In the past decades, the question of testimony has become more and more important as either, in analytic philosophy, the paradigmatic example of the social dimension of epistemology in analytic philosophy or, in continental philosophy, the mode of speech or writing by which the experiences of victims and minorities find their voice in a society.
Research goals
This project aims to offer a more profound, ontological sense of testimony by analyzing this human practice with the means provided by hermeneutic phenomenology. This ontological sense aims to do justice both (1) the particular emphasis on the singularity of human experience, of how this singularity ‘individualizes’ the human, and (2) the social significance of the articulation of experience, of how this articulation constitutes a social bond and a social sphere of the subject matter of which humans first become a witness and subsequently can bear witness. It is argued that these two dimensions underpin both contemporary interests in testimony and offer them a phenomenological foundation.
Results
Up to this point, this project has resulted in several publications and international cooperations, including two international conferences organized at Radboud University and the monograph The Voice of Misery: A Continental Philosophy of Testimony.