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From a neo-phenomenological perspective, all risk knowledge must ultimately be anchored in embodied experience. This chapter distinguishes between monothetic and polythetic knowledge: immediate, bodily certitude versus abstract, analytically constructed risk models. While scientific expertise provides polythetic clarity, its distance from lived experience can weaken its plausibility and hinder public engagement, especially in unfamiliar or emerging risks. The chapter demonstrates how non-rational modes such as hope, faith, and ideology draw strength from their close alignment with subjective experience, often providing more compelling narratives than scientific accounts. Examples from COVID-19 denial, climate change awareness, and conspiracy beliefs illustrate how people may reject expert knowledge when it fails to connect to their lived experience. The chapter concludes that effective societal engagement with risk depends on bridging the experiential gap between reflexive knowledge and subjective certainties, showing why biographical histories, trust relations, and embodied threat perceptions shape how risk information is taken up or resisted.

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From Embodied Threat to Abstract Risk—The Significance of Subjective Experience

  • 章节

  • 发表日期：

    2026年

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  • Jens O. Zinn,
  • Manuel Schulz

摘要

From a neo-phenomenological perspective, all risk knowledge must ultimately be anchored in embodied experience. This chapter distinguishes between monothetic and polythetic knowledge: immediate, bodily certitude versus abstract, analytically constructed risk models. While scientific expertise provides polythetic clarity, its distance from lived experience can weaken its plausibility and hinder public engagement, especially in unfamiliar or emerging risks. The chapter demonstrates how non-rational modes such as hope, faith, and ideology draw strength from their close alignment with subjective experience, often providing more compelling narratives than scientific accounts. Examples from COVID-19 denial, climate change awareness, and conspiracy beliefs illustrate how people may reject expert knowledge when it fails to connect to their lived experience. The chapter concludes that effective societal engagement with risk depends on bridging the experiential gap between reflexive knowledge and subjective certainties, showing why biographical histories, trust relations, and embodied threat perceptions shape how risk information is taken up or resisted.