The ambivalence of public space in face of social and political fragmentation

towards a phenomenological understanding of the “we” idea in communication

Abstract

Under the pretext of the temporal reference to Habermas' seminal work on public space, the concept is visited, and a balance is made of the transformations that marked it, including its fragmentation, the formation of tribalism in terms of political action and knowledge, the depoliticization of everyday experience and its impact on the construction of social, cultural, and political subjectivities.
In line with a post-Habermasian thought that gathers contributions from Husserlian phenomenology, it is proposed to resort to the concept of empathy. Simultaneously, the limits of this proposal as psychologizing and centered on the observer's ego are questioned through the concepts of "lifeworld" and recognition.
The methodology is hermeneutic and interpretive, resorting to a rereading of classics and more recent reflections that focus on the history of the concept and its transformations.

This transformation is accompanied by others with which it articulates: the multiplication of aesthetically innovative discursive forms using the arts and culture, the emergence of emotion as a structuring element of political action, the transformation of the concept of experience, and its impact on the construction of political subjectivities.

Following a post-Habermasian thought that collects contributions from phenomenology, I rehearsed the attempt to inscribe the concepts of empathy and experience as its structuring elements in the sense that they are prefigured as consciousness of humanity that considers itself more than its particularities historical reasons and refuses, therefore, the absolutization of cultural forms of identity.

The methodology, which is predominantly hermeneutic and interpretive, uses both the re-reading of classics together with more recent reflections according to a logic that seeks the existence of a problematic dialogue between schools that structures the history of the concept and its transformations.