Phenomenological description is a method of
phenomenology
Phenomenology may refer to:
Art
* Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties
Philosophy
* Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...
that attempts to depict the structure of first person lived experience, rather than theoretically explain it. This method was first conceived of by
Edmund Husserl
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, thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view
, thesis1_year = 1883
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.
It was developed through the latter work of
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...
,
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and litera ...
,
Immanuel Levinas and
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty. (; 14 March 1908 – 3 May 1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interest an ...
— and others. It has also been developed with recent strands of modern psychology and cognitive science.
Early proponents
Edmund Husserl
Edmund Husserl
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, thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view
, thesis1_year = 1883
, thesis2_title ...
originally conceived of and developed the method of phenomenological description.
His original method, called a Husserlian description, uncovers or discloses the structures and forms of conscious experience. A Husserlian description typically begins by describing an actual experience in the first person. For example, in ''The Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time'' Husserl describes the phenomenon of being conscious of an individual, actual tone. This description is "a typical example of Husserl's descriptive... method". Another good example of Husserl describing the structure of a conscious experience is his description of the act of naming his inkpot, provided in the ''
Logical Investigations''.
However, although Husserl's descriptions may begin at this basic level, they are often considerably more lengthy, involved and complex. For example, they often range from descriptions of the singular and empirical to descriptions of the essential and universal. Husserlian descriptions often depict the essential or invariant structures of conscious experience. For example, immediately after he describes the singular example of naming his inkpot in ''Logical Investigations'' he proceeds to describe the phenomenon of naming at the more general, invariant and essential level.
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger's explication of phenomenological description is sketched out in the Introduction of his book ''
Being and Time
''Being and Time'' (german: Sein und Zeit) is the 1927 ''magnum opus'' of German philosopher Martin Heidegger and a key document of existentialism. ''Being and Time'' had a notable impact on subsequent philosophy, literary theory and many other ...
,'' where he argues that the way to best approach the question of the meaning of Being is to examine the concrete ways in which phenomena show themselves in themselves — as they seem in consciousness. By examining the way phenomena immediately present themselves, we can get insight into how revealing as such occurs. For Heidegger, truth is always revealing — ''
aletheia
''Aletheia'' or Alethia (; grc, ἀλήθεια) is truth or disclosure in philosophy. Originating in Ancient Greek philosophy, the term was later used in the works of 20th-century philosopher Martin Heidegger. Although often translated as "tru ...
''. Important to note is that Heidegger's method of phenomenology represents a new tradition of "hermeneutic phenomenology" as opposed to merely descriptive, as in the Husserlian tradition.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Sartre's ''Nausea'' gives immediate first-person accounts of the main character Antoine Roquentin's lived experience. He describes the way objects lose their meaning and nausea disturbingly creeps up on him unexpectedly. His worst encounter is in a park with a tree root, where he realizes the gift (and burden) of human freedom as compared to other non-conscious beings. Sartre vividly characterizes what appears in the foreground of Antoine's awareness, including all of the ambiguity and confusion that is usually abstracted away in traditional or
realist novels.
Later research
Phenomenological description has found widespread application within psychology and the cognitive sciences. For example, Maurice Merleau-Ponty is the first well known phenomenologist to openly mingle the results of empirical research with phenomenologically descriptive research. Contemporarily, diverse theorists such as
Shaun Gallagher
Shaun Gallagher is an American philosopher known for his work on embodied cognition, social cognition, agency and the philosophy of psychopathology. Since 2011 he has held the Lillian and Morrie Moss Chair of Excellence in Philosophy at the ...
, Dieter Lohmar, Natalie Depraz and
Francisco Varela
Francisco Javier Varela García (September 7, 1946 – May 28, 2001) was a Chilean biologist, philosopher, cybernetician, and neuroscientist who, together with his mentor Humberto Maturana, is best known for introducing the concept of autopoiesi ...
fall under the broad umbrella of what's being termed "hybrid" theorists, drawing on both phenomenological description and research from modern cognitive science.
According to L. Finlay (2009),
Phenomenological research characteristically starts with concrete descriptions of lived situations, often first-person accounts, set down in everyday language and avoiding abstract intellectual generalizations. The researcher proceeds by reflectively analyzing these descriptions, perhaps idiographically first, then by offering a synthesized account, for example, identifying general themes about the essence of the phenomenon. Importantly, the phenomenological researcher aims to go beyond surface expressions or explicit meanings to read between the lines so as to access implicit dimensions and intuitions.
Schmicking (2010) itemizes the aspects involved in approaching any particular phenomenon:
* Detecting and grasping (''
Nachgewahren'').
* Analyzing.
* Describing (including everyday, technical, and symbolic languages).
[Schmicking, Daniel. "A Toolbox of Phenomenological Methods." ''Handbook of Phenomenology and Cognitive Science.'' Eds. S. Gallagher and Daniel Schmicking. New York: Springer, pg 50.]
See also
*
Descriptive psychology (Brentano)
Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Josef Brentano (; ; 16 January 1838 – 17 March 1917) was an influential German philosopher, psychologist, and former Catholic priest (withdrawn in 1873 due to the definition of papal infallibility in matters of ...
References
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Phenomenology