Deutsche Gesellschaft
für phänomenologische Forschung

Lecture Series | Paper

Situativity

Thomas Bedorf

Montag 27 Oktober 2025

18:15 - 19:00

Bodily existence means that the space of possibilities does not exist as a virtual multiplicity of abstract possibilities, but always only as a horizon of possibilities that orients actions in a situation. For a political phenomenology, the notion of situatedness (distinct from situation) is necessary because it articulates the historical a priori of a given situation. The perspective of an embodied situated subject can neither be transferred into an ‘objective’ situational picture (a position), nor can its place be assigned in it and thus mapped in it. But if situated subjects want to become visible in the agonistic field of power, they have to choose a position by reflection its own situatedness. The reflection of one own situatedness is thus the prerequisite for being able to positioning him/herself. A political phenomenology of situatedness thus open up the possibility of a politics of positioning.