The life-world is a central topic of Husserl’s phenomenology. He addresses this issue in some of the works published during his lifetime and attempts to analyze the life-world extensively in many of his works and posthumously published research manuscripts. The life-world is one of the topics that have been discussed most extensively in phenomenology. However, there are many misunderstandings of Husserl’s phenomenology of the life-world. One misunderstanding concerns the variety of concepts of the life-world in Husserl and the possibility of (...) developing various fields of the phenomenology of the life-world. It is the aim of this paper to show that Husserl has a pluralistic concept of the life-world, which makes it possible to develop various fields of the phenomenology of the life-world. I will introduce the monistic view and the pluralistic view of the concept of the life-world in Husserl and will clarify what the life-world is, thereby showing that the monistic view of the concept of the life-world in Husserl is not legitimate. However, even though Husserl has a pluralistic concept of the life-world, nowhere does he systematically clarify the various concepts of the life-world. Hence I will sort out and clarify various concepts of the life-world such as the narrower concept and the wider concept, the general concept and the particular concept, the natural concept and the transcendental concept, and the empirical concept and the eidetic concept. Based on the discussion of the various concepts of the life-world in Husserl, I will assess the monistic view and the pluralistic view of Husserl’s concept of the life-world so that we can better understand his various concepts of the life-world. (shrink)

A trustful relationship between teacher and student is fundamental when it comes to the question of what makes teaching and learning work in the classroom. Most researchers have been content with simply examining teachers’ subject knowledge and teaching methods. The aim of this study is to highlight the trustful relationship between teacher and student from the teachers’ point of view. Taking both experience and bodily views into account allows for another way of understanding relationships in the classroom. This is accomplished (...) through the use of a lifeworld phenomenological approach and the concepts of the lived body, lived space and lived time described by Merleau-Ponty. The empirical material on which this article is based was collected by fieldwork in five different compulsory schools in Sweden. In this article I discuss how these lived aspects help to describe a multifaceted relationship. The article also shows that these lived aspects influence relationships through the organisation of activities in the classroom. The article discusses how these lived aspects influence the relationship between the teacher and the student, as well as how they influence the student’s opportunities to learn in school. This study shows that these lived aspects need to be taken seriously in order for teaching and learning to work. (shrink)