On the Politicization of Violence Within Reductive and Non-reductive Accounts of Violence

Abstract

In this paper, I reference a Paradigm Case Core Conception of Violence, which each individual has, and can share with others to various degrees. This is shown to imply that because we cannot get at violence itself, and can only interpret violence in relationships that involve humans, we cannot avoid politicizing our conceptions of violence in our empathic, intersubjective relationships. This is demonstrated by outlining various claims concerning violence, and by utilizing Edith Stein's phenomenological account on empathy and intersubjectivity, and Alfred Schutz’s characterizations of commonsense constructs and typicalities, as well as theorists who define violence in reductive and non-reductive ways.