Hermeneutic Phenomenology

Hermeneutic Phenomenology

When I ask myself why I chose to engage in a research process that was informed by the traditions of phenomenology and hermeneutics, I find myself confronted with a question like ‘Why did I marry this person and not that one?’ or ‘Why am I working in this profession rather than another one?’ Questions like these are easy to answer on a superficial level, but much harder to answer at depth.

The current reflections stem from a recent case study of educational change completed in the context of a doctoral research program. A program of change in a particular school was investigated, and the school’s mission and the professional outlook of its teachers were to the fore in the investigation. Points of resonance and dissonance between the school’s mission and the outlook of its teachers were identified during the study.

As might be imagined, there were many differences among teachers and administrators as the change process unfolded. Hermeneutic phenomenology was useful in this context because it provided a robust framework for considering the nature of the many acts of interpretation and understanding that were associated with the change process. Whilst hermeneutic phenomenology threw light onto the research process, it did not supply a set of rule-like procedures for conducting the program of research. In fact hermeneutic phenomenology does just the opposite and holds that methods in themselves do not lead to understanding or good interpretative outcomes, other factors do. These factors are variously described in the hermeneutic literature as scholarship, tact, judgement and taste.

The literature of hermeneutic phenomenology is admittedly somewhat dense and abstract but because interpretation and understanding are critical elements in any research process, the effort to penetrate the literature is richly rewarding. Many practical consequences flow from the decisions (conscious or otherwise) that the researcher makes in regard to issues that are reflected upon deeply in the literature on hermeneutic phenomenology.

For example, whilst many research approaches seek to be ‘objective’, hermeneutic phenomenology does not seek to objectify the ‘object’ of the researcher’s interest. On the contrary, hermeneutic phenomenology always seeks to open up a middle space of rich engagement between the research object and the researcher. Metaphors like play and conversation are used in hermeneutic phenomenology to describe this middle space. Dialogue partners get lost in the conversation’s subject matter in authentic conversation and it is this ‘getting lost in the subject matter’ that leads to genuine understanding and interpretation. The example of players getting lost in the playing of a game is offered in hermeneutic phenomenology as another instance of the human capacity for deep engagement and an expansion of understanding. The goal of hermeneutic phenomenology is a ‘fusion of horizons’ where the research object is understood not on its own terms, nor on the terms of the researcher, but in terms that are common to both. These common terms emerge in the context of a process of inquiry that can be characterised as being playful and dialogical.

Whilst many research approaches seek to eliminate the prior understandings of the researcher, hermeneutic phenomenology seeks to test those prior understandings. The prior understandings are seen as the prerequisite and the point of entry for any act of interpretation or understanding. The goal of the research process is not to jettison these prior understandings, rather it is to test them. This testing unfolds as a deep and genuine engagement with the object of one’s research interest. The engagement is ‘genuine’ when it is open to the possibility that ‘something else might be the case’. The implication for research is that the researcher must always remain open to having his or her current understandings confirmed or varied by what arises as the research process unfolds.

Before considering these insights from hermeneutic phenomenology in greater detail, it is helpful to consider phenomenology and hermeneutics as separate entities in their own right. The marriage that is hermeneutic phenomenology draws richly on the traditions of both hermeneutics and phenomenology in philosophy and there are many valuable insights in these traditions for the contemporary researcher. Having drawn insights from the philosophical sources, the current reflections conclude by considering some very practical issues associated with the conduct of the research program and by providing some examples that illustrate what the ‘product’ of hermeneutic phenomenology might look like.

Phenomenology

Edmund Husserl (d. 1938) was an important figure in the development of phenomenology. Husserl’s phenomenology aimed to provide a firm foundation for knowledge. He developed a method of reflection that sought to regard objects with as few presuppositions as possible. ‘Zu den Sachen!’ is a phrase that captures the impulse that drove Husserl’s phenomenology. Literally translated, the phrase means ‘To the things!’ Phenomenological reflection seeks to provide a true description of objects based on what the objects are in themselves (in contrast to a description of the objects based upon presuppositions of one type or another). In this sense phenomenology involves a disciplined and sustained attending to the things themselves and phenomenological descriptions are the outcome of such disciplined attending.

Husserl’s method for regarding things ‘in themselves’ involved a deliberate attempt to suspend one’s presuppositions about the phenomenon that one was describing. Terms like ‘bracketing’, ‘epoche’ and ‘reduction’ are all associated with the method that Husserl elaborated. The following excerpt from a lecture series given by Husserl in 1907 provides a clear indication of the impulse that drove his phenomenology.

No inclination is more dangerous to the ‘seeing’ cognition of origins and absolute data than to think too much, and from these reflections in thought to create supposed self-evident principles. … Thus as little interpretation as possible, but as pure an intuition as possible. In fact, we will hark back to the speech of the mystics when they describe the intellectual seeing which is supposed not to be a discursive knowledge. And the whole trick consists in this – to give free rein to the seeing eye and to bracket the references which go beyond the ‘seeing’ and are entangled with the seeing, along with the entities which are supposedly given and thought along with the ‘seeing’ and finally to bracket what is read into them though the accompanying reflections (Husserl, 1990/1907, p. 50).

Van Manen (1996) noted that many phenomenologists have now abandoned Husserl’s method involving a bracketing of presuppositions and have taken up alternative options like poetry in their efforts to describe objects in a phenomenological way. [1] For Van Manen, phenomenological texts contain ‘thickened’ language – a language that is concrete but evocative and intensified in some way. The effect of this type of language is to break through taken-for-granted meanings in everyday life to call the reader into a nearer encounter with the phenomenon. Phenomenological writing invites the reader to encounter the phenomenon in a new and fresh way.

If the description is phenomenologically powerful, then it acquires a certain transparency, so to speak; it permits us to ‘see’ the deeper significance, or meaning structures, of the lived experience it describes (van Manen, 1990, p. 122).

Crotty (1996) was highly critical of many of the research products travelling by the name ‘phenomenology.’ His criticism stemmed from the fact that they had not engaged with the philosophical tradition of phenomenology. Crotty has in mind here research approaches labelled as ‘phenomenology’ simply because they capture the ‘subjective’ experience of the actors being studied. Crotty’s reading of phenomenology as a philosophy is that it involves a commitment to describing the reality that is beneath and beyond the subject’s experience. He cited the work of Moustakas as a case in point.

What Moustakas is seeking to elucidate is loneliness and not just lonely people. His study became phenomenological as he moved from an understanding of his subjects’ individual experiences of loneliness to an insight into what makes loneliness loneliness. What it studies in the subjects is the object of their experience so that there is an objectivity about phenomenological research (Crotty, 1996, p. 35).

Crotty’s analysis is important because it invites researchers to draw deep insights from phenomenology as a philosophy. Crotty also argued that scholarship demanded that those who claim the term ‘phenomenology’ for their research ought to have engaged with the philosophy that gave rise to the term in the first place.

Those who understand the effects of history and language (and this includes Crotty) acknowledge that it is never possible to provide an ‘objective’ description of reality. The phenomenological project does not result in an objective description; rather, it is a project that seeks to move beyond the subjective experience of individuals to describe underlying structures or essences in that experience. In this sense the phenomenological project can be contrasted to the project of traditional ethnography where the intention is to describe, within their own terms of reference, the experience and culture of individuals in a particular setting.

Hermeneutics

The key figures exemplifying the synthesis that is hermeneutic phenomenology are Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur (Thompson, 1981, p. 36). Gadamer engaged in an extended analysis of the phenomenon of human understanding and his reflections have deeply shaped the research approach being described here. Gadamer was a student of Heidegger, who, in his turn, was a student of Husserl. Whilst there are some points of resonance with phenomenology in Gadamer’s analysis, there is also much in his work that is derived from alternative sources.

In the first instance, hermeneutics was a discipline that elaborated the principles and procedures that ought to be followed when interpreting texts with meanings that were disputed or not immediately apparent. Exegetes seeking to interpret the Bible had recourse to hermeneutics when they were faced with such difficult texts. Since the time of Schleiermacher (d. 1834) however, hermeneutics broadened in scope. Hermeneutics under Schleiermacher encompassed not only reflection upon the interpretation and understanding of written texts, but also upon the spoken word in discourse. At this point, hermeneutics began to address the broader concern of understanding itself and asked questions like: What is understanding? What happens when I say ‘I understand’? (Palmer, 1969, p. 68; Howard, 1982, p. xiii).

Wilhelm Dilthey (d. 1911) continued the trajectory begun by Schleiermacher and included within the locus of hermeneutics not only reflection on the interpretation of texts and discourse, but also reflection on the interpretation of meaningful human action more generally in such disciplines as history and philosophy. Dilthey was concerned that the Geisteswissenschaften [2] (the human sciences) were being denigrated as second-class academic disciplines because of the ‘rampant positivism’ of his day (Begley, 1996, p. 92). Dilthey argued that whilst the human sciences employed different methods from those used in the natural sciences, the human sciences were not less valuable as a consequence. He held that the natural sciences were concerned with ‘explanation’ and the human sciences were concerned with ‘understanding.’ (Some of these distinctions can still be found today in methodological reflection on the differences between qualitative and quantitative research in social science.) Dilthey distinguished between natural science which sought to quantify and scientifically grasp the natural world, and the modality of the human sciences which was concerned with interpreting and understanding the great expressions of human life, whether derived from law, literature or sacred scripture (Palmer, 1969, p. 41). Dilthey’s use of hermeneutics as a vehicle for reflecting on the methodological foundations of disciplines like history and philosophy widened the scope for hermeneutics beyond texts and discourse to include reflection upon the interpretation of meaningful action more generally. Gadamer’s hermeneutics continued in the vein of Schleiermacher and Dilthey.

A full analysis of Gadamer’s thought would demand more than a thesis in its own right. The intention in the present reflections is not to rehearse the details of Gadamer’s analysis but to describe insights drawn from his work that became important in the conduct of the research program. The following reflections draw out six Gadamerian insights and relate them to the conduct of qualitative research. The insights include the following: the status of method, conversation and play as models of human understanding, a presentation of the productive (rather than reproductive) nature of human understanding, a highlighting of the importance of prejudice, and a depiction of human understanding as a ‘fusion of horizons’.

method

A fundamental insight in philosophical hermeneutics is that the person who would understand a text [3] or another of life’s expressions, does not, in the first instance, rely upon a method. Gadamer’s analysis was intended to demonstrate the many ways in which human understanding unfolds in the context of, and is embedded in, both history and language. A central plank in Gadamer’s argument is that scientific method does not provide a means by which the researcher can escape the many effects of history and language. (Having made this point however, Gadamer is at pains to point out, particularly in later revisions of Truth and Method, that modern science is well served by methodical rigour (Gadamer, 1989, pp. xxix, 552).) He argued though that the certainty achieved by scientific method does not suffice to guarantee truth. Truth, for Gadamer, is found by entering into genuine conversation with the text and knowing how to ask the right questions of it (Gadamer, 1989, p. 491) and there is no such thing as a method that tells one how to find what is questionable in regard to one of life’s expressions (Gadamer, 1989, p. 365).

Kvale (1996, p. 180) argued that there ‘are no standard methods, no via regia, to arrive at essential meanings and deeper implications of what is said in an interview.’ This approach to research is also found in Hultgren (1993, p. 29) who challenged the assumption that finding truth ultimately depends on choosing the right methodology. Van Manen (1990, p. 29) continued in the same vein when he offered his methodological text as a methodos (a way) to do qualitative research rather than a method. Van Manen contrasted his approach with ‘any tendency toward constructing a predetermined set of fixed procedures, techniques and concepts that would rule-govern the research project’ (p. 29).

Although he did not suggest that transcript-coding approaches were inappropriate for qualitative research, van Manen differentiated his research approach from the ‘analytic-coding, taxonomic, and data-organising practices common to ethnography or grounded theory method’ (van Manen, 1990, p. 29). Van Manen was wary of frequency counting or coding as a means of identifying themes in the data. ‘Too often theme analysis is understood as an unambiguous and fairly mechanical application of some frequency count or coding of selected terms in transcripts or texts, or some other break-down of the content of protocol or documentary material’ (van Manen, 1990, p. 78). Mishler (1986) is similarly critical of some coding approaches: ‘Codes are generally defined in context-free, sequence free terms. ... Although a good deal of uncertainty often accompanies coding ... statistical evidence brings assurance; significant relations are forthcoming and findings appear’ (Mishler, 1986, p. 4).