The Role of Phenomenology in Existential Anthropology

Academic Paper from the year 2020 in the subject Pedagogy - Theory of Science, Anthropology, grade: 6, University of Bern (Institut für Sozialanthropologie), language: English, abstract: The present essay explores the question of how philosophical phenomenology can be integrated into anthropology and especially into existential anthropology. Phenomenology will be analyzed in terms of its methods and demands in order to apply them to the field of Existential Anthropology. In doing so, some points have to be changed, which are necessary for the philosophical as well as for the anthropological perspective.

Philosophical phenomenology is a discipline which can be examined in terms of its tradition, its method, and its demands. There is little point in dealing with the tradition here. This is due to two reasons: First, some positions of the phenomenological thinkers will be introduced in the following chapters anyway. An overview of the entire tradition, however, would lead too far away from the topic. Secondly, philosophical phenomenology must be distinguished from existentialism. Not all phenomenologists, such as Scheler or Merleau-Ponty, for example, have dealt with existentialism. And not all existentialists, such as De Beauvoir or Camus, have dealt with phenomenology.