barebones communication

Nevertheless, the influence of Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology, its modified application by Sartre and Merleau-Ponty and the increase of emphasis on hermeneutics by Gadamer and Ricoeur make it important to spell out as far as possible what a hermeneutic phenomenology may mean and what it might add to the preceding steps. Needless to say, Heidegger himself did not conceive of it as such an additional step, especially since he did not even mention the preceding steps explicitly; he implied that they are dispensable, if not downright misleading, as was, in his eyes, Husserl’s phenomenological reduction.

Hermeneutics is an attempt to interpret the “sense” of certain phenomena. To be sure, even pre-hermeneutic or “descriptive” phenomenology has not been unconcerned about meaning. In fact, the whole study of intentional structures consists largely in an interpretative analysis and description of the meanings of our conscious acts. For not only our purposive behaviour but our whole cognitive and emotional life, as phenomenology sees it, is shot through with meaning and meaningful intentions. No description can leave them out, even though it may refrain from accepting them at face value. Thus hermeneutic phenomenology must aim at something different and more ambitious: its goal is the discovery of meanings which are not immediately manifest to our intuiting, analyzing and describing. Hence the interpreter has to go beyond what is directly given. In attempting this, he has to use the given as a clue for meanings which are not given, or at least not explicitly given. One might suspect that such an enterprise amounts to the kind of explanatory hypothesis which descriptive phenomenology has set out to abolish, and that it therefore implies a complete abandonment of phenomenological principles. In order to defend its phenomenological right one would have to maintain that hermeneutic interpretation is a matter not of mere constructive inference but of an unveiling of hidden meanings, or at most of an intuitive verification of anticipations about the less accessible layers of the phenomena, layers which can be uncovered, although they are not immediately manifest”.

Bloggers comment: “This is just excellent” .

the phenomenological movement. a historical introduction by herbert spiegelberg, essentials of the method, page 712-713. martinus nijhoff publishers 1984, the hague/boston/lancaster. 

“Husserl himself associated the original and basic meaning of the reduction with the mathematical operation of bracketing (Einklammerung). The underlying idea of this metaphor is that we are to detach the phenomena of our everyday experience from the context of our naive or natural living, while preserving their content as fully and as purely as possible. The actual procedure of this detachment consists in suspending judgment as to the existence or non-existence of this content. This by no means implies that we deny or even doubt its existence to the extent of writing it off, as Descartes had done …… To this negative or “bracketing” aspect of the reduction corresponds as its positive complement the possibility of concentrating exclusively on the non-existential or essential content, the “what”, of the phenomena. It is in connection with its positive aspect that Husserl expected the phenomenological reduction to open up entirely new dimensions for phenomenological research”. 

Blog author’s comment; “ha, one step to go“.  

the phenomenological movement. a historical introduction by herbert spiegelberg, essentials of the method, page 709. martinus nijhoff publishers 1984, the hague/boston/lancaster. 

“”Constitution” is one of the key terms in Husserl’s phenomenology, particularly in its developed phase.  But as we have seen, its meaning has remained fluid. It became a basic concept for his transcendental idealism with its idea that the objects of our consciousness were the “achievements” of constituting act. For the present purpose I shall interpret the term in a less demanding sense and confine myself to the reflexive use of the verb according to which objects “constitute themselves” in our consciousness.  Such a conception does not involve an epistemological commitment. Thus constitutional exploration consists for us merely in determining the way in which a phenomenon establishes itself and takes shape in our consciousness. Tracing the stages of such a “crystallization” does not mean, however, a psychological, and especially not a factual, case study of what actually happens to concrete individuals. The purpose of such a study is the determination of the typical structure of a constitution in consciousness by means of an analysis of the essential sequence of its steps”. 

Blog author’s comment (now smiling), “only two more steps to go“.  

the phenomenological movement. a historical introduction by herbert spiegelberg, essentials of the method, page 706. martinus nijhoff publishers 1984, the hague/boston/lancaster. 

“Phenomenology is the systematic exploration of the phenomena not only in the sense of what appears, whether particulars or general essences, but also of the way in which things appear. To be sure, not all phenomenologists have paid equal attention to this aspect of phenomenological research. But is has been prominent in Husserl’s phenomenological work, beginning with the Logische Untersuchungen. Here the studies of intentional acts laid particular emphasis on the ways of appearance (Erscheinungsweisen) of the intentional objects. Obviously the contrast between the appearance and what appears, as implied in this connection, is not that between appearance and a reality which may actually be an unknowable thing-in-itself. What is involved is merely the way in which an object which is by no means beyond our range of knowledge present itself to us. These ways of appearing are usually overlooked in our preoccupation with what appears”.

the phenomenological movement. a historical introduction by herbert spiegelberg, essentials of the method, page 703-704. martinus nijhoff publishers 1984, the hague/boston/lancaster. 

“Analyzing an entity in itself acquaints us only with its components. But a phenomenological study of essences claims to achieve more. It also includes the discovery of certain essential relationsships or connections pertaining to such essences. It is this kind of relationships which is involved when we use such phrases as “it is of the essence (or: in the nature) of,” or “it belongs to the essence (or: part of the essence) of”; also, the adverb “essentially” usually point to such relationships”. 

Blog author’s comment; “sigh“.  

the phenomenological movement. a historical introduction by herbert spiegelberg, essentials of the method, page 699. martinus nijhoff publishers 1984, the hague/boston/lancaster. 

“While no explicit and generally agreed formula can be offered, the following may be considered as implied in the eidetic method especially as practiced by Husserl himself, who insisted on the need of carrying the “small change” (Kleingeld) of specific examples. There is no adequate intuiting of essences without the antecedent or simultaneous intuiting of exemplifying particulars. Such particulars may be given either in perception or in imagination or in a combination of both. But while this is the necessary condition of genuine intuiting, it is certainly not its entire content. In order to apprehend a general essence we have to look at the particulars as examples, i.e., as instances which stand for the general essence. Thus, using the particular red of an individual rose as a point of departure we can see it as an instance of a certain shade of red in general. But we also see it as exemplifying redness and, finally, color as such. Thus the intuiting of particulars provides stepping stones, as it where, for the apprehension of the general essences”. 

the phenomenological movement. a historical introduction by herbert spiegelberg, essentials of the method, page 697. martinus nijhoff publishers 1984, the hague/boston/lancaster.

Herbert Spiegelberg:

“”Phenomenological description” of the phenomena thus intuited and analyzed goes usually and - according to some phenomenologists, essentially - hand in hand with the preceding steps. Yet it seems to me that the distinctive nature of this procedure has as a rule not been sufficiently considered. At the same time its importance has been overemphasized, as when phenomenology has been characterized simply as descriptive science. Thus there is definite danger in beginning a description of the phenomena before we have explored them intuitively and analytically. Phenomenology begins in silence”. 

the phenomenological movement. a historical introduction by herbert spiegelberg, essentials of the method, page 693. martinus nijhoff publishers 1984, the hague/boston/lancaster.

Library Thing. 

Herbert Spiegelberg:

“... But what, exactly, does analysis undertake to do in this case? Primarily nothing but to trace the elements and the structure of the phenomena obtained by intuiting. It does not in any sense demand dissecting them into separate parts. It comprises the distinguishing of the constituents of the phenomena as well as the exploration of their relations to and connection with adjacent phenomena”.

the phenomenological movement. a historical introduction by herbert spiegelberg, essentials of the method, page 690-691. martinus nijhoff publishers 1984, the hague/boston/lancaster.

Library Thing.  

Herbert Spiegelberg:

“To intuit the phenomena seems at first blush a fairly elementary affair, if one approaches this task without preconceptions. This may be so in theory, but it is certainly not so in practice. It is one of the most demanding operations, which requires utter concentration on the object intuited without becoming absorded in it to the point of no longer looking critically. Nevertheless there is little that the beginning phenomenologist can be given by way of precise instructions beyond such metaphoric phrases as “opening his eyes,” keeping them open”,”not getting blinded,” “looking and listening,” etc. Some help in the attempt to grasp the uniqueness of specific phenomena can be obtained by comparing them with related phenomena, giving special attention to similarities and differences. Watching trained practitioners in their approach to the phenomena, usually by studying their subsequent accounts, may further sensitize one’s own intuiting”.

the phenomenological movement. a historical introduction by herbert spiegelberg, essentials of the method, page 682-683. martinus nijhoff publishers 1984, the hague/boston/lancaster.

Library Thing.