„Just human“ – Eine phänomenologische und philosophisch-anthropologische Perspektive auf unser leibliches Mensch-Umwelt-Verhältnis

Abstract

Abstract. This article aims to provide an introduction to the phenomenologically and anthropologically grounded philosophy of a „lived corporeality“ that can be connected to human geography – in order to enable a deeper understanding of our human-environment relationship and other spatial aspects of the life-world. Until present, Phenomenology and Philosophical Anthropology play a marginal role in human geography as a source of knowledge of social and spatial facts, since the mainstream of theorizing the social and the spatial has diverged from approaches of social-discursive, socio-practical, symbolic, and – more recently – ‚more-than-human‘ as well as ‚posthuman‘ assumptions about the ‚construction‘ of the world. We consider this a shortcoming in social theory as these approaches (a) fail to take into account their own ‚constructiveness‘ and therefore limited positional character towards the subject as well as (b) they fail to provide a theoretical sound ground to cope with the material realities of the world, such as things, animals and human beings. To overcome such limitations, our concern is to examine the specific reality of space with the fundamental concept of the Leib – from an entangled point of reflection on ‚German Theory‘ by Helmuth Plessner and Hermann Schmitz with ‚French Theory‘ by Maurice Merleau-Ponty.