The Interpreted World (Ernesto Spinelli) Cap 1 y 2

1 An Introduction to Phenomenological Theory
Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world; all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it. A. Einstein, P. Podolsky, N. Rosen
As human beings, we attempt to make sense of all our experiences. We strive to impose meaning upon the world. In our awareness and acceptance of this immense capacity, we are led, ineluctably, to an underlying issue that poses perhaps the most basic of all philosophical questions: What is real? At first, the answer to such a question might seem to be absurdly simple to provide, and indicative of the unnecessarily pedantic obscurity of much that passes as philosophical enquiry. A typical reply to such a question might proceed in the following manner: if I look around my room, I see (among other objects) books, a desk, a chair, a pen. Similarly, I can look out of my window and observe people walking down the street, other houses, flowers, shrubs, trees and so forth. All these things are real to me in that I believe them to be independent of my consciousness. If I were to die suddenly at this moment, I assume that these objects would continue to exist since I view them as having an existence that is separate to my own. Their physical properties and their independent existence lead me to declare them as being real. This theory of reality, which the vast majority of us in the West take to be so patently obvious that we imagine it to be not theory but fact, has led us to posit the existence of an objective reality. The notion of an objective reality adopts the view that there are real objects in the world that exist independently of our conscious knowledge or awareness of them. In addition, it argues that we have direct access to them through our brain and senses. Whether organic or man-made, they exist as separate entities, separate structures. What we perceive as being out there is actually there; it is objectively real. Like much of modern philosophy, the system known as phenomenology questions this viewpoint in an attempt to clarify it. It asks us first to consider the possible assumptions and biases that have led us to our conclusion so that we may be more certain of its accuracy. As a result of such probing, representatives of scientific fields as diverse as cognitive science, neurophysiology, sociology, theoretical physics and psychology have arrived at an intriguing, not to say disturbing, conclusion (Farber, 1962).
The interpreted world
Stated simply, this conclusion argues that true reality is, and will forever remain, both unknown and unknowable to us. Instead, that which we term reality, that is, that which is experienced by us as being real, is inextricably linked to our mental processes in general, and, in particular, to our in-built, innate human species capacity to construct meaning. This view is the starting point to phenomenological enquiry.
The Origins of Phenomenology

The term phenomenology is partly derived from the Greek word phainomenon (plural: phainomena). Phainomenon literally means appearance, that is, that which shows itself. Philosophers generally define phenomena to mean the appearances of things, as contrasted with the things themselves as they really are. The world, as we experience it, is a phenomenal world. Immanuel Kant, who remains among the most influential of the postClassical Western philosophers, took as the cornerstone of his philosophical speculations precisely this contrast and argued from it that our mind cannot ever know the thing itself (the noumenon, to employ Kants terminology), but can only know it as it appears to us the phenomenon. As such, the true nature of reality, for Kant, was not only far from being obvious, it was beyond our ability to understand and to experience directly. Although the term phenomenology was coined in the mid-eighteenth century, and several noteworthy philosophers (such as Kant, Hegel and Marx) employed it at various times in the course of their writings, the philosophical school known to us as phenomenology only originated in the early years of the twentieth century. When Edmund Husserl (18591938), its founder, adopted the term, he supplied it with new meaning and significance. Husserl wanted nothing less than to develop a science of phenomena that would clarify how objects are experienced and present themselves to our consciousness. Husserls hope and stated aim was to reform philosophy, and... to establish a rigorously scientific philosophy, which could provide a firm basis for all other sciences (Misiak and Sexton, 1973: 6). In an attempt to fulfill this aim, Husserl developed an approach to investigation that is generally known as the phenomenological method. Husserl was not its inventor, nor can it be said that he was the first philosopher to employ it, but he refined and specified its conditions and purpose, and raised the method to the status of a fundamental philosophical procedure that would become the cornerstone of his approach. As we will see in the following chapter, the phenomenological method focuses on the data (or phenomena) of consciousness in order to clarify their role in the process of meaning-construction, and, as well, attempts to set them aside or bracket them in order to arrive at a more adequate (if still necessarily incomplete) knowledge of reality.
An introduction to phenomenological theory
Transcendental and Existential Phenomenology

Husserls attempts form the basis of one strand of phenomenology transcendental phenomenology of which he remains the most prominent exponent. However, it would be wrong to identify all of phenomenology as being solely, or even principally, Husserlian. Of equal, if not greater, philosophical and psychological significance is the second major branch known as existential phenomenology (or, more commonly, existentialism), that was principally influenced by the writings of Husserls university assistant, Martin Heidegger (18891976). As such, it is more helpful and accurate to consider phenomenology not strictly as a school of thought possessing a set body of agreed-upon tenets, but, rather, as an investigative approach that encompasses a variety of similarly focused perspectives whose shared concerns are directed towards a methodologically structured investigation of our experience of the world. I will consider the main ideas that impact upon psychology from both of these major strands of phenomenology in this text. For the moment, however, let us remain with the Husserlian transcendental strand since, as well as historically preceding existential phenomenology, it supplies us with the central arguments presented by phenomenologists on the issue of reality.
The Phenomenological View of Reality

As I stated at the beginning of this chapter, the objects that we perceive (including, of course, the people, or others in general with whom we interact, as well as ourselves) exist, in the way that they exist, through the meanings that each of us gives them. For example, the book that you are currently reading appears to you to be real, you see it as being separate, inhabiting a different space to that which you inhabit; it is a concrete entity. In your meaning system, it is a book. But what is it really? If, for some inexplicable reason, your vocabulary, your language, your meaning system, were suddenly to be deprived of the meaningful term book, what would it be that you held in your hands? What is it that you would perceive? It would certainly be something, but the definition or meaning given to that something would have as much to do with you, and the meaning system that you employ, as it would have with the thing itself. Phenomenologists argue that this interpretational process must be acknowledged in our statements about reality. Indeed, phenomenologists suggest that, in our everyday experience of reality, this process is to all intents and purposes indivisible from the reality being perceived. Reality, as far as each of us experiences it, is this process.
That our interpretations of reality turn out to be seemingly more or less correct is dependent upon any number of factors. For instance, they may be correct or incorrect only insofar as one culture has provided a different meaning system to that imposed by another culture for the object being perceived. So, for example, were I a representative from a Stone Age society, who is confronted, suddenly, with an object which you, as a representative of your society, have labelled as being a book, it would be highly unlikely that I, too, would label it in the same way. I would certainly perceive something, but my interpretation might be that the object was some type of weapon, or a rather unusual stone, or perhaps even a previously unseen food product. Whose interpretation is the correct one? Whose reality is truly real? For each of us, the object would have a reality that was dependent upon our meaning-derived interpretation of it. As such, to argue the case for a non-interpetatively-derived correct or incorrect statement of reality is highly misleading. Our conclusions are relative based as they are upon a number of variables, including those of socio-cultural diversity. Ours is a phenomenal reality, and, as such, it remains open to a multiplicity of interpretations. Nevertheless, though phenomenologists avoid terms like correct and incorrect when considering interpretations of reality, they still recognize that, at times, the meanings construed by individuals will be at great variance with those which (to some degree at least) are shared by others perhaps even the majority of others. For example, an individual suffering from what could be termed paranoid delusions might imagine, indeed might be convinced, that the nurse who was coming to provide him with medication is actually about to make an attempt upon his life. Not surprisingly, he might take steps to avoid the danger. This interpretation might be judged as being wrong, or even crazy, by the nurse, or by most other people. Would not phenomenologists be shown to be unnecessarily pedantic if they were to argue otherwise?
The Problem of Correct Interpretations of Reality

Phenomenologists deny the possibility of any final or completely correct interpretations since such would presuppose that we had direct knowledge of an ultimate reality. But we do not; our interpretations, far from being certain, remain open to alternatives in meaning. What most of us term a correct interpretation is not based upon external, objective laws or truths that have been universally ascertained. Rather, our judgement is influenced, to a great degree, by consensus viewpoints agreed upon by a group of individuals, or by a whole culture.
If we return to my example of the person suffering from paranoid delusions and deliberate upon the issue phenomenologically, we would note that, like that person, we have also carried out an act of interpretation that led to an imposed meaning upon our experience. We are likely to have assumed, for instance, that our experience is in some way normal, that our perceptive faculties are in some way superior, more in touch with what we have labelled reality, than those of the person suffering from paranoid delusions. Our studies, our background, our teachings and lessons as counselling or clinical psychologists and psychotherapists, have given us the knowledge to interpret behaviour as being normal or abnormal; it is this knowledge that now makes meaningful for us the extraordinary behaviour of this person. Our stance assumes that our conclusions are not based upon interpretations of reality but are accurate reflections of objective reality. Phenomenologists would argue that such a stance is likely to prevent useful, constructive communication and interaction with our paranoid patient. Indeed, initially at least, our dismissal of his interpretation would almost certainly lead him to be further convinced of the correctness of his stance. This is not to say that phenomenologically-oriented psychotherapists would not initiate some form of intervention. However, as I will seek to show in Chapter 8, any such interventions would not be based upon mistaken assumptions concerning correct interpretations of reality. A phenomenological view does not deny that, to some degree, many of us do, indeed, partially share similar interpretations of reality. Important research demonstrating just how much we do share in our mental frameworks and models of experience is available in abundance and is not being discounted nor disputed. Indeed, phenomenologists place equal importance upon structured investigations that seek to clarify our understanding of the interpretative invariant structures shared by all members of our species. From a phenomenological perspective, it is these invariant structures that provide the foundational bases upon, or set of conditions through which, our unique interpretations of reality are formed. All that is being argued for now is that, regardless of how singular or generally shared our interpretations of the world may seem to be, they remain interpretations.
Meaningless Experience
Any behaviour that at first appears to us as being inexplicable, or meaningless, is disturbing to us; it is a basic aversive stimulus. Its meaning must be uncovered so that, in our ability to explain, we can relax mentally. So long as the meaning or explanation we provide for our experience is suitable or acceptable to us as an explanation, it will be able to remove or, at least, reduce the disturbance we experience.
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Let me provide an example in order to make this point as clear as I can. Imagine that you are looking at a surrealist painting. Let us say it is that famous painting Time Transfixed by Magritte which, among other things, depicts a train emerging from a fireplace. Looking at it, the first question that springs to mind might be: what is this painting about? What does it mean? In an attempt to answer this question, you might construct any number of hypotheses and theories that focus on the symbolic significance of the objects in the painting. You might conclude for example, that the train represented Magrittes penis, that the fireplace in some way evoked memories in Magritte of his mother, and of his relationship with her, and that, therefore, the painting was an expression of a universal Oedipal complex. Alternatively, you might approach the problem from another angle. You might argue that the painting was, in fact, about the role of perspective in Western art, and that this was Magrittes attempt to explain its rules in the most original of ways. Whatever the explanation would be (and there have been many forthcoming!), in the end, your conclusions as to the meaning of the painting would be dependent on which interpretations were satisfactory enough to reduce the tension you experienced as a result of your confrontation with meaninglessness. Let me take things a step further. What would happen if you were unable to provide a satisfactory or acceptable meaning to your experience? Imagine now that, instead of looking at a painting by Magritte, you are standing in front of an abstract painting, and that, like many people, you dislike abstract art. When asked why, you explain that its because you dont understand it, or because you dont know what its supposed to mean, or because you cant see why abstract painters dont employ figurative elements with which to make their statements. All you see are colours and vague shapes that have no meaning. Due to the growing anxiety and irritation that this meaningless experience evokes, you might declare that abstract art is, in some way, less acceptable, or less worthy, than figurative art. Indeed, you might go so far as to declare that it might not be art at all and, hence, that your inability to find its meaning is because there is no meaning to it to begin with. This conclusion would itself be a meaningful explanation and, if accepted, would remove or reduce the tension being experienced. Alternatively, you might conclude that there was, indeed, a meaning to the painting but that you were incapable, at this point in time, of discerning it. The assumption of a currently hidden meaning open to future revelation would be enough to reduce tension, at least temporarily. Meaning, then, is implicit in our experience of reality. We cannot tolerate meaninglessness. Through a variety of in-built species invariants and experientially derived mental frameworks, we attempt to stamp our experiences with meaning. Once again, however, it is important to remember that, whatever the meaning arrived at, it cannot be concluded that it is a final true or correct reflection of reality.
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Subjective versus Objective Reality

At this point, readers might well be concerned that the phenomenological argument is leading to the conclusion that reality is a purely subjective process. That is, that nothing other than mental constructs exists. Is this what phenomenologists conclude? The recurring controversy concerning the separation between external reality and subjective consciousness, and how the two might interact within each of us, has plagued Western philosophy and psychology for centuries. For some, objects exist independent of the mind; for others, nothing exists other than the mind. Psychologists and philosophers have tended to side with one viewpoint or the other. To rephrase this issue phenomenologically, we can say that we are concerned with the difference, if any, between the appearance of things and what those things actually are (that is, the things themselves). Initially, it was the stated aim of transcendental phenomenology to examine, expose and separate any such differences. If phenomenologists could find the true things themselves, that is, the ultimate reality that was separate and independent from our mind, then they could tell us what objective reality truly was. The rallying cry of early transcendental phenomenologists was: To the things themselves! By this, they made it absolutely clear (at least to other philosophers) that their aim was to set out the means by which the ultimate, true nature of reality would be disclosed. It should come as no surprise that they were unable to fulfil this aim. Modern phenomenology admits that it cannot tell us what the true nature of reality is, nor will it ever be able to do so. Indeed, it argues that no human-created system be it scientific or philosophical will ever be able to do so. Still, though phenomenologists cannot provide us with an answer to this question, their attempts to clarify and examine experienced, or phenomenal, reality provide a resolution to the continuing debate concerning objective and subjective reality that is, I believe, both simple and elegant.
Phenomenologys Stance on the Problem of Reality

As an example of phenomenologys proposal regarding the problem of reality, let me pose yet another art-related hypothetical situation. Imagine that you are in an art gallery walking past a series of paintings that hang from one of its walls. Imagine that you are attracted to one particular painting and stop in front of it in order to pay it closer attention. Perhaps you focus upon a certain element that intrigues you, or note the title of the painting, the name of its painter, and so on. You might even say something like: this is the painting that Ive been meaning to see for years, but have seen
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only in textbooks, and now I can see the real thing. Eventually, having satisfied yourself, you move away and walk on to the next painting. What happens to the painting? Does it continue to exist as it did when you perceived it? Or is that particular perceived painting no longer in existence? Phenomenologists would begin to answer the question by pointing out that the painting has physical substance. There is clearly some kind of raw matter which acts as stimulus to our sensory-based perceptions of the painting. At a macroscopic level, we could argue that the painting was made up, to some extent, of the wood that forms its frame, of the canvas, of the oils, the pigment and so forth. This is its raw material. Although what that material might actually be in any ultimate atomic, or sub-atomic, sense remains unknown, whatever reality that painting has lies in this raw stimulus matter. However, phenomenologists would also argue that the painting that you perceived, indeed the painting that anyone perceives and from which then walks away, can never be perceived again in exactly the same way as it was initially perceived. Even though the painting in its raw state continues to exist, insofar as the basic materials that make it up continue to exist, the perceived painting exists in the way it does only at that moment of perception. What phenomenologists propose, then, is that our experience of reality is always made up of an interaction between the raw matter of the world, whatever that may be, and what might be broadly called our mental faculties. We never perceive only raw matter; just as, similarly, we never perceive pure or raw mental phenomena. We always experience the interpreted reality that emerges from the interaction or inter-relatedness between the two. Each of us, as a representative of our species, develops, both through maturational processes and through social experience, increasingly complex mental frameworks (or schemata, as some developmental and cognitive psychologists might label them) through which we interpret and respond to the raw stimuli that bombard our senses. As members of the human species, we share the same psycho-biological processes and mechanisms the invariant structures mentioned before that serve as the common underlying givens through which life experiences are interpreted. At the same time, each of us is subject to any number of specific and individual events and circumstances that make up our own distinctive and particular life experiences. Through the combination of the two, each of us constructs a unique interpretation of the world. To return to my example of the painting you perceived in the art gallery, the viewpoint just outlined would argue that your experience of the painting was shaped both by species shared interpretational structures and by those specific and unique interpretative tendencies or biases that reflect and express to your particular life experiences. Indeed, should you return to it at another point in time, your experience of the painting
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would not (and could not) be the same as it was in the first instance, since in returning to it you would now be adding to your previous schema for that painting and, through this fresh experience, you would be altering its previous context and relations. While as a species we share those mechanisms that provide the means by which we can interpret reality, our actual interpretations of reality can be seen to be not only unique, but also can be shown to be plastic or open to re-interpretation in their meaning.
The Raw Matter of Reality

Our contemporary scientific hypotheses as to the ultimate make-up, or reality, of the raw matter of the world are principally dependent upon our current theories of physics. As advanced as they may be, these theories remain incomplete and undergo continual and major revision. Much to their credit, a substantial number of physicists have pointed out that physics, like all other sciences, is subject to the mental faculties of the individuals who have provided its theories. As such, whatever physics has to say today, or will ever state, about the raw matter of the universe cannot be final or categorical since physics is itself tainted with the experiential biases and limitations of all-too-human theoreticians. This conclusion can be seen to be in keeping with the phenomenological view of reality. There is a physical reality which remains separate from our consciousness, and which, in this sense, can be labelled objective reality. Equally, however, we do not have direct access to that reality, nor can we, in any sense, ever know it as it actually is. All we can do is acknowledge its existence and construct theories that might provide approximations of its nature and mechanics. In the end, however, we are forced to concede its mystery.
Edmund Husserl and the Development of Phenomenology

The acknowledged founder of the philosophical school known to us as phenomenology was the German philosopher Edmund Husserl (Smith and Woodruff Smith, 1995). Husserl was born in 1859, in Moravia (now the Czech Republic), which was, at the time, an annexed state of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Husserls initial academic interests lay in mathematics and the natural sciences, including psychology. Indeed, while a student at Leipzig, he attended a series of lectures given by Wilhelm Wundt, a leading proponent of experimental psychology, but found them to be distinctly unimpressive. If anything, Husserl emerged from these lectures even more convinced that mathematics was far more worthy of
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his attention and interest. He continued studying mathematics in both Berlin and Vienna where his dissertation on mathematical problems led to a PhD in 1883. Although he returned briefly to Berlin, by 1884 he was back in Vienna where, under the growing influence of the philosopher Franz Brentano, he began to engage in studies that would interest him for the remainder of his life. Brentanos lectures (which, incidentally, were also attended by the young Sigmund Freud and played an intriguing role in the eventual development of psychoanalysis (McGrath, 1986)) revolutionized Husserls thought. Central to Brentanos philosophy was a key idea that would eventually become known as intentionality. As I will discuss later, this term remains the central assumption of phenomenology. So influential was Brentanos philosophy upon Husserl, that it is generally acknowledged to be the principal forerunner of the phenomenological movement. Indeed, Husserl (1965) specifically declared his indebtedness to Brentano by referring to him as his one and only teacher of philosophy. On a more personal level, Husserls strong missionary zeal in promoting the ideas of phenomenology was a direct outcome of Brentanos influence (possibly because the latter, who had initially trained to enter the priesthood, was by all accounts a charismatic lecturer). Though they would eventually part company intellectually (Brentano could not accept or, perhaps, appreciate a number of Husserls ideas), the two men remained friends for life. Husserl was appointed Full Professor of Philosophy at the University of Freiburg in 1916; he would remain there until his enforced eviction by the Nazis. During these years, and for the remainder of his academic career, he wrote extensively on phenomenology and gave lectures on it in London, Prague, Vienna and Paris. His principal assistant at Freiburg was Martin Heidegger, who later succeeded him in the post and who would himself provide pivotal contributions to phenomenological theory. Husserl died in Freiburg in 1938.
Phenomenologys Fundamental Issues

In his attempt to explore and examine how we construct our reality, Husserl provided phenomenological psychology with two fundamental principles: the notion of intentionality as the basis to all mental experience, and the noematic and noetic foci of intentionality as shapers of our experience. Intentionality For Husserl (1931a; 1931b) the basis to all our meaning-based constructs of the world lay in the fundamental inter-relationship between consciousness and reality (or the world) which he labelled intentionality.
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The term intentionality is taken from the Latin intendere, which translates as to stretch forth. Franz Brentano (1995) first alluded to the idea of intentionality in order to clarify his assertion that a real physical world exists outside our consciousness and that, as such, all consciousness is always directed towards the real world in order to interpret it in a meaningful manner. Husserl adapted Brentanos idea by arguing that, for human beings, consciousness is always consciousness of some thing in that the most basic interpretative act of human consciousness is to experience the world in terms of objects, or things (Gurwitsch, 1966; 1982). For instance, if I am conscious that I am worried, then I am worried about some thing; if I am confused, I am confused about some thing; if I react, I react to some thing; and so forth. Even if I did not know what the specific thing was, or even if the thing to which I reacted was imaginary, my attention would focus upon the eventual identification of some thing. We have no idea whether things in themselves truly exist. All we can say is that, as human beings, we are biased toward interpretations that are centred upon an object-based or thing-based world. Whatever sense we make of the world is intentionally derived. Our earliest, most primitive relations and interpretative interactions rely upon the object distinctions we establish and build up over time. The process of intentionality points out that, as humans, we never have direct access to, or knowledge of, the real world as it is. Since ours is an object world, it can be stated that, even at the most basic level of consciousness, an interpretative act has occurred. Through intentionality, the sensory data at our disposal, which respond to the unknown stimuli emanating from the physical world, undergo a basic, unavoidable translation or interpretation that leads us to respond to the stimuli as if they were objects. When phenomenologists speak of intentionality as the mind stretching forth into the world and translating its stimuli into phenomenal objects, they are presenting (in spite of the scientific awkwardness of their language) an argument which is both profound and, unfortunately, not always easy to grasp. Perhaps a simple example will clarify their point. Imagine that you are directing your attention to an object, say, a television set. As we have already seen, the meaning you have given to that object, the functions you ascribe to it, the interest in or pleasure you desire from it and so forth are dependent upon various experiential sociocultural variables through which you have set your mental framework, or schema, for a television set. As such, your knowledge that what you see before you is a television set is not the straightforward result of your direct access to external reality but rather, has come about through a complex of interpretations linked to your experience of, and dealings with, the world. The object a television set is a phenomenal object. As such, you might now rightly ask: well, what is this object (which I have labelled a television set) really? If I were capable of setting aside,
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or bracketing, all the additional meanings and functions that Ive invested upon it, what would be left? Unfortunately, your question cannot be answered in any complete or final sense. Phenomenologists argue that it will never be possible for us to know the ultimate reality of any object, be it a television set or whatever else, precisely because we are limited by the intentional relationship through which we experience an object world. The very question What would be left?, in its reference to some thing, makes clear the intentional boundaries in our experience. Through the term intentionality, then, phenomenologists point out a basic invariant relationship that exists between the real world and our conscious experience of it. Unable to bracket this relationship, we are forced to acknowledge, through it, the undeniable role of interpretation that lies at the heart of all our mental experience. At its most basic level of understanding, intentionality is simply the referential or directed nature of consciousness. All consciousness, Husserl writes over and over, is consciousness of some thing. At this level of understanding, intentionality is a descriptive term for that most basic of our world-interpreting processes. In this sense, intentionality refers to the first, most basic interpretative mental act that of translating the unknown raw stimuli of the real world, to which our senses have responded, into an object-based (or thing-based) reality. At a deeper, and more significant level however, intentionality has been described as the foundational correlational rule of phenomenology (Ihde, 1998). In this sense it can be seen that intentionality takes account of the interrelatedness and interdependence of what in a modern empiricist tradition has been called subject and object. From the standpoint of Husserlian intentionality, neither term makes sense in and of itself, and neither term can, in fact, emerge as meaningful if isolated from the other. Intentioanlity argues that subject and object co-constitute, or bring meaning to, one another (Ihde, 1998).
Noema and Noesis The phenomenological notion of intentionality points out that we carry out a basic (and invariant) interpretational step of translating the unknown stimuli of the world into things, or objects. Intentionality, then, can be seen to focus consciousness initially on some thing in the world (regardless of what that thing may actually be in its real state). Husserl suggested that every act of intentionality was made up of two experiential foci, or correlational poles (Ihde, 1986a and b: 43), which he labelled noema and noesis (Husserl, 1929; 1931a; 1931b; 1948/1973). For what is experienced, as experienced, he used the term noema or noematic correlate, and for the mode of experiencing he used the term noesis or noetic correlate (Ihde, 1986a and b: 43). Noema, then, refers to the directional element of experience; it is the object (the what) towards which we direct our attention
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and upon which we focus. Noesis, on the other hand, is the referential element of experience; it is the mode (the how) through which we define an object. As the American philosopher Don Ihde (1986a: 43) points out: this internal correlation within experience may seem trivial and obvious if I experience at all, I experience something and in some way. As a simple example of the different emphases given by the noematic and noetic constituents, consider the following situation. Two individuals are attending a political rally. They both hear a speaker presenting a speech dealing with nuclear disarmament and taking the stance that unilateral disarmament would be a serious and dangerous error. The first individual agrees with the speakers sentiments and claps loudly and enthusiastically at the conclusion of the talk. The second individual, sympathetic to unilateral disarmament, becomes increasingly irritated by the arguments being presented and boos the speaker at the end of the speech. The noematic focus, that is, the what of the experience, is made up from the content, or argument, of the speech heard by each individual. The noetic focus, on the other hand, contains those referential elements dealing with how each individuals various cognitive and affective biases add further elements of meaning to the experience. Together, the noematic and noetic foci lead each individual to interpret the experience of the political rally in a different and unique manner, and, as a consequence, to respond to it in their disparate ways. There is a tendency within psychology to obscure or minimize the significance of this correlation either by focusing exclusively upon the noematic focus or by minimizing the unique experiential variables that add to any individuals noetic focus. This may be due to the fact that although we can, in theory, distinguish between the noetic and noematic foci, in practice the two are not fully distinct from one another. None of us can approach any experience in our life, past or present, without instantaneously evoking both foci. For instance, were I to ask you to remember any experience from your past, whatever it was that you remembered would not be merely the events contained in that experience, that is, its items (the noema), but, in addition, the way you today claim to have experienced them (the noesis). As a result of clarifying the noematic and noetic foci in all intentional acts, the phenomenological assertion that all experiences are, at best, only partially shareable should become clearer. Human species-shared invariant interpretational givens may well provide a partial similarity in separate individuals experiences. Nevertheless, the foci (particularly the noetic focus) retain individually-determined variables that limit the extent to which any experience can be said to be shared between individuals. It may appear initially to readers that phenomenological psychologists are interested only in the unique and unshareable differences in each individuals experience of the world. This would be a mistaken conclusion and should not be seen to be either explicitly or implicitly minimizing or invalidating the great number of important studies dealing with the shared
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and invariant structural features of human experience. Nevertheless, phenomenologists are at pains to point out that, although there may well be a substantial degree of shareability in our experiences, there remain a variety of factors which, ultimately, point to the uniqueness in each individuals experience. To employ an analogy from nature, although the structure of all snowflakes is determined by the same six rules, each emergent snowflake retains a unique design. It is simply because experimental research in science (and in psychology in particular) has tended to focus upon the study of shared features and has either dismissed or diminished the importance of the unshared variables in experience that phenomenologists emphasize the latter in their studies. It is not because unique factors in themselves hold greater significance; phenomenologists are simply redressing the balance and, in so doing, are increasing the adequacy of our theories. All mental acts, then, can be seen to be intentional. Our consciousness is always object-directed or of some thing. This most basic of interpretative acts always contains two foci the noematic focus which directs our experience towards some thing, and the referential, or noetic, focus which provides the broadly attitudinal mode through which we experience some thing. Consider, as an example, this very book which you are currently reading. Through intentionality, the (primarily) visual and tactile sensory responses to the unknown raw matter are experienced in terms of some thing or object. Through the noematic and noetic foci, that object is not only further interpreted as a book, but is also referentially defined in any number of ways (for example, the book is easy/difficult, interesting/boring, important/ insignificant and so on). As a phenomenal object, the book each of us experiences is a product of both shared and unshared variables; via the noematic and noetic constituents of our intentional inter-relationship with the book, each of us experiences a unique approximation of what it may really be. Further, the impact of subsequent lived experience will affect the relative openness or plasticity of either or both of these constituents such that, over time, each of us may experience alternative unique approximations of what the book may be. Finally, as will be discussed in later chapters, this same inter-relation serves to provide each of us with a unique approximation of who the I who experiences the book may be. The concept of intentionality, and its noematic and noetic foci, led Husserl to the development of a specific approach designed to clarify the interpretational factors contained within every experience. This approach has since become usually referred to as the phenomenological method. Just what the phenomenological method consists of and what its implications may be for psychologically related issues is the principal concern of the following chapter.
2 The Phenomenological Method
The idea had occurred to me that maybe what we see is not real. That it is somehow I dont know what the alternative to real is... Theres a state of things being semi-real. Philip K. Dick
Husserls initial analyses led him to conclude that our experience of the world is a unique intentional construct containing both directional (noematic) and referential (noetic) foci. On this basis, he argued, it was to be the principal task of phenomenology to find the means to strip away, as far as possible, the plethora of interpretational layers added to the unknown stimuli to our experience in order to arrive at a more adequate, if still approximate and incomplete, knowledge of the things themselves. In order to achieve this aim, Husserl proposed a phenomenological method of investigation which could be applied to all analyses of experience. This method became the primary basis for all conclusions arrived at by transcendental phenomenologists. Though clearly of central importance to phenomenology in general, its primary value to phenomenological psychology differs slightly from the original function ascribed to it by Husserl, who sought to employ the method in order to strip away the variants of experience and so to arrive at a clearer understanding of its invariants. Phenomenologically oriented psychologists (among others who seek to apply a phenomenological orientation to their respective fields), on the other hand, apply the phenomenological method for the principal purpose of identifying and clarifying the variables, or variants, of experience so that they may be more adequately controlled as far as may be possible in the variety of studies undertaken by the different systems in psychology, and, also, so that their role in influencing (and limiting) the interpretations and conclusions arrived at by psychologists may be made more explicit. Because this text deals with the phenomenological orientation within psychology, my account of the phenomenological method will limit its focus on this latter concern. Whatever its primary goal, however, the phenomenological method is carried out in much the same way. As a way of discussing its principal implications, it can be considered as being composed of three distinguishable, though interrelated, steps (Grossmann, 1984; Ihde, 1986a, 1986b).
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Step A: The Rule of Epoch

The first step has become known as the rule of epoch. This rule urges us to set aside our initial biases and prejudices of things, to suspend our expectations and assumptions, in short, to bracket all such temporarily and as far as is possible so that we can focus on the primary and immediate data of our experience. In other words, the rule of epoch urges us to impose an openness on our immediate experience (what I have termed as un-knowing elsewhere (Spinelli, 1997) so that our subsequent interpretations of it may prove to be more adequate). For example, imagine that you are about to meet someone for the first time and that you have been told certain things about this person by others so that, even before your meeting, you have built up a number of expectations and reservations about the person. Chances are that your eventual initial experience of that person will have been already set and constrained by these biases. And, as is often the case under these circumstances, your judgements and conclusions about the person may well turn out to be both inadequate and imbalanced. On the other hand, were you to follow the first step of the phenomenological method, you would attempt to bracket these biases as far as was possible for you so that you had more of an open mind about the person and so that your subsequent conclusions would be based more upon your immediate and unbiased experience of the person rather than upon prior assumptions and expectations. Nonetheless, as phenomenologists themselves have pointed out repeatedly (Merleau-Ponty, 1962; 1964) no final or complete act of bracketing can ever be achieved, nor should we trust any claim to have done so. Even so, while it remains impossible for us to bracket all biases and assumptions, we are certainly capable of bracketing a substantial number of them. In addition, even when bracketing is not likely or feasible, the very recognition of bias lessens its impact upon our immediate experience.
Step B: The Rule of Description

The second step in the phenomenological method is known as the rule of description. The essence of this rule is: describe, dont explain. Having opened up to the possibilities contained in our immediate experience as far as is possible through the rule of epoch, we are now urged not to place another type of limitation upon our experience by immediately trying to explain or make sense of it in terms of whatever theories or hypotheses we may tend towards. Instead, the rule of description urges us to remain initially focused on our immediate and concrete impressions and to maintain a level of analysis with regard to these experiences which takes description rather than
The phenomenological method
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theoretical explanation or speculation as its point of focus. Rather than step back from our immediate experience so that we may instantly explain it, transform it, question it or deny it on the basis of preconceived theories or hypotheses which stand separate from our experience, the following of the rule of description allows us to carry out a concretely based descriptive examination of the intentional variables which make up our experience. What value might there be in adopting this step? As an example, consider the hypochondriac who, worried over his health, immediately responds to any variety of somatic experiences by imposing (often incapacitatory) misinterpretations which are dependent upon the medical hypotheses at his disposal. From a phenomenological perspective, a hypochondriac is an individual who has failed to apply the rule of description because, rather than seek to describe his somatic experience in concrete terms, he jumps to abstract, disease-model explanations and theories which provoke levels of anxiety which may well be as debilitating as his hypothetical illness. In keeping with the conclusions regarding the inherent limits of the first step of the phenomenological method, phenomenologists have pointed out that similar limits exist for the second step as well. A purely descriptive account remains an impossibility since no description is altogether free of explanatory components. Hence, the rule of description aspires to an ideal that cannot be achieved. Nevertheless it seems reasonable to me to argue that explanations may be seen to run along a continuum ranging from concrete descriptive to abstract analytical. The former are derived from and specific to any immediate sensory-based experience; the latter are conceptual generalizations which seek to explain or make an experience meaningful within the boundaries of a set theory or hypothesis.
Step C: The Rule of Horizontalization (the Equalization Rule)

The third step in the phenomenological method is known either as the rule of horizontalization or, alternatively, as the equalization rule. Having stuck to an immediate experience which we seek to describe, this rule further urges us to avoid placing any initial hierarchies of significance or importance upon the items of our descriptions, and instead to treat each initially as having equal value or significance. In the act of simply reporting in a descriptive manner what is consciously being experienced while avoiding any hierarchical assumptions with regard to the items of description, we are better able to examine an experience with far less prejudice and with a much greater degree of adequacy. In a sense, phenomenologists urge us to treat each bit of initial experience as if we have been given the task of piecing together some gigantic jigsaw puzzle without the prior knowledge of what image the completed
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puzzle depicts. In such a situation, it is clear that we cannot say from the outset that any one piece of the jigsaw is any more important or valid than any other, and so, initially at least, if we are to succeed in our task, we must treat each piece as having equal significance. In the same way, phenomenologists argue that if we are to embark on any worthwhile attempt to make sense of the gigantic jigsaw puzzle that is our mental experience of the world, we must, as far as is possible, avoid making immediate, misleading, hierarchically based judgements. Once again, no complete or fully-realized horizontalization of phenomena is possible. Nonetheless, the attempt at horizontalization permits a means whereby we may refrain from imposing questionable and biased hierarchies of significance upon our investigations, or at the very least, allowing ourselves a greater degree of caution in adhering too closely or uncritically to the immediate hierarchies that we may have imposed upon our investigation from its earliest stages.
The Practice of the Phenomenological Method

Taken together the three steps outlined above make up the phenomenological method. It should now be clearer that while the metaphor of steps was a useful means by which the phenomenological method could be presented, the method itself should not be understood as following a one-twothree step approach. Indeed, each step is, more accurately, a particular point of focus that is taken, rather than an entirely independent activity that can be wholly distinguished from the remaining two. Nonetheless, as an initial means by which to train oneself to adopt a more adequate phenomenological attitude towards an investigation, the three steps serve a useful introductory function. As I will argue in subsequent chapters of this text, when applied to psychological and psychotherapeutic concerns the method provides significant contributions and important clarificatory insights. For the moment, however, to ensure that the reader has understood the phenomenological method, I want to provide two straightforward examples in order to demonstrate how it might be applied in any experience. As my first example, I will outline a personal experience from my prephenomenological past which demonstrates the problems that might be encountered when not applying the phenomenological method. A number of years ago, a friend phoned me up in a state of deep distress. She explained that shed just broken up with a long-standing boyfriend, was feeling miserable and wanted a shoulder to cry on. I, dutifully, obliged. Towards the end of our conversation, I happened to remind her that wed both been invited to a mutual friends party that night and that going to it might be the best thing for her. She said shed think it over, thanked me and hung up. I thought no more about her until that night when, upon entering the apartment where the party was being held, I saw her sitting in the middle
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of a small group of close friends. I couldnt hear what she was saying, but her facial expression and her body movements suggested to me that she was in a highly agitated state. Certainly, everyone around her seemed to be closely monitoring her every word and action. Suddenly, the girl erupted into a series of excited, spastic movements, grimaced and let out a loud wail. As I moved closer to her, I noticed that shed begun to shed tears. Now thoroughly convinced that she was, once more, deeply upset, I rushed to her side, hugged her close to me, and offered words of condolence and endearment which I hoped would allow her to regain control of herself. Imagine my shock when, in response, the girl looked up at me with some surprise and indignation and asked whatever was the matter with me and just what was I going on about. Looking round at the others in the circle, I noticed for the first time that most of them also had tears streaming down their faces and that, more importantly, they too were looking at me as if they couldnt make sense of my behaviour. Eventually, the situation was straightened out. I discovered that, contrary to my initial assumption, the girl had not become emotionally upset once more, but, rather, had just finished telling the group a particularly funny joke which had sent her, and most members of the circle, into paroxysms of unrestrained laughter which, not unexpectedly, had provoked tears. What had I done to interpret the situation in such an inadequate fashion? Firstly, I had biased my initial sighting of the girl with my preconceptions and hypotheses as to how she must be feeling under the circumstances in other words, I had failed to bracket my beliefs and assumptions. Secondly, I had sought out an immediate explanation for the general behaviour I observed her enacting. Rather than pay closer attention to what she was actually doing, I had formulated a theory based on my assumptions that made sense of her behaviour. Thirdly, I had singled out certain variables those which fitted my theory and bestowed on them significance and importance, while, at the same time, I had neglected to consider or had minimized other variables, such as the fact that other members of the group had responded to the jokes denouement in ways highly similar to the girls, because these did not fit my interpretation of events. Had I, instead, followed the steps of the phenomenological method and bracketed my beliefs and assumptions, restrained myself from applying impulsive explanations and, instead, concentrated on the immediate data of experience, and treated each, initially, as having equal value or significance, I might well have arrived at a different conclusion and prevented myself from suffering unnecessary embarrassment. As a second example, I want to focus on how the phenomenological method can influence more imaginative, not to say imaginary, interpretations of experiences. Consider the following situation. You are on holiday in the country. After a very pleasant evening meal at a local restaurant, you start to make your way home. Walking down the deserted country lane, you come to a stretch of road with overhanging branches; because of
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the abundance of vegetation on either side of the path, it is particularly dark. Half-wishing you werent alone, you quicken your steps. Suddenly, you hear a noise. Is it the sound of footsteps following you? Could it be some wild animal? Have you really stopped believing in ghosts and ghouls? Or is the noise simply the sound of twigs and leaves being displaced either by the wind or by your own footsteps? What would you do were you to follow the phenomenological method in order to make sense of your experience? Firstly, you would attempt to set aside any immediate biases or beliefs which might predispose you towards any one particular meaning or explanation of the event. Instead, you would, for the time being, remain open to any number of alternatives, neither rejecting any one as being out of hand, nor placing a greater or lesser degree of likelihood on the options available. Initially, youd be open to all possibilities. Secondly, in having opened yourself to all possibilities, your focus of attention is forced to shift away from theoretical explanations (since, for the moment, no one explanation is more adequate than any other) and, instead, must attend to the items of your immediate experience so that, through them, you might eventually have the possibility of putting your options to the test. As such, your task becomes one of describing the events of your experience as concretely as possible. For example, you might note that there is a wind tonight and that it is strong enough to be felt passing through your hair; you might also note that there are plenty of dry, fallen leaves upon the path and that the sound they make when being stepped on is reminiscent of the sound that initially startled you; equally, you might note that the stillness of the night allows you to make out the laughter and even some of the words of people who are still in the restaurant. Item by item, then, you build up a store of concrete information based upon your immediate experience. Thirdly, having collected together a sufficient variety of items, it remains necessary for you to avoid placing any greater or lesser significance or value on each of them and, instead, to treat each, initially, as having equal importance. If you did not do so, you might skew your eventual conclusion so that it proved to be far less adequate than it might have been. In other words, the sound of distant voices, for instance, is initially no more significant a clue than is the crackling sound of dry leaves. Once you have followed the three steps, you are able to arrive at an explanation of your experience whose adequacy (or correctness) rests upon data closely derived from your immediate experience and not upon abstract, biased speculation. Your explanatory conclusion may emerge all at once, as in insight learning, or, alternatively, may come about slowly through the process of elimination of one possible explanation after another on the basis of its ability to make sense of each accumulated item of experience. Whatever the case, in the following of the phenomenological method, the eventual explanations or conclusions we arrive at, as well as any subsequent action we might initiate, can be seen to be more adequate (or, loosely
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speaking, veering towards correctness) in that they are primarily based upon data derived as closely as possible from direct experience. The phenomenological method seeks to avoid the imposing of set beliefs, biases, explanatory theories and hypotheses upon our experience either at the very start of any examination or before it becomes useful to do so. Clearly, there can be no fixed point at which we can say that enough data have been accumulated and theories can now be initiated. Indeed, it is evident that some degree of theoretical speculation exists in even the most descriptive accounts of experience. Nevertheless, this limitation does not diminish the power of the phenomenological method. For the concern is not so much that we theorize, but that we typically fix upon a theory and derive our explanations and subsequent actions from its (often inadequate) conclusions. In general, the application of the phenomenological method allows all experiences to be considered as initially valid. Phenomenologists have labelled this consequence the inclusionary/exclusionary rule (Ihde, 1986a). This rule states that in our exclusion of any initial judgements and biases, we are including an openness, or receptivity, in all our experiences. Similarly, the following of the phenomenological method forces us, in the initial stages of investigation, to treat all experiences as being equally real or valid, so that they may be exposed to examination. This equal reality rule (Ihde, 1986a) can only be applied temporarily since it has no fixed end-point and, as such, all investigations must, at some point or other, set a pragmatic limit to its application. Nevertheless, in being willing to follow this rule to some extent, investigators reduce the likelihood of imposing unnecessary judgements or biases on their initial observations. In doing so, they increase the adequacy of their conclusions. The practice of the phenomenological method, at the very least, minimizes our tendency to rely exclusively upon any one theory throughout the whole of our investigation. Equally, in its claim to lead us not to correct or final conclusions, but, rather, towards increasingly adequate approximations or probabilities, it allows for a theoretical flexibility and openmindedness which is in keeping with the ideology if not the practice of science. Upon consideration, it should become evident that the phenomenological method should be the basic rule of any form of structured enquiry not least scientific enquiry. While psychologists might argue that this is indeed the case, I suspect that while it may be so in principle, in practice it is quite another matter. Indeed, I would suggest that the application of the phenomenological method reveals important weaknesses in the various systems of contemporary psychology. Since each system is committed initially and primarily to a specific theory and/or methodology, its tendency is to fix upon those variables which it deems to possess significance because they validate its theory and/or methodology and to minimize the significance of those variables which suggest inadequacies and limitations in the theory and/ or methodology. I will discuss this point at greater length in later chapters.
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Consequences of the Phenomenological Method

Husserl initially developed the phenomenological method in order that it might be applied as a means of resolving a number of fundamental philosophical issues. A discussion of many of these lies outside the scope of this text. Nevertheless, the use of the method led to several consequences which have direct relevance for a variety of psychological concerns. It is to these that we must now turn our attention. Straightforward versus Reflective Experience If we analyse the manner in which we experience any event from a phenomenological standpoint, we discover that, typically, we both combine and confound the experience of an event with the meaningful account or explanation that we give to it. The differences between the two are so rarely considered that we commonly assume them to be part and parcel of a unitary experience. However, through the process of bracketing in order to carry out the phenomenological method, we are led to a singular and inescapable discovery: in the process of any experience taking place, no explanation or description can be given; it is only once the experience has occurred that we may both describe and explain it to some degree of adequacy. Nevertheless, the experience itself, as it takes place, stands outside the realm of description or explanation. We cannot describe any experience as it occurs, but only after it has occurred. For example, were I to state: tell me what is happening to you right now, you would note several important invariants in your attempted response to my question. First, whatever your response, the event to which it alluded would have already occurred. The now experience you report is already a past event. No matter how much you tried, you could not experience an event and describe your experience of it simultaneously. Further, whatever your response, it would be both partial and incomplete. You could not ever tell me everything that you had experienced in that now moment for several reasons. Firstly, at any point in time, your senses are being bombarded by so many different stimuli that the vast majority would remain below your threshold of awareness. Secondly, even if it were possible for you eventually to become aware of each of these stimuli, it would probably take you the rest of your life to report them and, even then, your report would almost certainly remain incomplete. Thirdly, you might not have the knowledge or vocabulary to describe all of your experiences. As such, whatever description you gave as your answer would never be as complete as the experience itself. Phenomenological enquiry makes a clear distinction between the experience as it occurs and our interpretations of that experience. The former
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is commonly labelled straightforward experience, while the latter is usually referred to as reflective experience. Straightforward experience is action-based; it is the activity of experience itself as it occurs. As such, straightforward experience is both timeless and ineffable. It is timeless because it always functions in the now of any event. Time only enters when we attempt to describe or explain the experience. Equally, straightforward experience is ineffable. It cannot be talked about directly. Any statement of description or explanation of it occurs subsequent to the experience and is limited by the amount of explanation/ description that is practically possible. On the other hand, when we make various attempts to describe or explain what has been experienced, we enter the realm of reflective experience. Reflective experience requires some kind of system of communication, relies upon notions of time, and is therefore open to measurement. It is through reflective experience that we formulate meaning and construct the various hierarchies of significances contained within those meanings. In doing so, we eliminate from our interpretations of experience any number of variables that form our straightforward experience on the grounds that they are unimportant or unnecessary to communicate or are incommunicable simply because we are unaware of their existence or do not possess the language or means to describe them. Reflective experience allows us to communicate only a minute part of the sum total of any experience. The more commonly-employed psychological term attention might help the reader to grasp the idea being presented. When we attend to an event, we are carrying out a hierarchy of significance through which we decide, on any number of grounds, just what is and is not of significance in our experience. We focus on certain items of experience and exclude others from our focus of attention. Any theory that we care to formulate (including, of course, phenomenological theory) is the result of reflective experience since it is an attempt to provide some hierarchy of significance to any straightforward experience. The Phenomenological I In distinguishing between straightforward and reflective experience, we are led to yet another intriguing implication derived from the phenomenological method. This is concerned with our notion of I our experience of self. Typically when we think about the I in experience, we often start from the assumption that the I is the primary means to an experience, that the I must be present in order for us to experience anything. Our very language is infused with such assumptions. We say, for instance, that I had this experience, or that I am now experiencing this, and so forth. Although it is typical for us to assume that the I must exist so that any experience can occur, phenomenologists question this assumption. They
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point out, for example, that one can note that in a great many experiences the I becomes a conscious presence only once the experience has been completed. This is particularly apparent when we are involved in intense, emotional and/or repetitive behaviour. In activities such as jogging, gardening, carpentry, typing and so on which require repetitious physical movements and an increasing focus on the actions themselves, the subjective experience of I diminishes to the point where there seems to be no I there at all. Indeed, all that there seems to be is the activity itself, just the process of doing wherein any sense of I is temporarily lost. If we consider sexual intercourse, which is both an intense and, in terms of its stimulatory focus, largely repetitive activity, there is, once again, the commonly reported experience of a temporary loss of any ordinary sense of I. For a period of timeless time, at the very height of intensity during the act, all everyday I-related (that is, self-conscious) experience seems to disappear. For some, there is the experience of a total loss of self as a result of an experienced merging of the lovers selves so that there is simply the action taking place. For others, the I seems to become all-encompassing such that the distinction between I and not I (self and others) loses all meaning. In this case, the I seems to become everything, unlimited and, hence, undefinable. It is only once the action has been completed that the I comes once more into focus and begins its meaning-focused assessment of what has just occurred. Husserl noted how minimal the experience of self-consciousness is during such instances (Ihde, 1986a and b). On further reflection, he realized an odd paradox: when we consider the most astounding, the most vital, the most involving experiences in our lives, those times when we felt the most alive, we are likely to find that here, too, the I is minimally self-conscious; indeed, during such times there seems to be little, if any, I-related experience at a reflective level. It is only once the experience has ended, when we return to it in order to give it qualitative and descriptive meaning, that the I takes centre-stage. As such, Husserl argued that self-consciousness is the basic structure of reflective experience. While we undoubtedly can and do remain conscious through many events and experiences that direct us towards a more straightforward-experience-focused way of being, what distinguishes these is the temporary limiting or eradication of reflectivelyfocused meaning making and, with it, the temporary loss of self or inability to distinguish self from other, or the world in general. As a result of the phenomenological method, we are led to an inversion of the typical view we take concerning the role of I in any experience. While we tend to assume, in a commonsensical manner, that the I initiates our experience of things, transcendental phenomenologists posit that in the realm of straightforward experience there is no obvious I, certainly not at a conscious level. It is only when we reflect upon our experience, when we begin to analyse and attempt to make sense of it, that the I appears and takes its central place as the (seeming) originator of experience.
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This major re-analysis of the role of I, or self, in our experience will be explored further in Chapter 5.
I and not I: The Relationship between Self and Others The analysis of the phenomenological I has an immediate implication for the relationship between self and others, since it would seem that the phenomenological argument leads us to question whether any intentionallyconstructed object (including, of course, self and others) truly exists as a separate and distinguishable entity, independent of ones conscious experience of it. That is to say, if our notions of self and others are intentional constructs, it would seem that they, too, cannot be viewed as being experientially independent of one another. Just as the I is a product of reflective experience, so, too, must be others (or, as phenomenologists prefer, not I). Such a conclusion, of course, once again runs counter to our everyday assumptions. Phenomenological theory argues that each of us can be described as a being-in-the-world. We are all beings-in-the-world in the sense that we all share an intentionally derived conscious experience of the world and ourselves, through which we make various distinctions such as those relating to notions of I and not I. Although we are all similar in the sense that we are all beings-in-the-world, each of us experiences being-in-the-world in a unique and unsharable way. Since I and not I are intentional constructs, we cannot say what I and not I actually are in themselves. Each has a basis in material reality, but our experience of I and not I is not a direct experience of the things themselves, but of things as they appear to us we experience phenomenal versions of I and not I. I will attempt to clarify this issue further in Chapters 4 and 5, where I will consider phenomenologys stance on the perception of others and the perception of self in greater detail. For now, what can be stated is that each of us, through intentionality, constructs others, in the sense that we each experience others from a unique and, ultimately unsharable, viewpoint. If, for example, I experience you as being intelligent or unintelligent, as female or male, as short or tall, or as whatever other defining characteristics I might wish to apply, all such characteristics can be seen to be products of my intentional interpretation of you and not of objective factual statements relating to aspects of your being. The example of interpersonal attraction should make this argument obvious. What makes someone attractive to someone else is the result of a unique set of intentionally derived conclusions. The physical features and characteristics that one person focuses upon as being significant determinants of someone elses attractiveness are (thankfully!) open to a great deal of individual variation within which any one conclusion cannot be said to be more correct than the other.
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However, the phenomenological argument does not end here; there is another implicit, and perhaps far more significant, issue concerning the status of others. Upon consideration, it becomes evident that each of us requires the existence of others in order that we may be able to define ourselves. Restated phenomenologically, we would say that the I requires the existence of the not I in order for it (the I) to have any meaningful phenomenal reality. In other words, I can only know who I am by comparing some assumed aspect of myself to that which I have interpreted as existing in others. I cannot, for instance, state whether I am male or female, short or tall, intelligent or unintelligent, overweight or underweight, attractive or unattractive, without undertaking some kind of explicit or implicit comparison between those aspects as perceived in myself and in others. Phenomenologists argue that the variables I and not I are inseparable in that each is equally necessary for the definition of the other. A world in which no separation between I and not I existed would be a unified, identity-less world. It would be a world at a straightforward level of conscious experience. Self consciousness, on the other hand, requires the separation of I and not-I as constructed through reflective experience. Several theoreticians (primarily oriented within the psychoanalytic school (Greenberg and Mitchell, 1983; Stern, 1985)) have argued that, at some point in our early development as human beings, some such split in this unified pre-self-conscious world occurs and leads us to the development of an identity (an I) through the (defensive) comparisons we make with the newly constructed others (the not Is) in our world. This argument, compelling as it is, nevertheless remains open to debate and is difficult to substantiate in any empirical manner. Whether it is ever likely to be proven or disproven is doubtful. Nevertheless, the phenomenological contention that at some point in time (be it anywhere between the moment of fertilization and some time during our infancy) each of us develops notions relating to our concept of I as a result of our interactions with items of our experience which we have categorized as being examples of not I, remains unchallenged. Phenomenological Invariants The mutual definitional dependency between I and not I is a specific example of a more general phenomenologically-derived fixed and unchanging rule, or invariant, of experience known as the figure/ground invariant (Grossman, 1984; Ihde, 1986a, 1986b). I will have much more to say about this invariant in the following chapter, which deals with the perception of objects in more detail. For now, I merely wish to bring the notion of invariants to the readers attention. Many of the insights and conclusions arrived at by phenomenologists that I have outlined in this chapter reveal a number of basic invariants to
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our experience of the world. Intentionality and its noematic and noetic constituents are examples of experiential invariants. Of the two main branches of phenomenology, it is transcendental phenomenology which places particular emphasis upon the examination and analysis of that which remains once the various biases of reflective experience have been transcended, or bracketed, as far as is possible. It employs the phenomenological method in order to arrive at those invariants of experience which (in much the same way as do proven mathematical equations) provide the fixed-rule boundaries which govern all investigations concerned with human experience. Since experiential invariants cannot be removed or bracketed, it is through their discovery that we become aware of the ultimate limitations to our ability to experience things in themselves.
Phenomenological Investigation: A Summary

Phenomenology, like all Western philosophical systems, is concerned with the relationship between the reality which exists outside our minds (objective reality) and the variety of thoughts and ideas each of us may have about reality (subjectivity). How these two variables interact with each other is both the most fundamental and the oldest of philosophical issues. Phenomenology presents a unique perspective on this problem; it argues that we experience the phenomena of the world, rather than its reality. All phenomena experienced by human beings are constructs, formed as a result of the invariant process known as intentionality. Through the inseparable correlational foci of intentionality noema and noesis we interpret the make-up of our phenomenal world and imbue it with unique, constantlyaltering (or plastic) significance and meaning. Even the being whom we think we are, the I, undergoes this continual revolution. Each persons experience of the world undoubtedly contains commonly shared variables. As members of the same species, we have the same innately determined biological mechanisms designed to allow specific interactions with the world. One basic shared or invariant mechanism is that we interpret the unknown material stimuli of the world as things or objects. Similarly, various sociocultural influences tend to set us into mental frameworks, or schemata, which limit the parameters of our experience. Nevertheless, as a result of the unique experiential variables in each of our lives, no individual experience can be fully shared by any two people. In this sense, each of us experiences a unique and solitary phenomenal reality. At its most basic level, phenomenology presents itself as a science of experience. Experience, from a phenomenological perspective, includes within it all mental phenomena, such as wishes, memories, percepts,
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hypotheses, theories as well as their accompanying physical components. By employing a specific approach the phenomenological method phenomenologists attempt to arrive at increasingly adequate (though never complete or final) conclusions concerning our experience of the world. Similarly, through this approach, phenomenologists are able to describe and clarify the invariant structures and limitations that are imposed upon our experiences. Such interests, of course, impinge upon psychological territory. What place is there for a phenomenologically derived approach to psychology? What would be its primary concerns and identifying characteristics?
Phenomenological Psychology
The place to be assigned to psychology in the phenomenological system was a problem that deeply concerned Husserl (1948/1973). However, as much as he was convinced that psychology and phenomenology had a great deal to contribute to each other, Husserl remained a severe critic of contemporary schools of psychology, admitting an inability to follow their literature and revealing a lack of familiarity with the experimental approaches to psychology being initiated in North America and Great Britain. This conflict led Husserl to revise his views on the contributions and relationships between psychology and phenomenology several times and revealed his uncertainty as to the place of either approach with regard to the other (Misiak and Sexton, 1973: 1215). Eventually, it became obvious that the only resolution to this problem was for him to develop an alternative, radical psychology. Husserls lecture notes dating from the years 1925 to 1928 reveal the growing emphasis he placed on this problem. Calling his new system at first rational psychology or eidetic psychology, Husserl eventually settled on the term phenomenological psychology. Husserl argued that the goal of phenomenological psychology was the application of the phenomenological method to psychological enquiry. As such, he theorized that any experimental studies from other psychological approaches could be accommodated to his developing theory. In translating phenomenological philosophy into a psychological system, Husserl loosened some of the aims and strictures which formed the central emphases of his transcendental system. As is now generally agreed (Dreyfus, 1982; Misiak and Sexton, 1973; Valle and King, 1978), phenomenological psychology is principally concerned with the application of the phenomenological method to issues and problems in psychology so that an individuals conscious experience of the world can be more systematically observed and described. Any conscious act such as perception, imagery, memory, emotion and so on falls under the scrutiny of phenomenological investigation. In keeping with the rules of the phenomenological method, the focus of such a psychology is placed on the description (and acceptance) of current experience
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as a result of bracketing as many assumptions, suppositions, theoretical explanations and habitual psychological biases as possible. In its broadest sense, phenomenological psychology is distinguished by its central concern with the issue of intentionality-derived experience and its plethora of self/other-(or world-) focused manifestations. It can be contrasted with those psychologies that arise from various dualistically grounded assumptions whether they be focused upon the dispassionate study of objectively observed behaviour or which place their focus of interest on mentalistic mechanisms of duality such as conscious/unconscious systems of mind. Unlike other approaches, phenomenological psychology does not seek to invalidate the findings of other schools of thought; indeed, many phenomenologically oriented psychologists avoid formally defining it as a school of psychology in the strict sense of possessing separate canons, hypotheses and interests from the other psychological schools. Most commonly, phenomenological psychology is presented as an orientation taken towards the examination of central psychological issues via the use of a specific methodology known as the phenomenological method. In keeping with the general conclusions arrived at by previous authors (see, for instance, McCall, 1983; Misiak and Sexton, 1973; Valle and King, 1978), I would propose that phenomenological psychology contains a number of specific defining characteristics. Phenomenological psychology places the analysis of our conscious experience of the world as its primary goal. Further, its focus of interest lies in the exploration of all human experience (from its inter-relational origins to its individualistic mental and behavioural manifestations) without recourse to implicit or explicit reductionist or associationistic assumptions, nor by the exclusive restriction of the subject matter of psychology to behavior and its control (Misiak and Sexton, 1973: 41). Instead, broadly derived from phenomenological philosophy, phenomenological psychology attempts an unbiased examination of conscious experience, via the application of the phenomenological method, in order to present a description of phenomena which is as free from experientially based, variational biases as is possible. Rather than seek to stand beside, or replace, existing systems in psychology, phenomenological psychology attempts (where possible) to complement them, and, in its application, to clarify or remove such systems unnecessary and/ or divisive biases and assumptions. Deeply committed to structured enquiry, phenomenological psychology derives much of the data for its conclusions both from controlled studies carried out by researchers allied to the more empirically oriented approaches and from its own meaning-focused approach to research. In addition, as we will see, as it is not uncommon to find many inconsistencies in both the data and conclusions arrived at through experimental research in psychology, phenomenological psychology also often reinterprets such findings in order that it may both clarify the sources of such inconsistencies
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and provide a more bias-free set of hypotheses and predictions. In doing so, it presents unique perspectives on the standard concerns of psychology and paves the way for more adequate, and unified, models of human beings. Having laid this basic framework, I can now turn the remainder of this text over to specifically psychological issues. As my first area of investigation, I want to consider the perception of objects.

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1 An Introduction to Phenomenological Theory

The interpreted world

The Origins of Phenomenology

An introduction to phenomenological theory

Transcendental and Existential Phenomenology

The Phenomenological View of Reality

The interpreted world

The Problem of Correct Interpretations of Reality

An introduction to phenomenological theory

The interpreted world

An introduction to phenomenological theory

Subjective versus Objective Reality

Phenomenologys Stance on the Problem of Reality

The interpreted world

An introduction to phenomenological theory

The Raw Matter of Reality

Edmund Husserl and the Development of Phenomenology

The interpreted world

Phenomenologys Fundamental Issues

An introduction to phenomenological theory

The interpreted world

An introduction to phenomenological theory

The interpreted world

2 The Phenomenological Method

The interpreted world

Step A: The Rule of Epoch

Step B: The Rule of Description

The phenomenological method

Step C: The Rule of Horizontalization (the Equalization Rule)

The interpreted world

The Practice of the Phenomenological Method

The phenomenological method

The interpreted world

The phenomenological method

The interpreted world

Consequences of the Phenomenological Method

The phenomenological method

The interpreted world

The phenomenological method

The interpreted world

The phenomenological method

Phenomenological Investigation: A Summary

The interpreted world

The phenomenological method

The interpreted world

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