Citation

Breyer T. Phenom. Cogn. Sci. 2017; 16(4): 737–751.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s11097-016-9476-9

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Violence has become a prominent topic in recent phenomenological investigations. In this paper, I wish to contribute to this ongoing discourse by looking at violence in a literal sense as violation of experiential structures, insofar as it is intentionally, purposefully, and strategically imposed on a subject by another agent (individual or collective). Phenomenology provides the descriptive methodology for elucidating such structures. The violation can take the form of a radicalization, in which one of the aspects of polar experiential spectra becomes predominant, i.e. the balance between them is shifted to one extreme. I focus on the relationship between self and other on the one hand, and the relationship between body-as-subject and body-as-object on the other, as prominent topoi in the phenomenological literature. With regard to torture and solitary confinement as forms of extreme violence, I analyze how these structures are disturbed.

Language: en