Mirrors and Germinations: Hountondji, a Reader of Husserl and a Thinker of the Lebenswelt

A work of philosophy is sometimes a mirror reflecting the world of life in its structures, narratives, crises and trends. The work is also a germination and the beginning of a conversation. Hountondji’s work holds up mirrors because it is germinating from our lifeworld (Lebenswelt). Hountondji reads Husserl without reducing himself to him. In this reading, Hountondji offers us a conversation about affects and aesthetics. This article aims to analyze how, by considering the Lebenswelt, Hountondji’s work -too often reduced to a critique of ethnophilosophy and endogenous knowledge- enables other types of conversation that can help us to critique and clinically understand our lives.