Phenomenology as social critique

William Koch

pp. 311-328

in: Hans Pedersen, Megan Altman (eds), Horizons of authenticity in phenomenology, existentialism, and moral psychology, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

Several recent publishing events have brought the political status of Heidegger's thought, and through him phenomenology, sharply back into focus within philosophy. Both recent translations of Heidegger's work and recent applications of Heidegger's insights challenge the standard understanding of Heidegger's phenomenology as a descriptive practice offering no normative judgments or political orientations. Motivated by this historical context, this chapter takes up the question of the normative or prescriptive nature of Heidegger's phenomenology. Through this discussion the nature of phenomenology as a practice of immanent critique through description of social practices is made clear. This understanding of Heidegger's phenomenology is then applied in two ways. First, I demonstrate the similar immanent critique offered by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno in the Dialectic of Enlightenment and Heidegger in The Question Concerning Technology while bringing into sharp focus how and why Heidegger's form of immanent critique rejects Hegelian and Marxist dialectic. Second, I demonstrate the manner in which Heidegger's political activities in the early to late 1930s reflected a failure to apply his own phenomenological method.

Cited authors

Heidegger Martin

Horkheimer Max

Adorno Theodor