Phenomenology of Urban Expert Practices (Regional Ontologies as the Basis of Human-sizedness)

Abstract

Humanity today is undergoing serious changes affecting almost all spheres of life, the entire environment of its habitat. In scientific and philosophical circles, this state is defined as an anthropological crisis. One can argue about its depth and prospects, but in this article we want to draw attention to the phenomenological tools that are being developed nowadays to counter this crisis, to overcome its negative consequences. At the same time, the relevant issues will be developed in the article based on the material of urban expert practices. The focus is on the social and humanitarian potential and the effectiveness of expertise in the outlined anthropological crisis. From the point of view of the author, the current disintegration of the perception of the urban environment as a whole, its ontological regionalization is a kind of spiritual ecological crisis, in overcoming which expertise can demonstrate its real effectiveness not as an abstract reasoning, but concretely, in the organization of relevant intellectual practices. It is this approach that allows us to bring to philosophical grounds the discussion of the prospects for overcoming the anthropological crisis (or rather, the constructive role of expertise, synthesizing the perception of “regional ontologies” as an integral intellectual habitat). Thus, the author of the article, on the one hand, rely on ideas, on general grounds (primarily on those laid down by phenomenology); and on the other hand, thanks to expertise as a subject of analysis, he projects these ideas onto the real human environment (In this way fixing the prospects for overcoming the anthropological crisis).

Keywords:

expertise, city, metropolis, expert practices, regional ontologies, human dimension, archive, museum, cultural and historical epistemology