Principles and Potential of Applied Phenomenology

Speaker: Søren Harnow Klausen

Venue: Meeting Room 311, Building 4, Chengjun Yuan, Zijingang Campus

Abstract: The report will explore how phenomenology can be most effectively applied and which topics are most worthy of phenomenological intervention. Currently, the academic community tends to apply phenomenology almost exclusively to the study of lived experience, thereby reducing it essentially to a branch of the philosophy of mind—or even subsuming it under the "case-based" research approaches of anthropology or the humanities. In contrast, I will adopt a classical phenomenological understanding, treating phenomenology as the study of how "things" manifest themselves, and as an effort to clarify their meaning and ontological status by describing their typical modes of givenness.  I will further examine how "eidetic variation" can be developed under contemporary epistemological and methodological standards—for instance, through empirical or practical constraints, or by incorporating experiential descriptions from different individuals to supplement the phenomenologist’s own imagination. These descriptions can then be synthesized to form a kind of "phenomenological reflective equilibrium."  Additionally, I will briefly illustrate my understanding of "applied phenomenology" and its potential by examining several phenomena closely related to contemporary society, such as aging, health and illness, and war. This will demonstrate how phenomenology can offer insights into our understanding of these issues.