Phenomenologies of Trust

Abstract

Aim of the paper is to compare different phenomenological accounts of the phenomenon of trust. After moving from the “noematic” observation of trust as embedded in the world, toward the “noetic” consideration of trust as a subjective act, we introduce the view of trust as a specific kind of perceptive experience giving the person as a totality and being characterized by a displacing double intentionality. Trust is therefore grasped as a teleological intentional process. This requires a phenomenological-genetic approach and challenges us to overcome the restrictions imposed by a static phenomenology of trust. The genetic approach focuses on trust as a grounding and selffostering experience that discloses an essential anthropological feature. The phenomenological analysis thus suggests that what is at stake in the experience of trust is not only, and perhaps not primarily, the unity and stability of experience and society, but rather their mobility, flexibility, and vitality.