Is Violence a Limit Phenomenon? A Critical Approach from the Perspective of Transcendental Phenomenology and Public Health Studies

This paper examines the idea, prevalent in post-Husserlian scholarship, that violence is a 'limit problem' of phenomenology. It offers a critical approach to this idea and proposes an alternative way of understanding the phenomenology of violence. The study comprises four analytical moments. First, I show the implications and shortcomings of interpreting violence as a 'limit phenomenon'. Second, I address the issue of aggression as a mode of interaction between agents who can take on the role of perpetrators, victims, or witnesses. Here the intentionality of aggression as a phenomenon of the will in interpersonal relations will be addressed. It will be concretely shown to what extent intentional analysis, the kind of analysis prescribed by the 'general scheme' of transcendental phenomenology, is indispensable for fleshing out the experiential nature of aggression as interaction between agents who can either exert, suffer, or witness violence. Third, I turn to Husserl's brief account of violence (Gewalt) in Zur Ph & auml;nomenologie der Intersubjektivit & auml;t and, expanding upon it, propose a definition that aims to express the most fundamental structure of violence as a phenomenon of consciousness. Next, this phenomenologically grounded definition will be shown to be consistent with the sociological and intentional approach adopted by the World Health Organization in its World Report on Violence and Health. This will lead to the realization that the transcendental approach to violence can both contribute to the philosophical grounding of this Report and benefit from its multidisciplinary perspective-in particular its ecological model for analyzing the experiential horizons constitutive of the individual-environment relationship. Finally, it will become clear that violence harbors no more mysteries than any other form of intersubjective encounter and that transcendental phenomenology provides indispensable tools for conceptual clarification in interdisciplinary violence research.