Contributions to a Phenomenology of Historical Experience

Abstract

AbstractIn this article, I propose a phenomenological account of historical experience, aimed at showing how people directly experience an event as being historical. After examining the only previous phenomenological account, David Carr’s Experience and History, and exploring its limits, I present my own contributions. My analysis focuses on the features of three main concepts or “moments”: eventfulness, substantiality, and narrativity. Considering the transcendent character of historical experience in the moment of eventfulness brings three features to light: initial incomprehensibility, need for categorization, and memorability. The concept of “substantiality,” on the other hand, shows how a historical event is felt as a moment of change. History is perceived as a structure shaping a community and whose unity seems irremediably shattered. Three features of historical change are explored: threatened identity, broken temporality, and emphasized belongingness. Lastly, I look at the decisive role of the gradual transformation of past beliefs and expectations as it occurs “narratively,” revealing a further two features of historical experience: narrative justifications and uncertain new normativity. Dealing narratively with a historical event means providing justifications for how it constitutes a new configuration of practices and ideas foreshadowing the now uncertain future.