Abstract
In this article, we discuss some of the linguistic features of hermeneutic-phenomenological writing and, in so doing, we point to the close connection between lived experience and the ethical-aesthetic traits of writing the experience. Our exploration starts by contemplating texts written by the so-called Utrecht School. We reflect on their orientation as it has been understood, developed, and advocated by Max van Manen. The literary style of the Utrecht orientation is sometimes misunderstood and questioned. This article aims to explicate why and how hermeneutic phenomenology needs an expressive language to "write the lived experience" rather than to simply write "about" the lived experience. Lived experiences are always past experiences that we try to bring into the present, and so the difference between recollections and memories are discussed in connection to writing the experience. We argue that what is being told and not seen is, metaphorically speaking, an event in sound, which can have ethical and aesthetic virtues of truth and beauty. Lived experiences, whether written as anecdotes or as other kinds of experiential accounts, can shine forth through the use of expressive language. But is this kind of language poetry? Can such an account be regarded as poetic writing? If it is poetic writing, exactly how does it differ from academic writing? Our exploration of questions like these leads us to the tentative conclusion that, as hermeneutic phenomenological researchers, we dwell in the borderland between a "poetic attitude" and a utilitarian writing style.
Highlights
In certain quarters, a phenomenologist is held to be “a kind of crystal glazer, a metaphysician or ontologist in the deprecatory sense of the words,” (Schutz 1970, p. 53)
We endeavor to describe some of the linguistic textures of hermeneuticphenomenological writing and, in so doing, point to the close connection between lived experience and the ethical-aesthetic traits in interpreting and writing the experience
Our starting point for considering phenomenological writing to be an ethical-aesthetic responsibility of the researcher is Heidegger's (2001) understanding of existence as a poetic2 dwelling and Wivel's (1953) postulate that the ethical outlook comes from within, from the poetic outlook
Summary
A phenomenologist is held to be “a kind of crystal glazer, a metaphysician or ontologist in the deprecatory sense of the words,” (Schutz 1970, p. 53). Awareness of the ethical-aesthetic dimension is, of importance to all phenomenological research It becomes even more imperative for researchers who follow the scholars of the Utrecht School and van Manen's orientation to hermeneutic phenomenology, which use an expressive/aesthetic language to turn informants' lived experiences into anecdotes. Phenomenology is a practiced and acknowledged movement that involves a style of thinking and writing before reaching philosophical and methodological self-awareness. Despite the criticism of the Utrecht School, by becoming familiar with their reflective and often beautiful texts, the power of their methodology is almost self-evident. How did they write like this? Can the skill of beautiful and perceptive writing be acquired through a persevering and sympathetically insightful practice? Our endeavor to understand begins in the world of aesthetics
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