Lifeworld and Contact: Thematization of Connective Experience in Phenomenology

Abstract

In a situation where the immediate human connection to the lifeworld is weakened, when reality is perceived as fragmented and alienated, the analysis of experiences in which primary contact with reality is preserved or re-stored becomes particularly relevant. This article examines the problem of thematizing connecting experience, which is significant for everyday life, within the framework of phenomenological philosophy. The study pro-ceeds from the premise that art and philosophy should be understood not as external means of representing the world, but as ways of establishing primary contact with reality. Using Quentin Tarantino’s movie “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” as a case study, the article analyzes the situation of the loss of such contact and identi-fies the potential of artistic experience as a form of restoring involvement with the lifeworld. The theoretical framework of the study is formed by appealing to E. Minkowski’s concept of vital contact with reality as a lived synchronicity; M. Henry’s phenomenology of life, which interprets life as self-affective immanence; and Heidegger’s early concept of formal indication, which allows for the description of connecting experience not as an object of theoretical knowledge, but as a direction for phenomenological understanding directed toward the reader’s own experience. The result consists in clarifying the phenomenological status of connecting expe-rience: it is shown that it defies objectifying conceptual-grasping comprehension and can be described only as a phenomenologically oriented indication of the experience of participation in the wholeness of life, preceding the subject-object distinction.