This is one of the papers from our 2017 Annual Conference, the Future of Phenomenology. Information and the full conference booklet can be found at www.britishphenomenology.org.uk
One understanding of the division between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ implies a gap between the spheres of thinking and acting that needs bridging. At the core of the matter lies a standoff between the contingency of acting and the enduring nature of thinking. However, this dichotomy conceals the interdependent nature of theory and practice in which thinking itself is an activity and manifests itself in the world through the inter-action of human beings.
No philosopher dissolves this gap between theory and practice as convincingly as Hannah Arendt in her reflections on both the vita activa and ‘the life of the mind’. By way of phenomenological method, Arendt reveals how engaged action opens a space for appearances and encounters, making the political domain her main phenomenological concern. However, this is not a critique of theory for the sake of it. Arendt also champions a way of thinking, specifically practical thinking, which is intricately connected to the political. Such thinking informs and culminates in worldly action and is concerned with phenomenality. The real issue, then, is not the division between theory and practice, but rather their more nuanced collocation.
After examining such a collocation, this paper will analyze how Arendt’s practical thinking is concretized in the idea of solidarity. Solidarity deals with the abstract values of human rights, while also entailing an essentially performative element. Arendt shows how essential it is to the integrity of this principle for there to be a political interaction. This paper aims to capture Arendt’s phenomenological insights into the interdependent nature of thinking and acting. I contend that an Arendtian account of solidarity allows us to move concretely beyond the seeming opposition between theory and practice, by showing how she argues that there is something wrong with the very framework of ‘applying theory in practice’.
Kata Dóra Kiss - ‘The Importance of Intersubjectivity in the Process of Psychotherapy’
Rachel Elliott - ‘The Futurity of the “We”: A Merleau-Pontian Account of Group Temporality and Improvised Music’
Francesca Brencio - ‘Shifting the paradigm. Neurosciences and the phenomenological challenge’
Valeria Bizzari - ‘A multidisciplinary analysis of autism: predictive engagement and the living body’
Prisca Bauer - ‘Engaged phenomenology: neurology beyond the brain’
Dan Zahavi - ‘Pure and Applied Phenomenology’
Luna Dolezal - Interviewed by Jessie Stanier & Hannah Berry
Keith Crome - Education as Child’s Play
Hannah Berry - Empathy: the border between narratives
Francesca Brencio - “Fill the gap”. A phenomenological perspective of exercising psychiatry
William Large - Atheism of the Word: A Genealogy of the Concept of God
Pablo Andreu - Death as an “Ontological Infidelity”
Marco Di Feo - The Human Right to Family Reunification
Botsa Katara - Reassessing the Super-crip Stereotype
Pablo Fernandez Velasco - Disorientation and Self-consciousness: A Phenomenological Inquiry
Andreas Sandner - ‘Visible Odours? On the Issue of Visuocentricism in “Olfactory Austerity”
Matteo Valdarchi - The circle and the origin. An interpretation of Heidegger's Habilitationsschrift
Katherine Burn - Recalibrating the Contemporary: Reading the phenomenology of shame in Metamodernism
Dylan Trigg - Who is the Subject of Birth?
Prabhsharanbir Singh - The Auseinandersetzung with Colonialism and the Oblivion of Other Beginnings in Heidegger’s History of Being
Join Podbean Ads Marketplace and connect with engaged listeners.
Advertise Today
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Meaningful Life with Andrew G. Marshall
The No-Frills Teacher Podcast
Heal, Survive & Thrive!
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Mel Robbins Podcast