Steffen Herrmann

"Phenomenology has primarily been concerned with conceptual questions about knowledge and ontology. However, in recent years the rise of interest and research in applied phenomenology has seen the study of political phenomenology move to a central place in the study of phenomenology generally. The Routledge Handbook of Political Phenomenology is the first major collection on this important topic. Comprising 35 chapters by an international team of expert contributors, the Handbook is organised into six clear parts, each with its own Introduction by the editors: Founders of Phenomenology Existentialist Phenomenology Phenomenology of the Social and Political World Phenomenology of Alterity Phenomenology in Debate Contemporary Developments. Full attention is given to central figures in the phenomenological movement, including Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Levinas as well as those whose contribution to political phenomenology is more distinctive, such as Arendt, De Beauvoir and Fanon. Also included are chapters on gender, race and intersectionality, disability, and technology. Ideal for those studying phenomenology, continental philosophy and political theory, The Routledge Handbook of Political Phenomenology bridges an important gap between a major philosophical movement and contemporary political issues and concepts"--

Husserl endeavoured to establish phenomenology as a ‘rigorous science’ and therefore linked its development to methodological considerations from the very beginning. Such considerations are often lacking in current debates on political phenomenology. This article aims to remedy this deficit. It argues that political phenomenology reinterprets Husserl’s methodological principles of epoché and reduction and transforms them into what can be termed interrogation and exposition. In addition, a further, often overlooked, principle of Husserl’s method is uncovered, which is referred to here as demonstration. It is through this triad of interrogation, exposition and demonstration that contemporary political phenomenology adapts and transforms the method of classical phenomenology. The topics of whiteness and race are employed to show how these principles can facilitate the analysis of political struggles.

Our political present is characterized by the rise of right-wing populism. This trend has not only led to a repoliticization of society, but also of academic philosophy, including phenomenology. In the U.S., a strong movement has emerged under the label of critical phenomenology whereas in Europe the movement of political phenomenology has become prominent. Both projects have in common the aim of positioning phenomenology as a critical project, questioning social relations of domination and power. These projects relate to Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology in different ways. In the following, I want to uncover this relation by fleshing out the horizons of critique that come with transcendental, critical, and political phenomenology. In particular I will show how the phenomenological method of demonstration can become a means of critique in political confrontations.

In this paper, I discuss three objections against climate activism often voiced in the public, namely that their practices of civil disobedience are ultimately insincere, illegal, and ineffective. The main part of my paper focuses on this last point. This is because this objection points us to a deeper conceptual problem of political protest: if one of the conditions for the success of civil disobedience is that political demands must have been first voiced via democratic channels of opinion-formation, then why should we assume that a re-articulation of these demands in the course of civil disobedience leads to a different result? To answer this question, I propose a phenomenological approach to civil disobedience. Drawing on the protest practices of activist group Act Up, I argue that climate activism can escape the charge of ineffectiveness if it resorts to what I call the “aesthetic rationality of phenomenological demonstration.”

TABLE OF CONTENTS * Inhalt * Verletzende Worte. Eine Einleitung * Sprache als Gewalt oder: Warum verletzen Worte? * Bedingungen für den Erfolg von Degradierungszeremonien * Gesichtsbedrohende Akte * Die Dialektik von Herausforderung und Erwiderung der Herausforderung * Sprechakte und unsprechbare Akte * Diskriminierende Sprechakte. Ein funktionaler Ansatz * Symbolische Verletzbarkeit und sprachliche Gewalt * Über die Körperkraft von Sprache * Die geraubte Stimme * Nach dem angeblichen Ende der ›Sprachvergessenheit‹: Vorläufige Fragen zur Unvermeidlichkeit der * Verletzung Anderer in und mit Worten * Verletzende Anerkennung. Über das Verhältnis von Anerkennung, Subjektkonstitution und ›sozialer Gewalt‹ * Zur Praxis verbaler Gewalt unter Schülerinnen und Schülern * Sprachliche Strategien verbaler Ablehnung in öffentlichen Diskussionsforen im Internet * Zur Sprache der Sprachlosen. Ebenen der Gewalt in der diskursiven Produktion von Behinderung * Words like violence. Konstellationen des Unvernehmens * Die Autorinnen und Autoren * Nachweise

In recent years phenomenology has become a resource for reflecting on political questions. While much of this discussion has primarily focused on the ways in which phenomenology can help reformulate central concepts in political theory, the chapters in this volume ask in a methodological and systematic way how phenomenology can connect first-person experience with normative principles in political philosophy. The chapters are divided into three thematic sections. Part I covers the phenomenology of political experience. The chapters in this section focus on a variety of experiences that we come across in political practice. The chapters in Part II address the phenomenology of political ontology by examining the constitution of the realm of the political. Finally, Part III analyzes the phenomenology of political episteme in which our political world is grounded. Political Phenomenology will be of interest to researchers working on phenomenology, Continental philosophy, and political theory.

Sartre kann als einer der Stifter des negativen Anerkennungsparadigmas gelten. Im Gegensatz zum positiven Anerkennungsparadigma, welches den hervorbringenden und ermöglichenden Charakter intersubjektiver Wertschätzung betont, wird hier der formierende und subordinierende Charakter von Anerkennung hervorgehoben. Als Anerkennungsvollzüge gelten folglich nicht nur befürwortende Formen des Verhaltens, sondern auch Zuschreibungen, die ambivalenten, verkennenden oder entfremdenden Charakter besitzen. Im Folgenden wird ein Überblick über die Entwicklung, Anwendung und Rezeption von Sartres Anerkennungstheorie gegeben.

Populism and degradation are closely related. Not only is the insulting and slandering of political opponents part of the standard repertoire of populists, but the experience of degradation is also one of the most important sociopsychological conditions for the emergence of contemporary populism. Accordingly, the populist politics of degradation must be understood as a response to their own experiences of degradation. However, this strategy leads into an aporia because it systematically undermines the solidarity and recognition it seeks. I will therefore ask what a political solution to the challenge of populism might look like and argue that radical democratic republicanism is a remedy for populism because it allows the experience of degradation that underlies it to be both taken seriously and kept at a critical distance.

ABSTRACT According to Max Horkheimer, a critical theory of society has to fulfil two tasks: the elimination of social injustice and the critical reflection of its own conceptual means. Based on this definition, I argue that Axel Honneth’s critical theory of recognition is at risk of losing sight of the ambivalence of recognition which limits the scope of his analysis of social pathologies. By drawing on the concept of misrecognising recognition it can be shown that recognition itself is an ambivalent concept which can not only serve the purpose of self-realisation but also the purpose of self-subjection. Following the lead of Jean-Paul Sartre in this article I will unfold the concept of misrecognising recognition and put it at work to show how a variety of social pathologies of self-subjection can only be addressed if the ambivalence of recognition is taken into account.

In this article, I argue that Hegel’s concept of recognition and Levinas’ concept of responsibility complement each other and lead to the idea of an asymmetrical reciprocity in which the origin of our social relations is not mutual equality, but rather mutual inequality. I will unfold this argument in three steps. I will first work out a fundamental asymmetry of recognition in Hegel by means of the figure of the bondsman before elucidating in a second step the asymmetry of responsibility in Levinas by means of the figure of the hostage. In the last and third step, I will correlate both asymmetries and show how far the asymmetry of recognition and the asymmetry of responsibility constantly develop from and transition into one another in our social relationships.