El The Body, Experience and Critique: Phenomenology of Intercorporeality in transit towards Critical Phenomenology

Abstract

Critical phenomenology presents itself as a thematic diversification, a redefinition of the goals and a reformulation of the method of classical phenomenology. This paper focuses on the latter aspect to analyze how the Merleau-Pontian reworking of the phenomenological method (based on its emphasis on the corporeal and relational condition of the subject) opened the possibility of integrating two perspectives usually considered incompatible, in an intersection where phenomenological-critical studies are precisely located. These perspectives concern, on the one hand, phenomenological reflection with its focus on first-person lived experience, and on the other, investigations of the human sciences, or constructivist, genealogical or critical studies that underline the social, historical and political constitution of identity and experience. If critical phenomenology emphasizes the need for a critical rectification or widening of the method of classical phenomenology, we ask if analyses of the social conditions of the constitution of experience do not need to resort to some form of phenomenological description precisely to be critical.