The Theoretical Framework in Phenomenological Research

Development and Application

Henrik Gert Larsen, Philip Adu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000405804
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Phenomenology in Philosophy

The Theoretical Framework in Phenomenological Research: Development and Application is an introduction to phenomenology in which the authors overview its origin, main ideas and core concepts. They show the application and relevancy of phenomenological tenets in practical qualitative research, as well as demonstrate how aligning theory and method enhances research credibility.

In this detailed but digestible explanation of phenomenological theories, the authors explore the ideas of the main founders pertaining to the meaning of perceived reality and the meaning of being, and how these founders articulated their methodologies. In doing so, The Theoretical Framework in Phenomenological Research fills the well-documented gap between theory and practice within phenomenology by providing a much-needed bridge between the foundational literature and applied research on the subject, focusing equally on theory and practice. The book includes practical demonstrations on how to create theoretical/conceptual frameworks in applied phenomenological research. It also features detailed, step-by-step illustrations and examples regarding how researchers can develop frameworks and use their concepts to inform the development of themes at the data analysis stage.

A reliable guide underpinned by foundational phenomenology literature, The Theoretical Framework in Phenomenological Research is an essential text for researchers, instructors, practitioners and students looking to design and conduct phenomenological studies in a manner that ensures credible outcomes.

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PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVES ON PHENOMENOLOGY IN SOCIAL RESEARCH METHODS

Objectives

Readers will be able to

1. Describe the meaning of phenomenology.
2. Understand the history of phenomenology.
3. Identify the two main scholarly arches.
4. Distinguish between Husserl’s and Heidegger’s views on phenomenology.
5. Understand the overarching themes in the foundational literature.
6. Differentiate between phenomenology as a philosophy and as an empirical research paradigm.

Examining the meaning of phenomenology

Phenomenology emerged as an influential philosophical school in the later part of the nineteenth century and is credited to Edmund Husserl (1859–1938). Husserl (2017) stated in his seminal work Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, “the sole task and service of phenomenology is to clarify the meaning of this world” (p. 21). With this statement in mind, Husserl (2001) launched an ambitious project of redefining modern philosophy for the purpose of understanding what it means to think and what it means to know (see p. 98). To this end, Husserl envisioned a project with parallels to empirical research in the sense that it would be based on observing acts of thought absent any concrete content. In this manner, he hoped to elucidate how transcendental subjectivity plays a role in constituting what people normally find to be objective reality.

Husserl (2017) emphasized that phenomenology should not be confused with psychology because the object of research is not how cognitive functions establish meanings of real events, but how cognition is possible in the first place (i.e., the study of the essence of thought “and absolutely no facts” [p. 44]). Therefore, Husserl (2001) stated that the phenomenologist “is concerned with the essential structures of cognition and their essential correlation to things known” (p. xxvii). In other words, the phenomenologist attempts a “direct description of our experience as it is, without taking account of its psychological origin and the causal explanations, which the scientist, the historian or the sociologist may be able to provide” (Merleau-Ponty, 1978, p. vii).

In contrast, Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) argued that there is no consensus regarding the meaning of phenomenology and diverted from Husserl’s focus on thinking acts and instead raised the more existential question of the meaning of being (Heidegger, 1988, pp. 2, 16). The essential difference between these two thinkers, who came to define the scope of phenomenology, can be reduced to the notion that the exploration of meaning of thought pertains to epistemology, while beings actually exist in the real world, and therefore Heidegger’s phenomenology acquires a character of both existentialism and ontology. While a phenomenon can be understood as the appearance of something or what something encountered appears to be, then Heidegger argued that phenomenology is a method of uncovering the being of this phenomenon. Heidegger (2010) thereby clarified that a “phenomenon in the phenomenological understanding is always just what constitutes being … and phenomenology is the science of the being of beings – ontology” (p. 35).

While Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology takes aim at the correlation between mind and world, Heidegger’s phenomenology adds the perspective of the phenomenon of being. Zahavi (2019) therefore emphasized that “the proper focus on phenomenological analysis is not only the mind-world dyad, but the self-other-world triad” (p. 15). Consequently, the meaning of phenomenology in this book will be conceived as two scholarly arches: one based on Husserl’s phenomenology that focuses on the epistemology of subjectivity (i.e., how we know things) and another that focuses on the ontology of how being is to be understood.

The problem with phenomenology in social research

Volumes have been written on the subject of phenomenology, and it is therefore with some hesitation we attempt to distill the essence of this significant but often difficult-to-access body of literature. It is, however, a necessary and timely endeavor because even a casual review of the research literature reveals an expanding application of phenomenology. For example, Gringeri et al. (2013) documented that 20% of qualitative dissertations within the field of social work applied phenomenology as the research methodology, and authors of a study of nursing dissertations between 2004 and 2018 documented a trend toward phenomenology, as 57% of the dissertations that applied a phenomenological research method were written in just the last 4 years of the review (de Sá et al., 2019). In terms of peer-reviewed research, a study of select counseling publications between 2005 and 2010 documented that while only 9.87% of the published studies were qualitative, about 37% of these were phenomenological (Woo & Heo, 2013). Further, Flynn and Korcuska’s (2018) meta-study of three counseling journals published between 2001 and 2015 documented that phenomenological studies comprised up to 48.8% of the published research.

In contrast to the increasing use of phenomenology in social research, phenomenological scholars point to a limited understanding of the basic tenets of phenomenology (see Moran, 2000, p. 3). The comprehension gap is partly a result of the often convoluted and complex presentations, which appear to be aimed at an audience of accomplished philosophers rather than the thousands of emerging researchers and students. An obvious consequence of the opaque writing styles, especially of the founders, is that emerging researchers rely on secondhand accounts of the phenomenological tenets, which may not always be adequate or accurate and therefore unintentionally contribute to expanding this comprehension gap (Zahavi, 2019).

For example, Creswell (2007) defined phenomenology as a study that “describes the meaning for several individuals of their lived experiences of a concept or a phenomenon” (p. 62). While this statement may seem straightforward, it does not clarify what is meant by a phenomenon or what function the lived experiences have in elucidating meanings. Further, van Manen (2017, p. 812) proposed that the founding fathers of phenomenology intended a method for recovering the lived meanings of past experiences, free from preconceptions and abstractions.

This is somewhat misconstrued, compared with the definition of phenomenology we provided at the beginning of this chapter. Nevertheless, Giorgi (2006) argued that due to the obvious absence of a scientific consensus within applied phenomenology, individual researchers are left to make their own decisions as to how to apply the ideas from the foundational literature. Scholars argue that without a clear and well-articulated alignment between the applied phenomenological research method and its corresponding philosophical underpinning, the research purpose and method become ambiguous and, consequently, the phenomenological credibility of the outcome may be compromised (Lopez & Willis, 2004). Flynn and Korcuska (2018) specifically identified an apparent trend to publish phenomenological research with “bare bones information” regarding the methodology, and they pointed to a gap in the understanding of basic phenomenological methodological concepts such as bracketing and epoché as well as the variations in terminology across different types of phenomenology.

Emerging scholars’ embrace of phenomenology, combined with a lingering uncertainty pertaining to methodology and theoretical concepts, justifies our attempt to present a pragmatic and accessible account of phenomenology. We hope that going back to the foundational literature will provide the reader a better understanding of phenomenology’s potential as a social research paradigm, as well as addressing Flynn and Korcuska’s (2018) call for a more thorough induction of, for example, doctoral students into phenomenological philosophy prior to engaging in actual applied research.

It is of course true that nobody owns phenomenology. While there are scholars and researchers with firm ideas as to what phenomenology is and what it is not, in the following chapters we will show that the convictions by which the tenets of phenomenology are conveyed by individual scholars are equally matched by the diversity of ideas. While individual presentations of phenomenology may come across as doctrinaire or even dogmatic, the diversity of these doctrines points to a field that is far from monolithic in either thought or application. This, in turn, provides emerging scholars with a creative space and an opportunity to make phenomenology their own.

We will, in the following chapters, attempt to trace two phenomenological arches pertaining to the phenomenology of experiencing and the phenomenology of being from their theoretical and philosophical starting points through the challenges of translating these ideas into applied research. The hope is to convey a connection between ideas and applications that can assist emerging researchers in producing phenomenological research with a higher degree of theoretical credibility.

Emergence of phenomenology

The term phenomenology has been used by philosophers prior to what scholars consider the emergence of phenomenology as a distinct philosophy attributed to Husserl toward the end of the 1800s. While the origin of phenomenological philosophy can be debated, its emergence is part of a reaction against the perceived reductionism of the natural sciences concerning mind and consciousness. Thus, Husserl (1973) stated,

In the same way in which sciences are built upon one another, and the conclusions of one of them can serve as premises for others. I am reminded of the favorite ploy of basing the theory of knowledge on the psychology of cognition and biology. In our day, reactions against these fatal prejudices are multiplying. And prejudices they are.

(p. 19)

Accordingly, Merleau-Ponty (1978) argued that, as a result of the rise of the natural sciences, “the body became an exterior without interior, subjectivity became an interior without exterior, and impartial spectator” (p. 56).

Consequently, phenomenology came to draw on a wide range of philosophical ideas for the purpose of reorienting the scientific perspective back toward a more holistic view of the individual and the role of subjectivity in understanding the meaning of the world, hereunder the works of Kant, Brentano and Descartes.

Kant’s rigorous philosophy

While some scholars have argued that Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is part of the phenomenological tradition, considering his elaboration on phenomena and meaning (Rockmore, 2011), Kant’s ideas are typically not considered part of the contemporary phenomenological tradition. This may be due to the fact that Kant’s main objective was not to develop a distinct transcendental phenomenological philosophy and partly due to the fact that Husserl himself did not particularly credit Kant for his own insights. In his seminal work Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, first published in 1931, Husserl (2017) reflected on Kant’s role in developing phenomenology into a distinct philosophy by stating that

It becomes evident to us that Kant’s mental gaze rested on this specific field, although he was not yet able to appropriate it and recognize it…. Thus, the transcendental deduction of the first edition of Critique of Pure Reason, for instance, already moves strictly on phenomenological ground; but Kant misinterprets the same as psychological, and therefore eventually abandons it of his own accord.

(p. 183)

However, Luft (2018) credited Kant with inspiring Husserl’s attempt at creating a scientifically based philosophy of knowledge and knowing. Thus, Kant’s (2007) contribution lies in the notion that that knowledge is transcendental (see p. 52). This means that knowledge is not about objects but about how people know objects. Kant, however, assumed that establishing a rigorous philosophy of transcendental knowledge may not be feasible, and he therefore limited his efforts to a critique of what was considered the contemporary understanding of knowing and knowledge. It would, however, seem that Husserl’s life project would become a quest to establish such transcendental philosophy. In Ideas, Husserl (2017), therefore stated that he aimed to “discover a radical beginning of a philosophy which, to repeat the Kantian Phrase, will be able to present itself as a science” (p. 27).

Brentano’s discovery of intentionality

If some of our elaborations on consciousness and perception sound a bit like psychology, it is not by accident. Phenomenology is strongly influenced by psychology. It was Franz Brentano’s (1838–1917) view that philosophy, in general, should be based on descriptive psychology (Moran, 2000). Therefore, in order to acquire a better understanding of the emergence of phenomenology, it is instructive to revisit his ideas and reflect on how these came to inform the fundamental tenets of Husserl’s philosophical phenomenology.

Brentano distinguished between physical phenomena and mental phenomena, where the latter are to be understood as mental acts that contain objects of thought (King et al., 2009). Phenomenologists accept that objects that people encounter in their so-called lived experiences do exist independent of them on their own terms, but that they never just appear like they are in themselves and for themselves. Objects are given to people through perception. Therefore, perception is a mental act of consciousness that constitutes objects in people’s minds and not just a passive transmission mechanism of actualities. Thus, consciousness is not a passive reflection of input from the external world, and consciousness can therefore only be understood in terms of being conscious of something (Heffernan, 2015). Accordingly, the defining feature of consciousness is its intentionality. Put in different and somewhat more operational terms, there is no thinking unless people are thinking of something; therefore, thinking requires some active directedness toward a phenomenon.

It was Brentano’s essential insight that intentionality, as a mental act, imposes its own kind of constituting meaning that lies beyond the mere psychological meaning of the experience with a phenomenon. Thus, Brentano’s discovery all...