Mixing fire and water

a critical phenomenology

Eric J. Mohr

pp. 97-116

in: Simmons, James E. Hackett (eds), Phenomenology for the twenty-first century, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

Abstrakt

Various, albeit largely incongruent, attempts have been made at demonstrating the critical force of phenomenology. Mohr seeks to rekindle the project by accentuating the critical potential hidden within a core phenomenological presupposition: the discrepancy between conceptual and intuitive meaning (logos and phenomenon). Phenomenological attention on the discrepancy itself as an experienced phenomenon constitutes the starting point of critical phenomenology. While Adorno famously rejects intuition as a viable candidate for grounding critique, Mohr argues that reflection on lived experiences and the nonformal meanings they yield provide a robust source for critical self-reflection. As such, ideology may be most effectively unmasked by means of a proper attitudinal orientation to the intuitive meanings within one's lived social experiences.

Cited authors

Adorno Theodor