Making Sense of Experience

The chapter argues that concrete, empirical phenomena alter the transcendental conditions of their own appearing, and that these conditions are experienced indirectly in subjective experience. This expressive relationship means that empirical experiences shape understanding of the transcendental, and vice versa. Transcendental phenomenology is thus a political and critical endeavor: it is constituted within empirical conditions and constitutive of them, articulating concepts like race, gender, and sexuality that generate empirical conditions. Radical politics requires transforming these transcendental conditions, making transcendental phenomenology essential for politics.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The task of this chapter is to outline the implications expressivity has for the relationship between conditions and what they condition. It argues two major claims: first, that concrete “empirical” phenomena alter the transcendental condition(s) of their own appearing; and second that transcendental conditions are experienced as operative in subjective experience, albeit indirectly. This allows us to distinguish between transcendental, empirical, transcendentally empirical, and ultra-transcendental elements of phenomenological constitution. Because of the expressive relationship between these elements, our empirical experiences necessarily shape our understanding of the transcendental, and our understanding of the transcendental shapes our empirical experiences. Transcendental phenomenology is therefore revealed as a necessarily political and critical endeavor: it is both politically constituted within empirical conditions and politically constitutive of those conditions, insofar as it articulates the (transcendental) concepts (including race, gender, sexuality, etc.) that are generative of empirical conditions. As such, radical politics requires the articulation and transformation of transcendental conditions, and so transcendental phenomenology is revealed to be essential for politics.