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The Political Relevance of Existential Phenomenology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Hwa Yol Jung
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Extract

Existentialism, for some of its severe critics, represents a temporary outburst of the dark side of man which is indicative of a passing phenomenon of our age and particularly of the postwar angry generation living on the morbid edges of death, anxiety and the absurdity of human existence. They contend that existentialism is not a philosophy or at least not a serious and disciplined philosophy. Professor Henry S. Kariel characterized existential psychology as “negativism,” and its counterpart, behavioral psychology, as “positivism”; and similarly Professor Eugene J. Meehan describes the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl as having sought to find philosophical certainty “in feeling rather than in thought,” an assessment that falsely indicts phenomenology as an irrationalism. I have singled out these two political theorists as representatives of a widespread misconception of existential philosophy and phenomenology, held as well, I suspect, by many American political theorists. This article is not designed as a direct rebuttal to these misunderstandings and criticisms; it is rather an attempt to show what I consider to be the significant and positive contributions of existential philosophy and phenomenology to the foundation of political theory.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , October 1971 , pp. 538 - 563
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1971

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References

* I wish to thank particularly Professor William T. Bluhm of the University of Rochester for his helpful comments on the earlier version of this paper.

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13 The “empiricist” Dahl, Robert A. criticizes many “trans-empiricists” for using “an unnatural vocabulary far removed from the ordinary language of politics.” Modern Political Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, 1963), p. 105Google Scholar. In turn, the “trans-empiricist” Leo Strauss charges that while “the language of Aristotelian political science is identical with the language of political man” and “it hardly uses a term that did not originate in the market place and is not in common use there,” “the new political science cannot begin to speak without having elaborated an extensive technical vocabulary.” “An Epilogue,” in Essays on the Scientific Study of Politics, ed. Storing, Herbert J. (New York, 1962), p. 310Google Scholar. It is important to note that both Dahl and Strauss recognize the significance of the ordinary language of political man. Strauss recognizes the dependence of conceptual knowledge on preconceptual understanding. However, I have argued elsewhere that his intellectualism is guilty of self-contradiction while positivism takes the preconceptual life-world for granted and may be charged with negligence. See author's article, “Leo Strauss's Conception of Political Philosophy: A Critique,” The Review of Politics, 29 (10, 1967), 492–517CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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17 Op. cit., p. 59. For the relationship between phenomenology and the sociology of Max Weber, see Schutz, Alfred, The Phenomenology of the Social World, trs. Walsh, George and Lehnert, Frederick (Evanston, 1967), pp. 3–44Google Scholar.

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19 Compare Eulau's views of scientific technology with those of the phenomenologist Dreyfus, Hubert L. in Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence (RAND Paper, P–3244; Santa Monica, 12, 1965)Google Scholar.

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21 Freedom and Nature, p. 46.

22 Op. cit., p. 34.

23 Cf. Buchanan, James M. and Tullock, Gordon, The Calculus of Consent (Ann Arbor, 1965), p. 27Google Scholar. Although William H. Riker is “eager to create specifically political theories of behavior to serve as a base for a future political science,” there is nonetheless an economic overtone in his game theory. For him “most of the decisions in economics and political life are made by persons acting in a fiduciary relation”; and “rational” behavior is “winning” behavior when he says that “politically rational man is the man who would rather win than lose, regardless of the particular stakes.” The Theory of Political Coalitions (New Haven, 1962), p. ixGoogle Scholar. Yet, as Bluhm, William T. points out, “‘winning’ as the political value par excellence is not for Riker an entirely selfish object, as the political object is for Downs.” Theories of the Political System (Englewood Cliffs, 1965), p. 292Google Scholar.

24 For a discussion of diverse forms of rationality in social science, see Diesing, Paul, Reason in Society (Urbana, 1962)Google Scholar. Sheldon S. Wolin argues that Locke and his successors hastened the decline of political theory. The decline of political theory is attributed to their “conviction that economics formed the proper study of mankind and economic activity the proper end encouraged the imposition of economic categories onto political thought with the result that the role and status of political theory came to be usurped by economic theory.” Politics and Vision (Boston, 1960), pp. 286–351Google Scholar. Also C. B. Macpherson critically examined Hobbes and Locke, who based their political theory on the assumption that man is the infinite proprietor of his own interests, which is an economic claim. The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (Oxford, 1962)Google Scholar.

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32 Op. cit., p. 73. Truman, David B. also says that “the activities of political interest groups imply controversy and conflict, the essence of politics. For those who abhor conflict in any form, who long for some past or future golden age of perfect harmony, these consequences of group activity are alone sufficient to provoke denunciation.” The Government Process (New York, 1958), pp. 502–503Google Scholar. A balanced view of the political system as the concomitant processes of conflict and integration is found in Duverger, Maurice, The Idea of Politics, trs. North, Robert and Murphy, Ruth (Indianapolis, 1966)Google Scholar.

33 The Semi-Sovereign People (New York, 1960)Google Scholar.