trust in the other.

Das vorliegende Buch präsentiert eine phänomenologische Analyse der verschiedenen Formen zwischenmenschlicher Gewalt und ihrer oft unterbelichteten Beziehungen. Auf der Grundlage einer Transformation der Phänomenologie und im Rekurs auf den aktuellen Diskurs der Gewaltforschung entwickelt es einen methodologischen Rahmen für eine nicht-reduktive Analyse von Gewalt, der in angewandten phänomenologischen Fallstudien erprobt wird. Gewalt war bislang vorwiegend in den Human und den Sozialwissenschaften ein zentrales Thema, wurde aber nur allzu selten zum Gegenstand genuin philosophischer Reflexion. Um dieses Desiderat aufzugreifen und die Bedeutung philosophischer Reflexion für den Diskurs über Gewalt zu demonstrieren, entwickelt das vorliegende Buch einen phänomenologischen Ansatz zur Analyse zwischenmenschlicher Gewalt. Seine Intention besteht darin, ein Korrektiv zu den konventionellen, allzu einseitig verfahrenden instrumentalistischen, essentialistischen oder funktionalistischen Erklärungen von Gewalt vorzulegen. Im Anschluss an eine kritische Reflexion auf zentrale Aporien des Gewaltdiskurses, denen es sich zu stellen gilt, integriert der Autor relevante Theoreme klassischer Phänomenologie mit neueren Ansätzen in einen umfassenden Analyserahmen. In drei „Fallstudien“ wird dieser Rahmen in konkreten Phänomenanalysen angewandt und der ihm zugrunde liegende weite Gewaltbegriff auf die Probe gestellt. Das Buch schließt mit einem Entwurf einer „relationalen Phänomenologie“, die es erlaubt, die vielfach unterbelichteten bzw. ausgeblendeten Beziehungen zwischen den verschiedenen Formen von Gewalt ins Auge zu fassen.

Die Beiträge des Bands analysieren die vielen Gesichter der Gewalt und fragen nach übergreifenden Wesenszügen des Phänomens Gewalt. In phänomenologischer Perspektive rücken sie das erfahrende Subjekt ins Zentrum der Analyse. Der Band fokussiert Gewalt als ein perspektivisches Phänomen, als erlittene, verübte oder aus der Perspektive Dritter erfahrene, etwa bezeugte Gewalt, ohne zu unterstellen, dass sich schlicht von der Gewalt reden ließe. Dass der Sinn der Gewalt immer perspektivisch erfahren wird, besagt nicht, dass zwischen Gewalt als Widerfahrnis, als Intention und als sozialem Ereignis ein unüberbrückbarer analytischer Abgrund bestünde, wie er handlungs- und diskurstheoretische Ansätze traditionell trennt. Vielmehr ist dem Sinn der Gewalt nur im Rückgang auf jenes Zwischenreich von subjektivem Sinn und objektiven Ordnungen auf die Spur zu kommen, in dem wir als leibliche Wesen der Welt Sinn abgewinnen, in dem aber auch unsere vielfältige Verletzlichkeit gründet.

This paper lays the groundwork for developing a thorough-going phenomenological description of different phenomena of violence such as physical, psychic and structural violence. The overall aim is to provide subject-centered approaches to violence within the social sciences and the humanities with an integrative theoretical framework. To do so, I will draw primarily on the phenomenological accounts of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Alfred Schutz, and thereby present guiding clues for a phenomenologically grounded theory of violence.