by Veronica Fantini
Focus for one second on what you’re doing—reading, processing information, sitting, standing, or feeling something. What is so special about these thoughts or actions? They are unique because they are yours alone and can never be shared with someone in their entirety. We can describe what we are reading, where we are, or how we feel. However, we will never be able to communicate how we experience things. We will never be able to fully convey how it is to be inside our body, to be ourselves. We are our perspective and we cannot escape it. We can never hold a wholly impartial view of the world because we are always experiencing reality from our own viewpoint.
This is the foundation of phenomenology. In the twentieth century, Edmund Husserl inaugurated this philosophical discipline starting from this thesis, i.e., that we can access the world only through our specific angle. His two major works, Logical Investigations and Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, published in 1900/01 and 1913, made possible the creation of phenomenology as a field of study and are still of great importance for whoever wants to access this discipline. His study became so popular that more and more experts over time decided to use this theoretical framework for their works and contribute to phenomenological thinking through their insights.
However, the study of the lived or subjective experience in the so-called “classical phenomenology” did not consider the world from the perspective of minorities and marginalised groups. Nonetheless, phenomenology became an easy tool for minorities to express their perspective and advocate for their condition, encouraging an analysis of how social and political identities shape personal experience. This evolved field of “critical phenomenology” is simultaneously a criticism and extension of classical phenomenology. Elisa Magrì and Paddy McQueen tried to sketch an introduction to this subject in Critical Phenomenology: An Introduction, published in 2023. The book is one of the first attempts to collect different aspects and theories from this innovative field and to show their shared characteristics. It offers an overview of the main theories and authors currently considered foundational of critical phenomenology, thus becoming a contribution unique in its genre.
Classical phenomenology: experience is always embodied
Classical phenomenology is a study of how we experience the world. In the book, the authors introduce the basic concepts of classical phenomenology, attempting to show why they are relevant for creating and supporting critical phenomenology. Each chapter in this book begins with insights from classical phenomenology and compares them with their modification and application in critical phenomenology. Intentionality, intersubjectivity, and embodiment are a strong focus for Magrì and McQueen when explaining classical phenomenology. Mastering these notions is crucial for understanding the twists and turns that critical phenomenology made from the original theory. The structure of the book helps to understand this dynamic in a clear and accessible manner and facilitates the understanding for the least knowledgeable readers.
According to the authors, the first phenomenologists strongly focused on how we encounter objects. They suggested that when we want to know about or do something with an object, our consciousness will be fully filled with that object. To use other words, our consciousness always mediates our interactions with the world and is fully taken or occupied by some specific objects it is directed towards. This directness towards something is called “intentionality”. For instance, let us consider our thoughts. We never think for the sake of thinking. We think about or of something or someone specific. There is an object our attention is directed to. Intentionality refers to this directionality or aboutness of our thoughts towards an object.
Human attention can be directed toward objects, but also towards other humans. This assumption led phenomenologists to work on intersubjectivity, namely how subjects interact. Magrì and McQueen dedicated to this notion a whole chapter, analysing how different phenomenologists understand this notion. They argue that intersubjectivity can display two meanings in classical phenomenology. The first one concerns “how we perceive and understand others’ experiences, an aspect that ties the notion of intersubjectivity to empathy” (Magrì & McQueen, 2023, p. 84). To be more clear, classical phenomenologists were particularly interested in how the self relates to and understands others. The second one relates to the fact that “intersubjectivity presupposes a surrounding world as the general background in which encounters with others take place” (Magrì & McQueen, 2023, p. 84). Knowing we are always immersed in our personal experience, first-generation phenomenologists worked to explain the social and political dimensions of human existence, and how time, place, and culture condition the lives of individuals. For example, Husserl worked on how we create and live in a “common world”, where we share objects and ideas and how much we are influenced by this joint constitution of the world we live in. For instance, you can think about how much languages and social practices impact how people perceive reality.
By analyzing these aspects, they understood that we do not encounter reality solely through thinking and consciousness. Our actions are also affected by our bodies. In phenomenology, mind and body are not separated because we perceive the world and the others encountering them through our bodies. This led the philosophers to conclude that our experience is embodied—it depends on the body and we only get to know about and live in the world through our bodies.
The parts of the book concerning classical phenomenology are particularly convincing because the authors do not feel the need to explain every detail of the theories, but only the concepts that are necessary for jumping into critical phenomenology and understanding it. This makes the book a good introduction to the field also for the ones who have never had the chance to approach it before and prevents the reader from feeling overloaded by an overwhelming amount of information. By focusing on only key aspects, the authors have the chance to explain the few elements they selected in great detail and to furnish precise information.
Human attention can be directed toward objects, but also towards other humans. This assumption led phenomenologists to work on intersubjectivity, namely how subjects interact. Magrì and McQueen dedicated to this notion a whole chapter, analysing how different phenomenologists understand this notion. They argue that intersubjectivity can display two meanings in classical phenomenology. The first one concerns “how we perceive and understand others’ experiences, an aspect that ties the notion of intersubjectivity to empathy” (Magrì & McQueen, 2023, p. 84). To be more clear, classical phenomenologists were particularly interested in how the self relates to and understands others. The second one relates to the fact that “intersubjectivity presupposes a surrounding world as the general background in which encounters with others take place” (Magrì & McQueen, 2023, p. 84). Knowing we are always immersed in our personal experience, first-generation phenomenologists worked to explain the social and political dimensions of human existence, and how time, place, and culture condition the lives of individuals. For example, Husserl worked on how we create and live in a “common world”, where we share objects and ideas and how much we are influenced by this joint constitution of the world we live in. For instance, you can think about how much languages and social practices impact how people perceive reality.
By analyzing these aspects, they understood that we do not encounter reality solely through thinking and consciousness. Our actions are also affected by our bodies. In phenomenology, mind and body are not separated because we perceive the world and the others encountering them through our bodies. This led the philosophers to conclude that our experience is embodied—it depends on the body and we only get to know about and live in the world through our bodies.
The parts of the book concerning classical phenomenology are particularly convincing because the authors do not feel the need to explain every detail of the theories, but only the concepts that are necessary for jumping into critical phenomenology and understanding it. This makes the book a good introduction to the field also for the ones who have never had the chance to approach it before and prevents the reader from feeling overloaded by an overwhelming amount of information. By focusing on only key aspects, the authors have the chance to explain the few elements they selected in great detail and to furnish precise information.
Critical phenomenology and the study of diversity
Extending classical phenomenology, critical phenomenologists want to prove that our perception of the world is shaped by political and social structures and how they affect us. Critical phenomenology tries to understand how social identities shape our interactions with our environment and the people around us. The authors provide examples of social identities by mentioning race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, ability, and age. In this sense, this new current raises concerns about the bias toward the experiences of specific groups in classical phenomenology and the extent to which power structures influence our perspective. However, Magrì and McQueens show that, instead of rejecting classical phenomenology, these philosophers acknowledged the relevance of its basic concepts and used them as a tool to discuss important social issues.
The intuition of the authors that classical phenomenology is necessary for understanding the critical turn becomes crucial in this part of the book. Indeed, the merit of this collection of theories from critical phenomenology is that they are explained through their antecedents. This methodology, however not new, is another element that makes this contribution truly introductory to the field. Even though the book is meant for a specific audience, it is so clear that it can be accessible to everyone, as the authors adequately explain the basics of phenomenology before adding them. The reader is basically guided through difficult theories by making small historical and logical steps. Moreover, the authors always make clear the importance of critical phenomenology in our socio-political context, by mentioning how our contemporary experience can encourage us to rethink the way in which we perceive diversity and inclusivity. This way, the reader is pushed to think about the societal and political relevance of these theories, which could sometimes be perceived as quite abstract if not directly linked to our contemporary reality.
Trying to define critical phenomenology, the authors write that “[c]ritical phenomenology seeks to identify the context-dependent character of first-person experience, refiguring taken-for-granted assumptions about what counts as ‘ordinary’ and ‘marginal’ in everyday life” (Magrì & McQueen, 2023, p. 3). The body remains a central element, but it acquires a new meaning. Critical phenomenology shows that the constitution of the body also affects the social reality of the subject. This is crucial if we think about how much our physical appearance influences our social environment and, thus our subjective viewpoint. In this sense, visible disabilities, gender traits, and skin colour have always had an impact on our phenomenology, and critical phenomenology decodes this relationship between the body and social identities.
The authors illustrate that this field encourages a wider reflection on how these factors impact interpersonal experience. Critical phenomenologists revise the notion of empath by raising concern for the ethical issues surrounding intersubjectivity. If classical phenomenologists studied intersubjectivity only from a theoretical standpoint, critical phenomenologists aimed at creating a more equal reality through empathy and the bridge it creates between oneself and others. Moreover, this new generation of phenomenologists shows how difficult it is for someone with a multicultural identity or belonging to different social communities to engage in interactions with someone who does not understand their condition.
Phenomenology of gender and race
By investigating the factors mentioned above, critical phenomenologists created a phenomenology of gender and a phenomenology of race. These two theories are the most prominent examples given by Magrí and McQueen of how critical phenomenology works and how it tries to use classical philosophical theories to tackle inequality, exclusion, and discrimination.
The phenomenology of gender emerged from a fruitful dialogue between feminist and contemporary gender theory and phenomenology. The authors explain that “[t]he concept of gender is, however, not to be reduced to oppression, but to a way of being-in-the-world that calls into question the relation between body, identity and politics” (Magrì & McQueen, 2023, p. 121). Through the study of intersectionality and gendered experience, critical phenomenology aims to highlight how gender is experienced by the subject, with a focus on the viewpoint of women, queer and trans individuals.
Blackness and the experience of living in a black body are the focus of the phenomenology of race. Racialization—how white people experience their whiteness and use their skin colour as a means of control—is connected and contributes to the formation of a racial identity. In the book, the relationship between the phenomenon of racialization and racial identity is debated at length, leaving the reader space to think about their own experience.
Overall, this is the strongest motive for reading Critical Phenomenology: An Introduction: it pushes you to question yourself and to think through your privilege and ethics. I can guarantee you that after reading it, navigating through your social life will not be the same. If you are already familiar with phenomenology, you will be motivated to think about this innovative application. If you do not know anything about it, you will discover the potential of this approach for building a more just and equal world, dealing with the ethical concerns inherent to both classical and critical phenomenology. In the end, the merit of this book is that it makes a difficult philosophical account accessible to everyone and calls into question our ability to position ourselves in our social reality.
Bibliography
Magrì, E., & McQueen, P. (2022). Critical phenomenology: An introduction. Polity Press.
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