Book Session on “Phänomenologie und Kritische Theorie“, ed. by Alexis Gros, Jochen Dreher and Hartmut Rosa (Suhrkamp 2025)

The book session discusses the newly edited volume Phänomenologie und Kritische Theorie, published by Suhrkamp in German in 2025. Phenomenology and Critical Theory are two of the most influential schools of thought of the 20th century. The relationship between these two traditions has always been marked by tension, mutual prejudices, and a refusal of communication. However, in recent years, convergences between both paradigms have become apparent. On the one hand, following Axel Honneth, Hartmut Rosa, and others, contemporary Critical Theory argues that the normative basis of critique should be immanently anchored in the everyday life-world experience of social actors, in terms of an “inner-worldly transcendence.” On the other hand, from a phenomenological perspective, topics traditionally addressed by Critical Theory are now being explored: the life-worldly constitution of social inequality, justice, power and violence, and subjective and intersubjective experiences of alienation, reification, and social suffering. The texts in this anthology, authored by renowned scholars of social theory, such as Charles Taylor, Sara Ahmed, Charles Yancy, Dan Zahavi, and Andrew Feenberg, aim to bridge phenomenological and critical reflection. To what extent is a 'critical phenomenology' or a 'phenomenological critical theory' conceivable? How can phenomenology benefit from critical theory, and vice versa? What is phenomenology’s contribution to the analysis of phenomena such as power, alienation, and social inequality? How can critical social theory help refine the phenomenological sensibility toward subjective and intersubjective experiences of social life? The session discusses the wide range of texts in Phänomenologie und Kritische Theorie, which are organized around six thematic focuses: (1) the historical relationship between the two traditions, (2) their systematic convergences and discrepancies, (3) new approaches to their relation, (4) the critical potential of phenomenology, (5) phenomenology-based sociology and Critical Theory, and (6) the contributions of the Critical Phenomenology movement.