Phenomenology and Practical Life

From the outset, the founder of the phenomenological movement, Edmund Husserl, stressed the practical import of phenomenology as a method and as a philosophical approach. In fact, by the time of the Kaizo articles from the early 20's, Husserl had come to see the phenomenological method as a unique opportunity for ethical renewal in Europe and around the globe. However, the major works published during his own life-time gave rise to the impression that Husserl himself remained too caught up in the models of the natural and formal theoretical sciences to be able to address practical life adequately. Subsequent figures who counted themselves as phenomenologists and other figures influenced by phenomenology each proposed to correct this deficit in his or her own way: Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, de Beauvoir, or Sarte, to name just a few. In the meantime, we now know that this impression of Husserl himself was incomplete, as the publication of his Ideas II, the Fichte lectures, the full versions of the Kaizo lectures, two volumes of his lectures on ethics, and the research manuscripts on the life-world have amply shown.

This global conference will especially welcome papers on practical life, its evaluative, social, historical and ethical dimensions both in light of the various approaches and manuscripts from what is now the history of phenomenology as one of the leading philosophical movements of 20th and 21st century philosophy, and on systematic issues related to those topics from a systematic perspective informed by phenomenological methods and insights as well.

Photo: Edmund Husserl 1910s (By Unknown Public Domain)