Amending Heidegger’s Hermeneutic Phenomenology Based on Disabled People’s Lived Experiences

Abstract

Typically, philosophers ignore disability, treat it as a special case addressed at some point in the distant future, or, worse, view disabled people as nonpersons with nothing worthwhile to contribute to philosophical endeavors. However, philosophers and philosophy have much to learn from disabled people. This article, utilizing critical and crip phenomenology, employs knowledge and insights gleaned from the lives of disabled people to rehabilitate or improve the functioning of Martin Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology. This outcome stems from adding corporeal variability, an existential that accounts for differences between and changes over time within bodies. This is an important addition as bodily differences and changes influence other existentials and the process of Being. After describing several existentials constituting Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology, the author presents pertinent data from Heidegger’s own works, disability scholars, and disabled people’s personal narratives that support amending the original theory with corporeal variability.