Edmund Husserl’s Critique of European Science: A Philosophical Evaluation of Covid-19 Pandemic

Sunday Chukwuma Ezeani^1*, Ignatius Nnaemeka Onwuatuegwu²

Abstract

The whole world today is dumped deeply and hopelessly into the scourge of COVID-19 Pandemic. That the invisible virus has kept the entire world both developed and developing countries standstill has busted contemporary man’s bravado in his scientific and technological achievements. This pandemic has called man to look inward into his very existence. The pandemic inasmuch it has brought untold sufferings, is not without some positive influences. It is a time like this, that philosophical reflection on history is of paramount importance. Lest we forget, COVID-19 is not the first pandemic in the human history. There were Black Death of 1346-1353, Spanish Flu of 1918, HIV/AIDS pandemic (at peak 2002-2005), and others. The novel COVID-19 is the child of our time and so we are compelled to live with its challenges both now and after. Nevertheless, in this philosophical reflection, we are going to look into the work of Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology and extract what its contributions signify to our time. Husserl wrote during the postwar years in Europe and so like most of philosophers argued that Europe was not suffering political crisis but crisis of civilization. Naturalism and positivism were the ideologies that were reigning, thus denigrating the status of philosophy in searching into ultimate and highest questions that bother on the vital need of man that is the question of meaning or meaninglessness of human existence (Heffernan; 2015). It is in this frame of thought that we are going to survey the history of Covid19 pandemic, the conspiracy theories on its origin and evaluate the implications of the pandemic in the post-Covid19 society. This essay attempts to inspire a critical reflection on the reader to look at the condition of our time with a critical and philosophical hope and faith.

Keywords

Covid-19; Conspiracy theories; Bill Gates Scapegoat; Biological Warfare; Crisis of European Science

Cite This Article

Ezeani, S. C., Onwuatuegwu, I. N. (2021). Edmund Husserl’s Critique of European Science: A Philosophical Evaluation of Covid-19 Pandemic. International Journal of Scientific Advances (IJSCIA), Special Issue: Sep 2021, Pages 1-6, URL: https://www.ijscia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Special-Issue-No.01-1-6.pdf

Publication In

Special Issue 2: Sep 2021 

COVID-19 PANDEMIC: BEFORE & AFTER