Phenomenology

D A MI E G B E YE MI
FA 8 03 - SE MINA R I N T HE O R Y A ND ME T HO D S I I
D R R E B E CCA CA I NE S
Table of Contents
• Authors
• Definition of Phenomenon
• Theory of Phenomenology
• Schools and Traditions
• Important Theorists
• Concepts
• Life World
• Lived Experience
• Phenomenological understanding
• Methodology
• Research
• Methods
• Questions
Authors

• Dr. Cathy Adams, PhD, MAdEd, BSc

• Faculty Member of the University of Alberta
• Interests: Phenomenology, Pedagogy,
Philosophy of Technology and media scholarship
• Socio-material approaches to qualitative inquiry

https://www.ualberta.ca/education/about-us/professor-profiles/cathy-adams
Authors

• Dr. Max van Manen, PhD

• Professor Emeritus – University of Alberta, Retired
• Phenomenological Human Science Research Methods
• Pedagogy
• Phenomenology of Professional practice
• Epistemology and Ontology
• Phenomenology of Writing, etc.
• Developed methodological and Inquiry approaches for
phenomenological research and writing
https://www.maxvanmanen.com/biography/
Definition of Phenomenon
• Anything that can be identified and captured by the senses
• Sight, touch, smell, taste, hearing etc.

• The parameters around conscious experience

Theory of Phenomenology
• Study of any type of phenomena which occurs in the moment, both
temporally and spatially
• Study of the real-time conscious process of lived experience (Pre-
reflective)
• The study of Phenomenology is not conceptual, theoretical nor
categorical
Schools and Traditions
• Traditional Philosophical Phenomenology
• Transcendental
• Existential
• Ethical

• Other Schools
• Hermeneutic
• Linguistic
Schools and Traditions
Transcendental Phenomenology
Transcendental Definition: Anything that does not exist within the
physical realm but goes beyond it (essence of being)
• Focuses on how knowledge is manufactured in consciousness
• Describes the constituent parts of consciousness in order to explain
worldly phenomena
• Focuses on the essence of things, objects and consciousness
• Studied through the process of Epoche aka The Reduction
(Bracketing)
Important Theorists
• Edmund Husserl (1859 – 1938)
Founder of modern Phenomenology
• Combined mathematics, psychology and philosophy in his
studies
• Idea that we generate the concept of numbers by counting
a certain collection of objects
• Proper and improper presenting
• Proper presentation of an object requires its physical presence
both spatially and temporally
• Improper or symbolic presentation is when an object is not
physically present but is represented by signs, symbols and language
• Struggled with the subject of Intersubjectivity: the social
and psychological relationships between people
Schools and Traditions
Existential Phenomenology
Existential Definition: The fundamental nature of existence and
beingness in time and space. (Modalities of Being)
• Focuses on the lived world through the process of living and
experiencing it Ontological process rather than Epistemological
• Concerned with how the existence of a thing represents and reveals
its own beingness
• Not concerned with the existence of a thing as an object, or its
presence
• Studies subjective human experience in terms of values, purpose,
emotion and relationships (Intersubjectivity)
Important Theorists
• Martin Heidegger (1889 – 1976)
• Influential in establishing the fields of Existential and Hermeneutic
Phenomenology
• "what is common to all entities that makes them entities?“
Vs. “I think therefore I am” Renes Descartes
• Member of the Nazi Party

• Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de Beauvoir

Schools and Traditions
Ethical Phenomenology
Ethics Definition: Moral principles that govern a person’s/societies
behavior or the conducting of an activity.
• Transcendental Vs. Existential = Ethical
• Looks into manifestations of primacy of being (Self ownership, “mineness”)

• “To have a profound understanding of human reality one must ask

about the essence (Presence; Transcendental) and modalities
(Meaning; Existential) of being.”
Important Theorists
• Ethical
• Max Scheler*
• Emmanuel Levinas* - Experienced Nazi Brutality as a Jew
• Alphonso Lingis
Other Schools and Traditions
Hermeneutic Phenomenology
• Hermeneutic Definition: A method or theory of interpretation of
texts.
• Key words “interpretation,” “textual meaning,” “dialogue,” “preunderstanding,”
and “tradition.”
• Interpretive vs Descriptive method
• “All description especially human understanding is interpretive” Heidegger
Important Theorists
• Hermeneutic
• Martin Heidegger
• Hans Georg Gadamer
• Paul Ricoeur
Other Schools and Traditions
Linguistic Phenomenology
• Studies language and discourse to explore the relationship between:
• Understanding
• Culture
• History
• Identity
• Life

• Radical Linguistic phenomenology

• Intersubjectivity is more so about intertextuality
• Meaning is always primarily linguistical
Important Theorists
• Linguistic
• Maurice Blanchet
• Jacques Derrida – Radical Phenomenology
• Michel Foucault – Claimed not to be a Phenomenologist
Concepts
Life World
• World of immediate experience
• The pre-existing world as we find ourselves within it.
• The original “Natural primordial attitude” Husserl
• Individuals inhabit different lifeworld’s and experience different
modalities of being at different times
• Lifeworld's intersect and are partly nested in each other
• Adults
• Children
• Cultures
• Societies
Concepts
Lived Experience
• The now moment
• Prereflection:
• Living thorough immediately present experiences
• Present moment is always already absent as we search for it
• Only recoverable from the elusive past

• The intent to explore the original or prereflective dimensions of

human existence
• Language helps name the possibilities of human lived experience
• Every lived experience is the topic of Phenomenological inquiry
Concepts
Phenomenological understanding is:
• Achieved through language
• But is also limited by language

• Existential, Emotive, Enactive, Embodied, Situational, non-theoretical

Phenomenological Methodology
• Phenomenology is a Human Science
• Uses empirical data gathering techniques
• Reflective methods

• Phenomenological Research is sensitive to and focused on

• Prereflective
• Concrete
• Subjective
Dimensions of the lifeworld
Phenomenological Methodology
• Concerned with the Concrete Particulars of Life
• Sensitive to the subjective and intersubjective roots of meaning
• Complex relations between language and experience
• Cultural and gendered contexts of interpreting meaning
• Textual dimensions of Phenomenological writing and reflection
• Concerns with reflective interpretation and experiencing
Phenomenological Research
• The qualitative approach to studying ethically and experientially
sensitive practice of
• Epistemology - Theory of Knowledge
• Ontology - Study of the metaphysical nature of being

• To conduct phenomenological research we must ask about:

• Meaning of what is other than being
• Alternatives to being such as what it means to be an Infinite being
• Empathy, perspective taking and looking at and through the face of the other.
Phenomenological Research
• Elements:
• Identification of a shared experience
• Extrapolate universal form of that experience and approximate the universal claim.
• Locate universal nature of an experience
• e.g. what is the shared experience of immigrants in Regina?
• Identify and understand shared experiences amongst various individuals
experiencing the same phenomena.
• Locate the essence of the experience
• Identify the feeling while you are in the experience.
• Develop empathy.
• Usually emotional, visceral.
• What was experienced and how was it experienced?
Phenomenology Methods
Is Practiced as a Method
• Manner of orienting to Lived Experience
• Style of thinking

• Thrives on tension between

• Unique and Shared experience
• Particular and Transcendent meaning
• Thought and Unthought
• Reflective and Prereflective lifeworld
Phenomenology Methods
• The Phenomenological Reduction
• Ontologically oriented method
• Intention is to return context and meaning to the life world
• Central method used to study the lifeworld
• The ambition to make reflection emulate the unreflective life of consciousness
• Epoche (Bracketing)
• Uses the method of Suspended Judgement
• Excluding one’s biases and assumptions so one can define a phenomenon based on its
natural state of being
• “Only by eliminating preconceptions and prejudgments can one come to know what is true”
Rene Descartes
Phenomenology Methods
• The Phenomenological Reduction
• Aim
• “To Reachieve direct and primal contact with the experienced world.”
• Not how we conceptualize it.
• To concentrate on the unique quality of phenomena which we encounter moment by
moment in the lifeworld
• “Bring Aspects of meaning that belong to the phenomena of our lifeworld into
nearness”
Phenomenology Methods
• The Phenomenological Reduction
• Heuristic Reduction
• Wonder
• Hermeneutic Reduction
• Openness
• Phenomenological Reduction
• Concreteness
• Eidetic Reduction
• Universality in contingency
• Methodological Reduction
• Flexible rationality
Phenomenology Methods – Empirical
• Aim to explore range and variety of the prereflective material under
study
• Uses interviewing and literature analysis.
• Interviewing
• The phenomenological interview: Used as a means for exploring and gathering
experiential material
• The hermeneutic Interview: Used to explore interpretative meaning aspects of lived
experience
• Descriptions of lived moments
• Participatory/Close interview: Generates different forms of experiential material
through the observer who is also the researcher
• Experiential anecdotes
• Avoids manipulative and artificial attitudes
Phenomenology Methods – Empirical
• Aim to explore range and variety of the prereflective material under
study by using interviewing and literature analysis.
• Borrowing from Literary / Artistic sources:
• Fiction novels: Authors perceptiveness in topics such as:
• Love, grief, faith, success, fear, death and hope
Provides perspective taking and insight into the prereflexive human condition
Phenomenology Methods – Reflective
• Assists with the Reduction and aims to interpret aspects of meaning
or meaningfulness that are associated with specific phenomena.
• Phenomenological Reflection: Perceiving meanings of human experiences
• We do this everyday by just being alive
• Determining what meaning is and explaining it’s essence, is the most difficult
task of Phenomenological Reflection
• E.g. what is time?
• Limited by Language once again.
http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/
Questions
• Is it worth studying a concept that is fundamentally ungraspable as prereflexive
consciousness?
• If it is important, what is the value of doing so?
• What value does it provide to humanity, other sentient being, our planet?
• Phenomenology is mostly a human science; however other animals have
sentience. What about them, what sort of insight about our world could we
hypothetically gain by studying the phenomenology of animals?
• How has or does Phenomenology influence your research, art work and lived
experience?
• Do you feel like Phenomenology is a valid methodology to use in Art practice,
maybe more so than human science areas such as sociology, psychology or
philosophy?
References
Adams, C. (2015). Subject Matters of Digital Technology and Computing Science Curriculum. In M. F. He, B. D. Schultz, & W. H. Schubert, The SAGE

Guide to Curriculum in Education (pp. 87–95). SAGE Publications, Inc. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483346687.n15

Adams, C. (2016). Programming the Gesture of Writing: On the Algorithmic Paratexts of the Digital: Programming the Gesture of Writing.

Educational Theory, 66(4), 479–497. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12184

Adams, C., & van Manen, M. (2006). Embodiment, Virtual Space, Temporality and Interpersonal Relations in Online Writing. College Quarterly, 9(4), n4.

Adams, C., & van Manen, M. A. (2017). Teaching phenomenological research and writing. Qualitative Health Research, 27(6), 780–791.

Adams, C., van Manen, M., & Givens, L. (2008). The SAGE encyclopedia of qualitative research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications,

Inc. Retrieved from Http://Sk. Sagepub. Com/Reference/Research.

Adams, C., Yin, Y., Vargas Madriz, L. F., & Mullen, C. S. (2014). A phenomenology of learning large: The tutorial sphere of xMOOC video lectures.

Distance Education, 35(2), 202–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2014.917701

Rose, E., & Adams, C. A. (2014). “Will I ever connect with the students?” Online teaching and the pedagogy of care.

van Manen, M. (2002). Hermeneutical phenomenology. Retrieved February, 11, 2009.

Van Manen, M., & Adams, C. (2009). The phenomenology of space in writing online. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 41(1), 10–21.

Van Manen, M., & Adams, C. (2010a). Phenomenological research. Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Van Manen, M., & Adams, C. (2011). Phenomenology online: A resource for phenomenological inquiry. Accessed June, 10, 2013.

Van Manen, M., & Adams, C. A. (2010b). Phenomenology.

Yin, Y., Adams, C., Goble, E., & Francisco Vargas Madriz, L. (2015). A classroom at home: Children and the lived world of MOOCs. Educational Media

International, 52(2), 88–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523987.2015.1053287