The LifeWorldTheories department of the Institute is concerned with the root philosophy for the various research programmes of the Institute. That root philosophy is basically a critical theory that targets strategies of positivism, populism and conformism in social, cultural, scientific, economic or political contexts. The critical theory materialises in the form of a discussion text, entitled 'Welcome to the Age of Reflexivity – humanism beyond the comfort of polarisation'. That text and a metareflection on its evolution are represented at the website of the LifeWorldTheories department. On occasion, parts of the text are reproduced at the journal 'Norms and Dialectics' of the PhɅAct Collective as subject of targeted and temporary public discussions.