Intentionality & Narrativity in Phenomenological ResearchHuman Science and Phenomenology:Reconsidering the Approach to Experiences of OthersMeiji University, Tokyo, Japan30 July 2016Marc Applebaum PhD
Expanded presentationThis is an expanded version of the presentation I gave at Meiji University in Tokyo on June 30, 2016, as part of a workshop kindly organized by Drs. Shogo Tanaka and Kayoko Ueda. Dr. Ueda, Dr. Masahiro Nochi, and Dr. Susi Ferrarello were the other forum participants. My full article, Intentionality and Narrativity in Phenomenological Psychological Research, relies primarily on Husserl’s Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, and Ricoeur’s Time and Narrative.
Dynamism of consciousness
For Husserl consciousness is characterized by a constant ebb and flow of passive and active intentionalityThey are simultaneous layers of the locus of consciousness that is the human beingThe locus is multi-layered, and includes what Husserl calls the personal ego, the transcendental ego, and pre-egoic, primordial strataThe personal layer is “in time,” the pre-reflective layers are timeless
Phenomenological modes
Husserl’s static phenomenology descriptively analyzes the contents of active intentionalityHis genetic phenomenology interpretively explicates the contents of passive intentionalityIn Husserl’s work there is not a fixed opposition between describing and interpreting
Husserl’s methodsStatic phenomenology: a descriptive science that seeks to articulate the intuitive grasping of objects in active intentionality (reflective consciousness)Husserl them began to explore the passive genesis of meaning (pre-reflective, pre-linguistic consciousness), developing a genetic praxis that is descriptive and hermeneuticThis was necessary because passive intentionality cannot be accessed through the intuitions of a subject in the natural attitude
Genetic inquiryHusserl spoke of investigating “on the basis of concrete experience and description,” which required “Discovering the method of correlation-research, the method for questioning back behind intentional objectivity in a concretely disclosive way. In a manner of speaking, genuine analysis of consciousness is a hermeneutic of conscious life, that latter taken as that which continuously intends entities (identities) and constitutes them within its own self in manifolds of consciousness that pertain to those entities in essential ways.” (1931/1997, p. 20)
“Interpretation” for PsychologyOne meaning of interpretation is a
position-taking with respect to the object of consciousness, a perspective (Husserl, Logical Investigations, Ideas I)An alternate meaning of interpretation is a self-consciously theorizing attitude, either on the part of the researcher or the research participantI argue that in our interview data we invariably encounter a variety of intentional relations to the noematic object
“Perceptive interpretation”
Husserl names the actively intentional determining of an object as something an interpretive act, Auffassung, which can be understood as a constituting interpretation, or as Husserl puts it in Logical Investigations, a “perceptive interpretation.” (1984, p. 762)
Descriptive research practice
“Have you had an experience of X?”For example: “Have you had an experience of feeling deeply cared for by another person? If so, can you describe in detail what that experience was like?”Amedeo Giorgi (2009) The Descriptive Phenomenological Method in Psychology
Descriptive research attitude
Aims to elucidate the psychological structure of the phenomenon by gathering descriptions in the natural attitude of everyday lifeWe do not prompt participants to self-consciously interpret or explainHowever, rich description is required for the data to be psychologically revelatory
What is “rich data”?I propose that rich data stays close to the lived interconnectedness, for the participant, of passive and active intentionalityWe do not aim to encourage reflective self-interpretation on the part of the participantBut can we say that the natural attitude is free of self-interpretation?
Varied modes of interpretationDetermination (Auffassung): the
participant’s narrative is a specific position-taking with respect to the experience Emplotment: the participant’s narrative articulation of their experience is a mimetic, linguistic expression, not equivalent to the prelinguistic expression “itself”The narrative is representative of the speaker’s narrative identity as protagonist of their story, which is given in dialogue with a particular Other in a particular social context
Interviews as narrative• Interview narratives are interpretive
in that they are the participant’s selective articulation of what she lived, an emplotment that is sense-bestowing through the exclusion of some some details and highlighting of others in line with an emerging plot
• Such narratives are mimetic acts in relation to passive lived-experiences understood as a limit rather than as something that can be seized absolutely (Ihde, 1971)
The interview is an experience
We ought not to neglect that the interview itself is a lived-experienceWe know as researchers that we are part of the research situationOur data is relational data, unavoidably, it is as story told to an Other and unavoidably in a kind of interchange with the Other
Varieties of intending and speaking
Speaking from an experience to the OtherSpeaking about an experience to the OtherExplaining an experience to the Other
Speaking fromThe participant brings forward a meaning that is immanent for themThis means it is already present passively; they are actively grasping itTheir attention is first and foremost on the intuitive presence of the phenomenon for them
Speaking aboutThe participant is reflectively aware that he or she is striving to convey the sense of their story to the interviewerStill in contact with the experience as intuitively present, however attention is largely focused on the expressive goal and achieving an adequate objectification of the story for the OtherContact with the passively sedimented meaning of the narrative may even be lost as the expressive goal takes center stage
Explaining to the OtherThe participant goes beyond trying to convey the sense of her story and seeks to provide an explanatory or causal account of the experience to the OtherIn a theorizing or quasi-theorizing wayExample: “My therapist and I eventually understood that what this experience meant was X,” or “When I read Jung, I understood that I was experiencing the Great Mother archetype…”
ConclusionsData is inescapably relational and arises in a kind of dialogueThis does not mean that we need to prompt participants to actively theorize about their experiencesThe varieties and constant shifting of the colors and modes of intentionality requires great sensitivity and care
ReferencesGiorgi, A. (2009). The descriptive phenomenological method in psychology: A modified Husserlian approach. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University PressHusserl, E. (1982). Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy: First book, General introduction to a pure phenomenology. (F. Kersten, Trans.). Boston: Kluwer. Husserl, E. (1997). Phenomenology and anthropology (T. Sheehan & R. E., Trans.). In T. Sheehan & R. E. Palmer (Eds.), Edmund Husserl: Collected works, vol. 6: Psychological and transcendental phenomenology and the confrontation with Heidegger (1927-1931) (pp. 485-500). Dordrecht: Kluwer.Husserl, E. (2001). Analyses concerning passive and active synthesis: Lectures on transcendental logic. A. J. Steinbock (Trans.). Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Husserl, E. (2001b) Logical Investigations Volumes 1-2. J. N. Findlay (Trans.). New York: Routledge. Ihde, D. (1971). Hermeneutic phenomenology: The philosophy of Paul Ricoeur. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
