Crisis and Critique
We are experiencing a present of multiple crises: Climate change, political radicalization, pandemic outbreaks, growing economic inequality, migration, digital change, and wars, again in Europe and the Middle East. Analyzing these events and developments, understanding their causes and pointing out possible courses of action without falling into empty or even overheated crisis rhetorics is one of the social and intellectual challenges of our time. Philosophy as reflection and criticism is demanded here—but is simultaneously called into question with regard to its opinion-forming and action-guiding relevance, as well as with regard to its own categories, which are possibly not (or not any longer) suitable for grasping the current crises.
Crises and crisis diagnoses are, of course, nothing new. 2025 marks the ninetieth anniversary of Husserl’s Vienna and Prague lectures “Philosophy in the Crisis of European Humanity”. This provides an opportunity to look at phenomenology as a crisis-diagnostic and critical movement of thought, both in terms of its history—which should also be critically examined (keyword Eurocentrism)—and its current systematic potential. This also ties in with the debates on “critical phenomenology”, which on the one hand sets itself apart from “classical phenomenology” and on the other continues the project of using phenomenological approaches to address socially relevant and pressing issues.
In this context and beyond, the aim is to explore the extent to which phenomenological perspectives on the constitution of meaning, inter/subjectivity and community, corporeality, vulnerability and responsiveness etc. can be used as analytical tools for current crises and how phenomenological reflection relates to action. Both the concept of critique in the phenomenological tradition and the controversial and productive debate with Critical Theory or critical theory in the broader sense (from post-structuralism to critical race theory) belong in this thematic area.