Call for Papers

Philosophy and Society Special Issue: “Phenomenology, Historical A Priori and the Quasi Transcendental: Mapping the Complexity of What is Unfolding” 

The historicization of the transcendental sphere unfolds as a tension between fundamental structures of experience and their historical contingency. While for Kant the transcendental sphere is that of the universal and ahistorical a priori conditions of knowledge, Hegel already stressed that reason itself develops historically through dialectical mediation. To address this tension, Husserl introduced a novel, phenomenological approach, tracing the sedimentation of meaning in consciousness while maintaining the ideality of meaning-making processes. Later thinkers such as Foucault and Derrida challenged Husserl’s approach by embedding the transcendental fully within the factual historical, discursive and textual conditions of a given period. In doing so, they appropriated Husserl's notion of the "historical a priori" deferring its meaning beyond the project of lifeworld ontology.

Thanks to the study of manuscripts published in recent decades, current phenomenological research has clarified many aspects of the new connotation that the transcendental question acquired after Husserl. If the historicity and sociality of the (transcendental) subject seem to be widely accepted in the secondary literature, the question of whether and to what extent the social and historical world is nonetheless bound to a priori structures remains unanswered: for example, when generative problems are contrasted with the genetic method.

In contemporary phenomenology, the use of the term quasi-transcendental signals a shift in the approach to the classical problem of the conditions of possibility of experience. A good example is Lisa Guenther's work on critical phenomenology which explores the concept of normativity within the framework of the quasi-transcendental. In her view, the quasi-transcendental refers to historically and socially contingent conditions that are constitutive of our factual lived experience, as opposed to purely transcendental conditions that are more abstract and universal. Guenther argues that critical phenomenology must take account of these quasi-transcendental conditions in order to reflect on how social norms and power relations are established, maintained and potentially transformed in specific contexts.

But where does this new approach leave the conceptual distinction between the transcendental sphere and eidetic variation? Could we not reconcile the quasi-transcendental with the facticity of the transcendental sphere of experience? Can Husserl's methodology still be mobilised for the purpose of social critique, or is it necessary to dismantle it in favour of the more factically oriented analyses? 

To what extent is phenomenology up to the challenge of rethinking the civilizational project in which it is situated in the face of the tasks of decolonisation, the urgency of climate change and the resurgence of violence on a global scale? 

What happens to phenomenological methods when they are applied in the human sciences, e.g. in the accounts of phenomenological sociology, anthropology, and psychology? Does this involve a top-down foundation or mere application of transcendental philosophy, or does it signal a more profound change in the way transcendental constitution is conceived: as including not only the constitution of the world by consciousness but also the constitution of subjectivity by the structures of its environment? And if so, how is this co-constitution to be properly understood phenomenologically?

In light of these questions and developments, we invite papers:

• which discuss the reception of the notions of the quasi-transcendental and the historical a priori within contemporary phenomenology, and which propose keys to understanding how these notions are positioned within recent phenomenological debates.
• which analyse concrete phenomena of contemporary social reality through the concepts of the a priori, the transcendental and the quasi-transcendental. 

Possible topics that fall within this call include, but are not limited to:     

• the constitutive role of habits in the historical processes and cultural formation.
• historical-phenomenological critical contributions that disclose hidden presuppositions of our own contemporaneity. 
• the critical potential of the phenomenological study of the sphere of free possibilities that go beyond the historically given. 
• phenomenological reflections on the social and political power structures and on the relationship between human and non-human living beings.
• Methodological reflection on the use of phenomenological methods in critical theories

Editors:

Emanuele Caminada, Husserl Archives, KU Leuven

Olga Nikolić,  Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade.

Submissions should be sent to olga.nikolic@ifdt.bg.ac.rs

Submission Deadline: 31 December 2025

 

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Conference: Philosophy and New Media