(Chair: Prof. Dr. Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl)

Phenomenological diagnoses of crisis are made across the entire spectrum of individual and collective thought and action. On the one hand, they relate to core theoretical questions, such as the demarcation of philosophy, science and worldview and related forms of dealing with concepts of rationality and reason, as discussed in Husserl's Krisis-Schrift. On the other hand, they deal with ethical or political-practical questions, such as in Scheler’s investigation of value reversal as a component of ressentiment formation or in Arendt’s analysis of the question of genocide guilt in the context of political action. What unites the wide-ranging phenomenological diagnoses of crisis is the interweaving of critical findings and self-positioning: world-oriented diagnoses of crisis and crises of phenomenology are genuinely interrelated processes. The self-understanding and identity of phenomenology and its potential for methodological self-reflection are sharpened and differentiated in the mirror of its diagnoses of crisis. This will be explored in this section in the light of current problems. The aim is to reposition phenomenology in theoretical and practical contexts and, in the course of this, to take a (self-)critical look at the concept and rhetoric of crisis.

Invited section talk:
Inga Römer (Universität Freiburg): Phänomenologie der Krise, Krise der Phänomenologie
Der Beginn der phänomenologischen Bewegung lag in einer Krisendiagnose: „die Sachen selbst“ seien verloren gegangen. Husserl verstand seinen neuartigen philosophischen Ansatz als ein Heilmittel gegen diese Krise. Seitdem ist eine Vielzahl von Varianten dieser Krisendiagnose, ihrer jeweiligen Gründe und ihrer phänomenologischen Gegenmittel formuliert worden. Diese Entwicklung verschränkt sich jedoch mit einer zweiten, in der immer wieder eine Krise der Phänomenologie selbst behauptet wurde. Diese Krisen der Phänomenologie selbst haben sie wiederholt zu ihrer eigenen Erneuerung herausgefordert und sie zum Teil an die Grenzen der Selbstauflösung gebracht. Dieser doppelten Krisenbewegung wird im Vortrag nachgefragt: Wie verhält sich die Geschichte der durch die Phänomenologie konstatierten Krisen zu ihrer eigenen Krisengeschichte?

(Chair: Prof. Dr. Sebastian Luft)

Section II is dedicated to the lifeworld, its mathematisation and technisation, as addressed in Husserl's ‘Krisisschrift’. In addition, it will address the question of the crisis of the sciences: what claim does phenome-nology have in a differentiated world of science that seems to have left its fundamental crises behind? We invite you to present new research on the Krisisschrift as well as to extrapolate the question of how technol-ogy and the lifeworld relate to each other. This can be played out using the example of digital technologies as well as scientistic measurements of the world and the self: What role does the lifeworld play in the age of digital technologies? To what extent is it a hybrid world that is permeated by technology?

Invited section talk:
Emiliano Trizio (Universität Venedig)): The hidden struggle of our age: objectivism vs. scientific philosophy
According to Husserl's diagnosis, if humanity is incapable of rising to the challenges posed by contemporary science and technology, this is due to the state of crisis of our culture. For this reason, the ubiquitous diffusion of modern technology is accompanied by the spread of the form of objectivism that has characterized European humanity since early modernity, that is the psycho-physical worldview or “the modern sense of ‘word’ a nature” (Husserl Hua XLII, 231-233). Arguably, the level of the deviation of our culture from its ideal form reaches its apex precisely in the disciplines that, according to Husserl, should guide humanity, namely the normative sciences of spirit, which have never seen the light of the day. In this presentation, I will argue that the thrust of Husserl’s critical analysis of Western culture consists in the claim that that the crisis of all our sciences is rooted in the crisis of philosophy itself, which, in turn, is due to the specific form of objectivism that undermined the modern ideal of a philosophical science based on absolute foundations.

(Chair: Prof. Dr. Michela Summa)

Section III takes as its starting point the ethical and existential themes in Husserl's Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology and develops them further. What is the relationship between the philo-sophical diagnosis of crisis and the ethical and political imperative? Husserl combined his analyses with exis-tential themes as well as with a return to transcendental phenomenology, which at the same time marked its development into a philosophy of responsibility. Arendt, Levinas, Derrida and Waldenfels also plead for responsibility from different perspectives, while French existentialists such as Beauvoir and Sartre were polit-ically active as intellectuals. How is such responsibility to be conceived in the face of current crises?

Invited section talk:
George Heffernan (Merrimack College): The Crisis of Human Existence and Transcendental Phenomenology: The Perennial Relevance of Husserl’s Sense-Reflections on the Infinite Task of Living a Meaningful Life
This paper examines, in five parts, the existential dimension of Husserl's concept of crisis in The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Part One shows that it is misguided to posit a disjunction between transcendental phenomenology and existential phenomenology. Part Two provides a succinct survey of the several senses of crisis in Husserl's The Crisis and identifies two of the leading ones, namely, crisisunderstood as the questionability of the scientificity of the sciences and crisis understood as the loss of their meaningfulness for life. Part Three addresses the current controversies concerning the relationship between these two leading senses of the word crisis. Part Four enhances the horizon of the inquiry by drawing on statements from Husserl's Vienna Lecture and Prague Lectures. Part Five concludes with observations on what contemporary human beings can learn from Husserl's perennially valid “sense-reflections” (“Besinnungen”) on the infinite task of living a meaningful life.

(Chair: Prof. Dr. Thiemo Breyer, Prof. Dr. Thomas Szanto)

Section IV deals with the Eurocentric legacy of the Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenome-nology and above all with that of the “Vienna Lectures”. What is currently required for phenomenological thinking about Europe? How could phenomenology contribute to a new understanding of transnational soli-darity in the face of migration? And how could social cohesion and trans-European identification be con-ceived beyond nation-state borders or established group affiliations? How should we deal with the colonial and Eurocentric legacy? In recent years, the concern to “decolonize” phenomenology has been pushed for-ward more strongly, which also makes it necessary to (repeatedly) rethink Europe. At the same time, intercul-tural dialog and polylogue are becoming more differentiated. What can classical phenomenology learn from non-European approaches and which new forms of phenomenologising emerge as a result (e.g. Africa-na phenomenology)?

Invited section talk:
Martina Ferrari (Villanova University): Between transcendental and historical critique: Grappling with phenomenology's colonial and Eurocentric legacy

TBA

(Chair: Prof. Dr. Emmanuel Alloa, Prof. Dr. Lambert Wiesing)

Section V is dedicated to the crises of the present and the question of which contribution phenomenological approaches can make to their analysis. Climate crisis and ecology, war and refuge, migration and the politi-cal and/or populist approach to it, digitalization and the crisis of sociality and the public sphere—these are all topics in which classical phenomenological approaches and analytical tools must be tested anew. Can phenomenology, with its general approach of focusing on phenomena and their structures, make a contribu-tion here? What are the methods and limits in this regard? Which focal themes such as corporeality, the con-stitution of sense, the character of experience, empathy, etc. play a special role for current crisis analyses and why?

Invited section talk:
Federica Boungiorno (Universität Firenze): Technisierung als Digitalisierung? Die algorithmische Kolonisierung der Rationalität aus phänomenologischer Perspektive
Im bekannten Paragraph 9 der Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften, in dem die galileische Mathematisierung der Natur behandelt wird, führt Edmund Husserl den Begriff der Technisierung (Par. 9/g) ein, um eine Transformation der arithmetischen Methodik in eine „bloße Kunst, durch eine rechnerische Technik nach technischen Regeln Ergebnisse zu gewinnen“, zu bezeichnen. Dieser Prozess führt zu einer Mechanisierung des formal-mathematischen Denkens, das sich in ein „Denken mit verwandelten Begriffen, mit ‚symbolischen‘ Begriffen“ zu verwandeln tendiert. In dieser Tendenz liegt die Voraussetzung für die fortschreitende Verdeckung der Lebenswelt als „Sinnesfundament der Naturwissenschaften“ (Par. 9/h). In meinem Vortrag werde ich versuchen zu argumentieren, dass der von Husserl Ende der dreißiger Jahre des letzten Jahrhunderts beschriebene Technisierungsprozess, heute in der Tendenz zur algorithmischen und dataistischen Kolonisierung fortbesteht, die die Methoden der Wissensproduktion und -nutzung in digitalen Kontexten durchdringt. Ich werde aufzuzeigen versuchen, wie das rechnerische Paradigma, das sowohl die Programme der GOFAI (Good Old-Fashioned Artificial Intelligence) als auch die neuronalen Netzwerke des Deep Learning antreibt, eine immer komplexere Herausforderung für unsere Fähigkeit darstellt, über diese Programme nach Kriterien der (a) Erklärbarkeit; (b) Rechtfertigung; (c) Vertrauen Rechenschaft abzulegen. Laut dem französischen Technikphilosophen Bernard Stiegler, bedeutet dies einen entscheidenden Verlust an symbolischer Fähigkeit im phänomenologischen Sinne, also der Fähigkeit, algorithmische Verfahren auf die Vorgegebenheiten der Lebenswelt zurückzubeziehen.

Zum Abschluss meines Beitrags werde ich versuchen, Stieglers Urteil zu relativieren, indem ich einige vielversprechende Ansätze innerhalb der zeitgenössischen KI-Forschung aufzeige, die Entwicklungen in Richtung größerer Kontrollierbarkeit und intuitiver Verankerung eröffnen.

(Chair: Prof. Dr. Thomas Bedorf, Prof. Dr. Matthias Flatscher)

Critical theory and phenomenology do not have a directly shared agenda, at least according to their histori-cal self-understanding—the relationship is rather characterized by difficult disputes to the point of rejection. Nevertheless, in recent years a current called “critical phenomenology” has developed, particularly in the Anglo-American debate, which aims to combine critical-activist moments with phenomenological theory for-mation. Is this type of “political phenomenology” really a new approach compared to the known phenome-nologies? How “critical” is its relationship to so-called classical phenomenology? Moreover, is there any clari-fication of the terms “phenomenology” and “critique”?

Invited section talk:
Mickaëlle Provost (Universität Brüssel): A Phenomenology of Political Resistance

The aim of this presentation is to explore the possibility of a phenomenological elucidation of collective experience, in particular that of political emancipation. How can we describe from a phenomenological perspective the phenomenon of conscientization of power relations or collective subjectivity? If the collective experience of assembly, revolt or even insurrection is not simply the aggregation of individual experiences, but includes its own mode of appearance, is phenomenology capable of dealing with the social reality of the collective insofar as it is not confused with intersubjectivity? What can a critical phenomenological approach specifically contribute to emancipation thinking, in a close and sometimes tense dialogue with Marxist theorisations of the social world? In order to explore these points of tension between the social, intersubjectivity, the collective and political emancipation, I would like to propose a cross-reading of the thoughts of Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Fanon with a view to clarifying the project of a phenomenology of resistance.

Focusing on Husserl’s method of historical reflection (Besinnung), the paper opens with a careful explication of one of these method’s core facets, namely its capacity to perform a qualitatively distinctive kind of reorientation (Umwendung) toward the sedimented sense institutions (Sinnstiftungen) conditioning sense-making (Sinnbildung). This re-orientational work, which makes the method of Besinnung as transcendental sense clarification (Sinnesklärung) possible, involves a reflective distancing from the sedimented thickness of our present – a distancing that loosens the hold of this pre-givenness while remaining anchored in it. It is precisely this ‘anchored yet not moored’ re-orientational distancing that motivates and guides the eidetic analysis in its focus on the a priori of correlation under investigation. What emerges is a manifold affair: 1) a horizonal overview of modal articulations (systems of lived possibilities and impossibilities pertaining to the respective attitude or register); 2) the norms, goals, and values undergirding these articulations as their principles of de-limitation; and 3) the fissures where other kinds of possibilities of being, doing, and knowing may emerge as possibilities for us. However, more transpires here, namely, a reframed explication of transcendental necessity in its relation to normalized contingency. This, in turn, brings into relief both the provisionality and critical self-referentiality of phenomenological work as infinite task and its relevance for our personal and communal lives. Doing phenomenology leaves traces in the concrete. This becomes especially telling in times of crisis – times in which our everyday experience of possibilities and impossibilities ossifies, becomes absorbed in and numbed by the given. If, following Husserl, we conceive of critique as radical reflection on our present situation with an eye for generating realizable possibilities of renewal, then critique is never timelier than in times of crisis.

Phenomenology and Marxism are linked as intellectual-spiritual (geistige) and socio-economic crisis. The reason for Husserl’s suggestion that the life sciences may point beyond the crisis of the sciences is that all humans have the experience of life through themselves as embodied kinaesthetic unities. From Marx, kinaesthetic unity may be extended to include the manipulation of tools. The ontology of the lifeworld thus derived will be expanded by comparison to Lukács late ontology of labour. The earth stands as a deep grounding concept of the lifeworld that allows for the constitution of the plurality of cultural-civilizational worlds which give different meanings to things, have different customs and pasts, on this ground. On this basis, we suggest that phenomenology must address a fourth stage of crisis and critique beyond that of Husserl’s work and also supplement the concept of institution with destitution.

The Covid-19 pandemic had given hope for a new era based on solidarity, interdependence, respect for nature and a pluralistic and inclusive conception of democracy that would take care of the most vulnerable among us. However, the current rise of nationalism and (commercial, ideological or military) wars reflects a crisis of humanity's spiritual sense and vocation, while the resurgence of identity issues and the immune paradigm (Esposito) testify to an inability to foster solidarity and welcome the vulnerable other. The question of spiritual individuation and that of health have therefore been reinvested in the context of a paradoxical social and political mobilization that this presentation will seek to analyze from a phenomenological point of view, by questioning, in particular, the relations between vulnerability and solidarity.

Husserl’s later works are widely recognized as shaped by a growing awareness of a scientific and cultural crisis—one deeply rooted in the aftermath of the First World War and the perceived collapse of European values. Yet, Husserl understood this crisis in broader terms, as symptomatic of the entire trajectory of modernity. Science, in his view, had not only fragmented but had also become incapable of addressing fundamental normative questions about human existence. This presentation explores the emergence of historical critique in Husserl’s late philosophy as a response to this crisis. It examines how his post-WWI conception of philosophy as a generative idea—developing within the historical lifeworld across generations—necessitated a shift in the foundations of phenomenology. Departing from his earlier emphasis on the “presuppositionlessness” of phenomenology, Husserl came to see the critique of historical presuppositions as essential to a responsible philosophical stance. Only through such critique, he argued, could philosophy be conceived as a shared and infinite task. This shift, however, required a rethinking of both the concept of teleology and the narrative of modernity itself.

Die menschliche Körperlichkeit bezieht sich nicht nur auf die Tatsache, dass wir einen Körper haben und sterblich sind. Sie ist « der ständige Zweifel an dem Privileg, das man dem Bewusstsein zuschreibt, allem einen Sinn zu verleihen», wie Levinas in Totalität und Unendlichkeit schrieb. Mit anderen Worten: Die Körperlichkeit des Subjekts ernst zu nehmen bedeutet, Phänomene zu beschreiben, die sich unserer Kontrolle und unserem Willen entziehen oder die unsere Unabhängigkeit gegenüber Natur und anderen Lebewesen unterstreichen. Statt als Ausgangspunkt unserer Beziehung zu uns selbst, zu den Anderen und zur Welt zu gelten, wird unser Bewusstsein überwältigt oder als nicht allein grundlegend für den Menschen erlebt. Dazu kommt, dass die Existenz nicht nur als Selbstentäußerung gedacht wird, sondern als Empfänglichkeit. Ihre Materialität wird auch betont. So erneuert die Philosophie der Körperlichkeit die Anthropologie, indem sie auf der Verletzlichkeit des Subjekts, auf unserem Bedürfnis nach Nahrung und Wasser und auf unsere irdische Beschaffenheit beruht. Diese Philosophie der Körperlichkeit hat also zwei Komponente: Die Verletzlichkeit, die von unserer Passivität zeight, und die Philosophie des “leben von”. Ich werde die ethischen und politischen Implikationen dieser Philosophie der Körperlichleit und des “leben von” aufzeigen, die einem neuen Phänomenologie des Bewohnens der Erde und einer Ökophenomenologie entspricht. Sobald man die Materialität unserer Existenz und unsere Abhängigkeit gegenüber Natur und anderen Lebewesen ernst nimmt, dann versteht man, dass der Schutz der Biosphäre und die Gerechtigkeit gegenüber der Tieren zur wesentlichen Pflichten des Staates werden. Diese Art, Ökologie im Mittelpunkt eines politischen Projekts zu stellen, spiegelt einen tiefgreifenden Wandel wider.

Der Vortrag identifiziert zunächst vier fundamentale Krisentendenzen der spätmodernen Gesellschaft: Eine ökonomische Krise, die darin besteht, dass Wachstum und Beschleunigung für die Aufrechterhaltung der sozioökonomischen Strukturen unverzichtbar sind, aber immer mehr Energie erfordern und sich immer schwieriger realisieren lassen; eine daraus resultierende ökologische Krise; eine politische Krise, die sich im Niedergang westlicher Demokratien und in der Rückkehr des Krieges zeigt; und schließlich eine psychologische Krise, die in wachsenden Burnoutraten zum Ausdruck kommt. Alle diese Krisen lassen sich in einer objektivistisch-strukturellen Perspektive als Konsequenzen daraus erklären, dass die Sozialformation der Moderne auf den Modus dynamischer Stabilisierung gegründet ist, sich also nur durch stetige Steigerung institutionell zu erhalten vermag. Diese Erklärung beschreibt jedoch nur die eine, die strukturelle Seite der gegenwärtigen Krisenlage. Erst aus der Perspektive der ersten Person, mithin aus phänomenologischer Sicht, zeigt sich, dass alle vier Krisentypen zugleich eine fundamentale Störung in den spätmodernen Mustern der Weltbeziehung anzeigen: Sie sind (auch) das Resultat eines kulturell verankerten und subjektiv habitualisierten Grundverhältnisses zur Welt, das auf Verfügbarmachung zielt und als existentiellen Grundmodus eine Aggressionsbeziehung zur Natur (Ökokrise), zu anderen Menschen (Politische Krise) und zu uns selbst (Psychokrise) erzeugt. Der Vortrag plädiert daher für einen ‚perspektivischen Dualismus‘ in der Gesellschaftsanalyse, der die Perspektiven der ersten und dritten Person zusammenführt, und endet mit einem Vorschlag dafür, wie ein alternatives Weltverhältnis (und damit eine andere Sozialformation) zu denken wäre.

Seit Habermas im Jahr 2001 von einer „postsäkularen Gesellschaft“ — und damit die westeuropäische gemeint hat — sprach, ist es möglich, eine von der Religion losgelöste Welt zu denken. Alle Systeme der westlichen Gesellschaft basieren auf Grundlagen, die keine Spur der Religion mehr enthalten (höchstens historische Information, die nichts mit gelebter Religion zu tun hat) und daher als „banal“ bezeichnet werden können. Die Frage ist, ob bestimmte Systeme dieser Gesellschaft nicht — mit oder ohne Wissen — von der Religion abhängig sind. Das gilt nach Hegel für den „absoluten Geist“, d.h. für die Dreiheit von Religion, Kunst und Philosophie. Denn nach der „Enzyklopädie“ (1830) sei es die „Religion“, „wie diese höchste Sphäre [der absolute Geist] im allgemeinen bezeichnet werden“ (§ 554) solle. Mein Vortrag wird versuchen, zu zeigen, inwiefern die Ablösung des gesamten Bereichs von Wissenschaft und Bildung von der Religion nicht nur diesen Bereich selbst, sondern in letzter Konsequenz das Verständnis der „Krise“ selbst zerstört. Das Erste, was sich daher in einer „Krise“ befindet, ist die Erfahrung, dass das Leben selbst — als ein vom Ernst der Religion betroffenes — eine Krise ist. Dadurch entleert sich der Begriff der „Krise“ zu einer bloßen Redensart.

Abstract: Every day, each of us, all of us, conspire in the shameful secret of our contemporary lifeworld and fomenting of slow disasters, the sense and significance of which will far exceed and outstrip our own existence. The numbers are seldom cited, even more rarely reflected upon: around 400 million tonnes of plastic waste produced globally each year, 5,000 kinds of so-called “forever chemicals,” and, most exceptionally, high level nuclear waste — the most lethal of which would need to be securely stored for upwards of one-million years, or 30,000 human generations, longer, in other words, than the probable existence of our species. No human activity today remains unsullied by the prodigious and profligate production waste, trash, and pollution — the unthought of our contemporary life-worlds. What characterizes this planetary disaster is the future worlds and those yet unborn, which we have already colonized with the relics and remains of our own consumptive existence. If the crisis is thus, in a salient sense, elsewhere, not yet (fully) now — in and of the future — is a critique of the present possible, indeed, feasible, even as it would seem to be more urgent and necessary than ever? Will any critique invariably miss the mark — either too late or too early — for a slow disaster that cannot yet be fully grasped, and hence, written, let alone altered, given our implacable consumption of the world, indeed, of the future of futures? Is our misery that we are faced by burning ecological disasters in the making in a time when it has become materially impossible to make even heard a questioning of our wasteful and wanton dogmatism? These are the questions I seek to address under the heading of an ethics for endangered futures in the age of homo detritus.

Husserl in his late thinking believes strongly that the model of rational culture developed in Europe deserves being recommended to the whole world. How the non-European should evaluate such an appeal? Some questions have to be analyzed before giving answers. 1. What is the substantial content of rational culture? 2. Does Husserl’s position have the implication of Eurocentrism? 3. In case the Eurocentrism is obvious, how can it be undermined? Is there alternative position in Husserl’s phenomenology? Before dealing with these questions an analysis of Husserl’s conception of culture will be done starting with the clarification of “cultural object.”