ABSTRACT
The events and experiences that characterized much of the 20th century—war, totalitarian politics, and emigration—had a direct influence on the work of many of the second-generation phenomenologists who are discussed in the third part of this handbook. Thinking the political under the circumstances of its destruction by massive political violence forced phenomenologists to position themselves politically. And reflecting on totalitarian politics in particular became a core issue for that generation of thinkers. The confrontation of phenomenological methods with the experience of a violent political world is a common feature in the works of the thinkers discussed in this part. Husserl’s concepts of “intersubjectivity” and the “lifeworld,” as well as Heidegger’s analyses of “being-with” and the “worldliness of the world,” served as prototypes for the introduction of phenomenological methods into social and political thought. This part of the handbook therefore also focuses on the interdisciplinary expansion of phenomenology and further development of phenomenological methodology toward deeper reflection on the political.
