ABSTRACT
The German phenomenologist Hermann Schmitz belongs to the postwar-generation of philosophers such as Jürgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel, both of whom he studied with under Erich Rothacker. The focus of Schmitz’s work, however, is not so much on the rational of public reasoning but on questions of personhood and bodily existence. According to Schmitz, the latter aspects are crucially involved in the way in which something emerges as a compelling reason or as demanding one’s respect.
