Editing Existential phenomenology (section)

==Overview==
In ''[[Being and Time]]'', [[Martin Heidegger]] reframes [[Edmund Husserl]]'s phenomenological project into what he terms [[fundamental ontology]]. This is based on an observation and analysis of ''[[Dasein]]'' ("being-there"), human being, investigating the fundamental structure of the ''Lebenswelt'' ([[lifeworld]], Husserl's term) underlying all so-called regional ontologies of the [[special sciences]]. In Heidegger's philosophy, people are thrown into the world in a given situation, but they are also a project towards the future, possibility, freedom, wait, hope, anguish.<ref>Farina, Gabriella (2014). [http://www.crossingdialogues.com/Ms-A14-07.pdf Some reflections on the phenomenological method.] ''Dialogues in Philosophy, Mental and Neuro Sciences'', '''7'''(2):50–62.</ref> In contrast with the philosopher [[Kierkegaard]], Heidegger wanted to explore the problem of ''Dasein'' existentially (''{{lang|de|existenzial}}''), rather than [[existentiell]]y (''{{lang|de|existenziell}}'') because Heidegger argued that Kierkegaard had already described the latter in "penetrating fashion".{{Citation needed|date=September 2010}} Most existentialist phenomenologists were concerned with how people are constituted by their experiences and yet how they are also free in some respect to modify both themselves and the greater world in which they live.

Building on Heidegger's language that people are "[[Being and Time|thrown into the world]]", Jean-Paul Sartre says that "man is a being whose existence precedes his essence".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm|title=Existentialism is a Humanism}}</ref> Both point out that any individual's identity is a matter of the social, historical, political, and economic situation into which he or she is born. This frees phenomenology from needing to find a universal ground to all experience, since it will always be partial and influenced by the philosopher's own situation. [[Maurice Merleau-Ponty]] argued that the lesson of Husserl's reduction is that "[[Phenomenology of Perception|there is no complete reduction]]" because even phenomenologists cannot resist how they have been shaped by their history, culture, society, and language.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Merleau-Ponty|first=Maurice|title=Phenomenology of Perception|publisher=Routledge|year=2013|isbn=978-0415834339|location=New York}}</ref> In her work ''[[The Second Sex]]'', [[Simone de Beauvoir]] explored how greatly norms of gender shape the very sense of self that women have, in distinction from men. [[Hannah Arendt]] discusses how totalitarian regimes in the 20th century presented entirely new regimes of terror that shaped how people understand political life in her work ''[[The Human Condition (Arendt book)|The Human Condition]]''.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Arendt|first=Hannah|title=The Human Condition|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=2018|isbn=978-0226586601}}</ref> [[Frantz Fanon]] explored the legacy of racism and colonialism on the psyches' of black men.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fanon|first=Frantz|title=Black Skin, White Masks|publisher=Grove Press|year=2008|isbn=978-0802143006}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Fanon|first=Frantz|title=The Wretched of the Earth|year=2004 |publisher=Grove Press|isbn=978-0802141323}}</ref> However, they all in different ways also stressed the freedom which humans have to alter their experiences through rebellion, political action, writing, thinking, and being. If people are constituted by the human social world, then it is only humans that created it and can create a new world if they take up this task.