"New Phenomenology": the struggle for the renewal of tradition

The author discusses attempts to create a new direction in phenomenology, a project known as "new phenomenology." The uniqueness of this project lies in at least two aspects: 1) for decades it has been promoted by a single researcher; 2) in the circles of phenomenologists, that is, those who were recognized as "specialists," "experts," or "disciples," "followers" of original phenomenology, the founder of the new direction was met with significant skepticism for a long time. This skepticism had substantial grounds: some of the fundamental philosophical arguments of Hermann Schmitz, the founder of the new direction, suffered from extreme naivety and were unjust in addressing the philosophers he criticized. The main focus is on the critique of subjectivity in "new phenomenology," as well as the application of a spatial approach to the analysis of everyday experience. The research employs: phenomenological, historical-critical methods, as well as analysis from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge. The article demonstrates the theoretical flaws in Schmitz's arguments, as well as the problems associated with the idea of "novelty" in a philosophical direction such as phenomenology. A distinction is made in the understanding of French and German philosophy. It is shown that the appeal to the idea of "life," as well as radicalism, constitutes a common feature of both variants of the renewal of phenomenology. The reasons for the limited communication between Schmitz's "new phenomenology" and the more traditional study of the phenomenological legacy initiated in the 1940s and 1950s are clarified. It is also shown that a significant obstacle to dialogue with other philosophical directions was Schmitz's commitment to presenting the results of his research in a form close to the language of traditional metaphysics, which diverged from the expectations of world philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. At the same time, Schmitz managed to achieve attention-worthy results: despite all the flaws of the overarching philosophical concept on which "new phenomenology" was based, he attracted the attention and interest of broad circles of specialists in various practically oriented fields of knowledge and activity.