lebenswelt

is our involvement in a world before all theorizing.

Lebenswelt, or 'life-world': the starting-point of phenomenology is no longer the act of 'stepping-back' from our ordinary involvement with the world. Instead, we have to accept that, before all theorizing, we are already involved in a world, and that the test of all our theoretical opinions is to be found in that involvement with a world. 'Is it not in the end', Husserl asks, 'our human being, and the life of consciousness belonging to it, . . . which is the place where all problems of living inner being and external exhibition are to be decided'' (Husserl 1970: 114). (matthews 2006 13)

lebenswelt, n.Definitions

lebenswelt