Cosmo-politan Phenomenology
University of Wuppertal, Germany
The phenomenological stance on the history of philosophy is the ¡§Besinnung¡¨ introduced by Husserl and Heidegger. This paper is intended to show what this means. The Besinnung must begin with the question of how the inauguration (Urstiftung) of philosophical/scientific thought was motivated and which perennial task this motivation yielded for thought. The wonder at the very beginning of philosophy is inseparable from the ancient Greek experience of the relativity of cultural horizons. Therefore, ever since then thought has addressed the issue of the world qua universal horizon in order to escape from the danger of relativism. But the exploration of the world appearing as a horizon in philosophy and science was doomed to failure, because it was not considered that the world in its very appearance resists its own treatment as a topic. In the phenomenological Besinnung, the traditional forgetfulness of this withdrawal of the world at once becomes conspicuous to philosophy. As ¡§cosmo-politan phenomenology¡¨ philosophy can make the attempt to address the world in its unaddressability, and thus to renew the Greek inauguration self-critically in the era of globalisation.