Living Phenomenologically

Phenomenology, as I argued at the beginning of class, is as much a way of life as it is a research methodology. It is, paraphrasing Heidegger, a way of being in the world, authentically, responsively, and with great mindfulness and joy.

Hermeneutic phenomenology can trace its roots, in at least one rendering, to the Protestant Reformation. When the authority of the Church, and its reliance about tradition, was no longer trusted, reformers sought another way to establish community—in this case, in and through relationship to sacred text. “What does this text mean?” became a compelling and living question that gave birth to a new way of engaging with past, present and future.

We traced five broad generalization about phenomenology tonight. 

1) Phenomenology seeks the universal in the concrete. Phenomenology takes relationality seriously. It rejects the spectator view of knowledge—of a detached observer seeking clear and distinct knowledge of an object. Instead, it always assumes we are in and of the world—that we are always in relationship to the world. In this way, as we come to know about the world, we come to know about ourselves—because we are essentially studying the subjective grounding of all knowledge in experience.

2) Phenomenology reads between and beyond the text to seek meaning. We know that language is shot through with power relations—it is anything but a transparent mirror of our world. It is an amazing tool, but also limited. Phenomenologists will speak of “pre-reflective” experience. That is, there is always a world back towards which language alludes. In reading texts phenomenologically, we seek to find the implicit, to use what is said to find the essential—which is always, at some level, ineffable.

3) Phenomenology reads generously and lovingly. That is, we assume that no one sets out to be “irrational” or “hateful.” If we investigate the lifeworld of another seriously, we have no choice but to enter into their experience with empathy and humility. When we seek to walk in another’s shoes, we come to understand, to some degree, why people make the decisions they do. We practice compassion, even in the face of great evil.

4) Phenomenology carefully employ poetic language to communicate meaning. The true job of language is to evoke meaning—to create a dwelling in which meaning can abide. Poetry can return us to the deepest sense of a term, to uncover the accretion of habit and idle chatter that make of words nothing but the eternal confirmation of the same.

5) Phenomenology asks “what is it like” questions. It can only ever reveal for us the meaning of our being in the world. That is, it helps us understand what it is like to be human, in all its dizzying manifestations.