What's Critical about Critical Phenomenology?
Journal of Critical Phenomenology June 30, 2018 DOI: 10.31608/pjcp.v1i1.2 (opens in new tab) via Semantic Scholar
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractCritique and phenomenology share three fundamental resonances: both attempt to move beyond a dualism of inside and outside, both insist that finding a limit is incomplete without further movement, and both reveal openness to the world's possibilities through description or making visible what is visible. Critical phenomenology emerges from these two forms of thinking, which have been dismissed as outmoded. New work in phenomenology emphasizes reflexive self-consideration and decolonization, offering hope that it might be capacious enough to encompass both the revelation of its limitations and the expansion of its reach.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Sociology Philosophy |
| Key finding | Argues that critical phenomenology shares three fundamental resonances with critique—moving beyond inside/outside dualism, treating critique as a condition for emergence rather than mere negation, and maintaining openness to possibility—and that new reflexive, decolonizing work may expand phenomenology's reach. |
Abstract
This essay considers what is critical in critical phenomenology, and asks what features critical and phenomenological methods share. I suggest three fundamentally significant resonances between the critical and phenomenological enterprises. First is the suggestion that critique, like phenomenology, is an attempt to move beyond a dualism of inside and outside in order to extend into outer regions of what is known. Second is the insistence that what at first appears to be a purely negative endeavor, a finding of limit, is incomplete if, upon finding that limit, it comes to a stop. Just as the reduction is not a means to banish or negate the world, but rather the condition through which it can more fully emerge, critique cannot be merely a cataloguing of the limitations of the present situation. Third is the openness to the possibilities of the world, a wonder or curiosity, that is revealed through the work of description in phenomenology, or Foucault’s characterization of philosophy not as an unmasking, but a making visible of what is visible. Finally I consider critical phenomenology’s futures: How is a newly enlivened kind of scholarship emerging from these two forms of thinking, both of which have been dismissed as outmoded or irrelevant? The new work currently emerging in phenomenology, with its emphasis on its own reflexive self-consideration and decolonization, offers hope that it might yet be capacious enough to simultaneously encompass the revelation of its limitations as well as the expansion of its reach.