Lived experience as a mode of knowledge constitution

Abstract

This article addresses the polysemy of the term vivência (lived experience), as it is treated by many authors who, due to the absence of a more explicit thematization of the term and its philosophical implications, often lead beginning researchers to trivialize its possible meanings. In response to this observation, it is proposed, in this paper,  a reconsideration of the term Erlebnis in light of Edmund Husserl’s thought, emphasizing the very act of knowing as understood at the core of this philosophical framework—not merely as representing or describing what is external, but as living the appearance of things as meaning given in experience. Assuming that every conscious experience is an Erlebnis, and that Erlebnis is a lived experience structured by intentionality—by which something is experienced as something—and further, that this structure accompanies and constitutes knowledge, it is pointed out that consciousness and Erlebnis are not distinct spheres, but are structurally co-implicated.