Heideggerian Phenomenology Research Articles

Operationality of concepts in Heideggerian phenomenological investigation: epistemological reflection on Nursing.

To describe the investigative path of analysis and the operationality of concepts based on Martin Heidegger's theoretical and philosophical framework. Theoretical reflection on the phenomenon of pregnancy in a woman with heart disease. Stages of the investigative movement were evidenced based on the pre-reflection related to the object of study and to the search for the phenomenal meaning, using the existential and analytical Hermeneutics as the approach and resulting in the reach of the phenomenal totality. The worldview of the researcher, who considered the subjectivities of the person in a health or disease situation, favored the announcement of the referential by the object of study. Knowledge production in the light of Martin Heidegger's phenomenology unveiled phenomena lived and experienced in the Health and Nursing field, provided of epistemological rigor that demanded appropriation of concepts inherent to the existential analytics.

Living with Death in Rehabilitation: A Phenomenological Account

This paper uses an ongoing ethnography of childhood rehabilitation to rethink the Heideggerian phenomenology of death. We argue that Heidegger’s threefold perishing/death/dying framework offers a fruitful way to chart how young people, their parents, and practitioners address mortality in the routine management of muscular dystrophies. Heidegger’s almost exclusive focus on being-towards-death as an individualizing existential structure, rather than the social life with and around death, is at odds with the clinical experience we explore in this paper. After looking to the basic structures of Heidegger’s philosophy of death, we point to recent work by Leder, Svenaeus, Aho, and Carel, bringing health and the spaces of healthcare into our purview. Turning to ethnographic data, we argue that a revised phenomenology of death gives a nuanced account of how health care practitioners address death, dying, and perishing, and outline some steps toward a more ontologically sensitive clinical space. These revisions are in line with recent work in disability studies, that see disability as more than a death sentence. We advocate adjusting phenomenological reflections on disability, to be framed as a way of life, rather than as a deficient or especially deadly mode of human existence.

Thinking, Deciding, Acting: Gaps and Relations

In the first part of this essay the author points to possible gaps and relations between cognitive (thinking, reasoning, decision making) and behavioural (acting) processes. Mainstream cognitive sciences assume that thinking might result in decision making which might result in acting: i.e. cognitive processes are related to behavioural processes. Perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality might lead to destructive behaviours on personal or societal levels. It is noted that some researchers focus on mediating/moderating factors and correlations between thinking, decision making and acting, while others focus on gaps. In the second part the author reviews the articles presented in this issue and questions as they have been discussed by others: heuristics as a method that uses principles of effort-reduction and simplification, hermeneutics of values based on Max Weber concepts, Bakhtin’s ideas on philosophy of the act and diachronic, dialogistic linguistic activities, phenomenology of solidarity implying that the acts determine experience of the world in modi ‘we’, Heidegger’s thinking, assuming the vital link between practical and ontological aspects of Heideggerian phenomenology, the evidence on theory and practice of new media and the development of concepts of creativity.

The Everyday in Heidegger’s Revolutionary Thought

The article emphasizes the primacy of the everyday in Heidegger’s ecstatic thinking. It assumes the crucial link between practical and ontological aspects of Heideggerian phenomenology and thus also deals with the hermeneutic and political aspects of the Heideggerian stance. The latter is presented as inseparable from (post)modern revolutionary mood as his reconsidering of the concept of essence implies reconsidering the concept of revolution. Links between the meaning of the phenomenological terms of das Man, der Schein, etc. and the Greek thinking of essence are stressed. The Greek inspired phenomenological solution to the guiding practical and hermeneutic issue of our time – that of withdrawal of gods – is presented as the gist of Heideggerian thought.

Bringing Back Place: Exploring the Conceptions of Space, Time, and Place for Environmental Policy

This article examines the ways that American approaches to public administration and policy are heavily shaped by a Cartesian ontology that emphasizes abstract notions of time, space, and consequences that result. It proposes an alternative drawing on Heideggerian phenomenology. It examines the implication of moving our perspectives from abstracted notions time and space to authentic encounters in the world, and uses environmental policy as a reference point to investigate potential expressions. It concludes with several propositional claims regarding the implications of this shift for environmental policy narrowly and democratic governance more broadly.

Older Brazilian caregivers and their lived experiences of caring-A hermeneutic phenomenological study.

To understand the lived experiences of older Brazilian carers. For many caregivers, the practice of caregiving becomes their daily lives, embedding in their care and the experiences, beliefs, learning and techniques that contribute to the meanings these caregivers attach to their world. Studies have reported on the experiences of caregivers in general; however, few studies have addressed the unique characteristics of older caregivers. Phenomenological research was conducted in the homes of these persons who were registered in a public programme of home care. This study utilised recorded interviews with a guiding question and roadmap for characterisation. The transcribed interviews were analysed based on philosophical hermeneutics and on the understanding of the hermeneutic circle. The units of meaning were discussed from the perspective of Heidegger's phenomenology. Six older primary caregivers participated, aged between 62-84years. The following units of meaning were developed: the daily life of being in the world as an older person caring for another older person, the historicity and their disclosedness to the world of care. The worldliness of these people is influenced by a taxing routine and being overloaded and lonely, which renders these caregivers vulnerable because of this routine and because of the inherent weaknesses induced by the ageing process. This research can help health professionals better understand the worldliness of older caregivers. Such understanding will enhance the assistance available to caregivers, which must extend beyond the care of the sick person: interventions can reduce their overburden and risk of illness, improving their experiences as caregivers and their quality of life.

One world is not enough: the structured phenomenology of lifestyle migrants in East Asia.

The paper is based on original empirical research into the lifestyle migration of European migrants, primarily British, to Thailand and Malaysia, and of Hong Kong Chinese migrants to Mainland China. We combine strong structuration theory (SST) with Heideggerian phenomenology to develop a distinctive approach to the interplay between social structures and the lived experience of migrants. The approach enables a rich engagement with the subjectivities of migrants, an engagement that is powerfully enhanced by close attention to how these inner lives are deeply interwoven with relevant structural contexts. The approach is presented as one that could be fruitfully adopted to explore parallel issues within all types of migration. As is intrinsic to lifestyle migration, commitment to a better quality of life is central to the East Asian migrants, but they seek an uncomplicated, physically enhanced texture of life, framed more by a phenomenology of prosaic well-being than of self-realization or transcendence. In spite of possessing economic and status privileges due to their relatively elite position within global structures the reality for a good number of the lifestyle migrants falls short of their prior expectations. They are subject to particular kinds of socio-structural marginaliszation as a consequence of the character of their migration, and they find themselves relatively isolated and facing a distinct range of challenges. A comparison with research into various groups of migrants to the USA brings into relief the specificities of the socio-structural positioning of the lifestyle migrants of the study. Those East Asian migrants who express the greatest sense of ease and contentment seem to be those who have responded creatively to the specific challenges of their socio-structural situation. Often, this appears to have been achieved through understated but active involvements with their new settings and through sustaining focused transnational connections and relationships.

Heidegger on Expression: Formal Indication and Destruction in the Early Freiburg Lectures

ABSTRACTOf all the methodological terms used by Heidegger in the early Freiburg period, few have attracted less consensus than Formal Indication. With its relation to the earliest lecture series, critical debate has tended to focus on the extent to which this concept defines the difference between Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology. The argument of this paper is that Formal Indication is best understood in its relation to Heidegger’s other key methodological term from this period, Phenomenological Destruction. Not only do (i) both concepts grow out of the same problem set, but (ii) they act in a limited sense as counter-movements to one another. Considered together, I argue, they make up Heidegger’s response to the problem of language as expressed by Paul Natorp, and first dealt with in the Kriegsnotsemester in 1919.

The Role of the Registered Nurse Working in Substance Use Disorder Treatment: A Hermeneutic Study

ABSTRACTSubstance Use Disorders (SUDs) are a national public health crisis. However, there is minimal existing research literature on the role of the nurse working in SUD treatment. The purpose of this study was to describe the meaning of the professional role of the registered nurse working in the SUD setting. The study utilized a Heideggerian Phenomenological approach with a modified Colaizzi method for analysis and interpretation. The nine study participants, two males and seven females, aged 27–60 had worked in SUD treatment for 1–37 years. Three major themes, with sub-themes, emerged: Defining the Role for Self; Learning the Role; and Navigating with Ease in an Unchangeable Culture. Findings demonstrated that nurses in SUD treatment value their role and the care of patients with SUDs. Patient recovery or relapse influenced job satisfaction. Significantly, the findings highlighted an outdated role with rigid boundaries and no real contemporary identity. Findings can be used to address the need for a contemporary SUD nursing identity and to support ongoing involvement of nurses in health policy related to SUDs.

Heidegger, communication, and healthcare.

Communication between medical professionals and patients is an important aspect of therapy and patient satisfaction. Common barriers that get in the way of effective communication in this sphere include: (1) gender, age, and cultural differences; (2) physical or psychological discomfort or pain; (3) medical literacy; and (4) distraction due to technological factors or simply being overworked. The author examines these communicative barriers from a philosophical lens and then utilizes Martin Heidegger's phenomenology and hermeneutics to provide guidance for medical professional-patient interactions. The phenomenological approach espoused emphasizes the particular, contextual nature of such interactions, and thus is opposed to abstract, theoretical principles. Heidegger's hermeneutics provides a philosophical approach to communication that may guide the back-and-forth interpretation that should happen between medical professionals and patients to achieve effective communication.

Disordered existentiality: Mental illness and Heidegger’s philosophy of Dasein

In this paper, I propose an existentialist-phenomenological model that conceives of mental illness through the terminology of Heidegger’s Being and Time. In particular, the concepts of (i) existentiality, (ii) disturbance and (iii) the relation between ‘being-with’ and ‘the one’, will be implemented in order to reconstruct the experience of mental illness. The proposed model understands mental illness as a disturbance of a person’s existentiality. More precisely, mental illness is conceptualized as the disturbance of a person’s existential structure, the process of which leads to a becoming explicit of the otherwise implicit dynamical structure that constitutes a person’s experience. In particular, the existential component of ‘being-with’ comes to play a central role in the disturbance of existentiality, thus, I will claim, that it enables a person’s structure of experience to be ‘open for normativity’. By adopting a pragmatist stance on Heideggerian phenomenology, the suggested model proves compatible with naturalist and normativist theories of mental illness while still offering a phenomenological description of the phenomenon.

Nursing students' experiences of mentorship in their final placement.

The aim of this study was to explore final-year students' experiences of the mentorship role in their final placement and, in particular, to establish their expectations of the mentorship role, as well as their support and supervision needs. Seven final-placement students were recruited from one Scottish university, using purposive sampling. Heideggerian phenomenology was chosen as the underpinning philosophical approach because of its emphasis on the 'lived experience'. Data were generated using unstructured interviews and analysed using a modified version of Colaizzi's procedural steps. Five themes emerged from the data: 'being more independent', 'support', 'belongingness', 'feedback' and 'anticipatory anxiety'. Participants who had a positive experience of mentorship were exposed to a 'good' learning environment. As a result, they felt supported, received adequate opportunities to practise management skills, had a sense of 'belonging' within the nursing team and had regular feedback. Those who had a negative experience complained of not getting the opportunity to develop essential management skills and being dismissed for trying to be proactive. In addition, feedback was reported to be lacking. This experience resulted in reduced confidence levels, which left them feeling unprepared for the transition to registered nurse. The clinical learning environment itself and support from the mentor are key factors that influence student preparation for registration. Without this level of support, students may be left feeling unprepared to deal with the transition.

Ways of Being: Pervasive Game Design Ethos in Urban Codemakers

In this article we describe our approach to pervasive game design and provide examples of how this ethos is embedded in practice vis-a-vis the Urban Codemakers game universe. The theoretical foundations for this approach are outlined and unpacked: moving from Heideggerian phenomenology to a Situationist aesthetic for intervention in urban spaces. We illustrate the necessity of emphasising an understanding of the player's thereness for design; best surmised in Heidegger's term Dasein (there-being). In so doing, we collapse any Cartesian distinction between virtual/real, material/ideal, and subject/object for game design, to instead, a comprehension of different phenomenological worlds within which the player is necessarily embedded and embodied.

Da-Sein design: Linking phenomenology with Self-Determination Theory for game design

Abstract In this article we propose a phenomenological foundation for the application of Self-Determination Theory (SDT) in game design. While SDT provides much value in describing why a person engages with and is motivated to continue engaging with games (of all types) as meaningful experiences, it currently lacks an overt definition of meaning and how it occurs. We argue that the Heideggerian phenomenology offers an explicit delineation of meaning in the human experience, and, furthermore, is already implicit in the conceptualization of SDT’s core needs, as we demonstrate. Finally, we show how this understanding of meaning (phenomenology) and needs (SDT) can be fruitfully linked to provide a robust set of theoretical concepts for comprehending the experience of gameplay through a short case study of the camera system as designed within digital games.

PHENOMENOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY IN FOUCAULT'S “INTRODUCTION TO BINSWANGER'S DREAM AND EXISTENCE“: A MIRROR IMAGE OF THE ORDER OF THINGS?

ABSTRACTIn this article, I examine the relation between phenomenology and anthropology by placing Foucault's first published piece, “Introduction to Binswanger's Dream and Existence“ in dialectical tension with The Order of Things. I argue that the early work, which so far hasn't received much critical attention, is of particular interest because, whereas OT is notoriously critical of anthropological confusions in general, and of “Man” as an empirico‐transcendental double in particular, IB views “existential anthropology” as a unique opportunity to establish a new and fruitful relation between transcendental forms and empirical contents. This is because IB focuses on a specific object, “Menschsein” (the “being of man”), which is neither the transcendental subject nor an empirical being (a member of the class Homo sapiens). Thus for the young Foucault, existential anthropology occupies a fertile methodological middle ground between transcendental approaches (exemplified in IB by Heideggerian phenomenology) and empirical forms of analysis (exemplified by Freudian psychoanalysis). I first interpret anthropology in the light of phenomenology and defend the view that Menschsein is neither a transcendental structure nor a concrete particular, but the instantiation of the first in the second. I argue that for anthropology to yield the full theoretical benefits Foucault claims for it, the particular cases of Menschsein examined in existential analysis have to be regarded as exemplary. I then read phenomenology back in the light of anthropology and examine how, for Foucault, the analysis of Menschsein in dreams benefits fundamental ontology by affording us a clearer view of some of the main existentiale than the focus on everyday waking experience in Being and Time. Finally, I turn to the limits and difficulties of this early position and my reading of it, and to their consequences for Foucault's later view.

Fundación: última radicalización noérgica de la <em>inteligencia sentiente</em>

A review of the problem of the fundament in the phenomenology of Heidegger, criticized by the young Zubiri early in his philosophy, suggests its radicalization with analysis of the religation as seen in the third decade of the last century. The issue of the fundament continues in his mature philosophy, but never reaches a noergical status suggested from the perspective of his final work “Sentient intelligence”. Foundation remains unthinkable in the issue of the fundamental.

Relational Distressed and Maternal Absence: Young Women's Lived Experience of Familial Breast Cancer

Young women growing up within the context of familial breast cancer are faced with significant psychosocial challenges. The most profound of these are the temporary absence, and permanent loss, of their mothers. Eighteen young women (aged 18–34) from rural Victoria (Australia), with family histories of breast cancer, were interviewed for this study. The data were analyzed using hermeneutic Heideggerian phenomenology to explore their lived experiences. Our findings reveal the long term and pervasive consequences of relational distress associated with the temporary and permanent loss of mothers. This distress is experienced through disruptions to developmental attachment and embodied and biographical identity. We highlight how familial breast cancer extends beyond genetic inheritance to encompass the relational distress of loss and grief. We conclude by highlighting the importance of considering the ways in which temporality, self-identity, and daughters' ways of seeing themselves are significantly altered by their mothers' cancer experience.

Emerging from the trauma bubble: Redefining ‘normal’ after burn injury

BackgroundEmotional trauma is recognised as a common feature in the experience of patients and families following burn injury and incidence may be unrelated to burn size and severity. AimThe aim of this study was to interpret the lived experience of hospitalisation and recovery following burn injury in Australia. This paper explores the early stages of emotional recovery, how people begin to redefine normality and the needs and supports they describe as integral to this process. MethodWe used Heideggerian phenomenology, framed by Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of the body. In-depth, semi-structured interviews with 18 patient and family participants were collected 1–3 weeks after hospital discharge. Median %TBSA was 25.3 (range 3–68%). ResultsFrom a point of being vulnerable, redefining normal was supported for all participants by family being close and involved, for family members by developing routines, and for patients by challenging physical otherness, rethinking work, finding empowerment through self-care, acknowledging a shared recovery and recognising a gradual return of ‘good days’. ConclusionEmotional trauma is highly prevalent among patients and families in the early burn recuperation period where both distress and recovery may co-occur. Despite an initial sense of vulnerability, normality is gradually redefined through practices that keep family close, engage patients in early self-care and allow time, space and support for return to work. Patients, initially confronted by their own physical otherness, share their recovery with fellow burns survivors and seek affirmation from family to negotiate a ‘different’ normal, integrated into a new self-concept. Early rehabilitation may be strengthened by promoting carer involvement, patient self-efficacy and peer support.

The everyday of people waiting for kidney transplantation

Objective: to understand the everyday of people experiencing the waiting list for kidney transplantation. Methods: this is a qualitative research, based on Heideggerian phenomenology. 14 deponents participated in hemodialysis and registered on the waiting list for kidney transplantation. Phenomenological interview with the research question: How is the experience awaiting the kidney transplant? Color marking technique for analyzing demarcating lines that show similarity, of these, emerged the essential structures that enabled the units of meaning. Results: changing lifestyles, imposing a routine and rigidity of treatment signaling everyday stress and exhaustion of hemodialysis being. Emerging from the modes of gossip, curiosity, and bureaucracy, unfolding-inauthentic and impersonal regarding their care. Conclusion: hemodialysis dependence and awaiting kidney transplantation transfer care for family/professional caregivers. To understand the everyday marked by impositions and restrictions, the reflection about how professional health interaction/being-care becomes important.

Recovery from Mental Illness: The Post-modern Perspective

Twenty-first century is witnessing dramatic changes in modern psychiatry and a monologue of reason about madness has given way to real dialogues between various stake holders, including patients, represented by service user organisations [1–3]. The recovery model represents an approach, which focus much more than symptom resolution and emphasises resilience and control over problems and life, which is achieved in a holistic manner with the help of therapist along with relatives, friends and community, with a strong hope that people with mental illness can have a meaningful life and can set their own goals for their life [1]. Post-modernism is a concept taken its roots from many disciplines including linguistics, literature, architecture, philosophy and science [4]. The foundations of postmodern thoughts lie in its reactions to and rejection of certain aspects of modern philosophy. It rejects epistemological assumptions, refutes methodological conventions, resists knowledge claims, obscures all versions of truth, and dismisses policy recommendations. Psychiatry has qualities consistent with a postmodern worldview like several different theoretical models to understand and explain the mental experiences and behaviour of patients, and its interactions with value laden disciplines such as philosophy, law, psychology and social sciences [4]. In its extreme formulation postmodernism is revolutionary and radically dismisses modern psychiatry, but its moderate proclamations encourage substantive redefinition and innovations in psychiatry. Such an intellectual challenge has given birth to post-modern psychiatry or ‘‘post-psychiatry’’, which means an end to the ‘‘monologue of reason about madness’’ and an explicit attempt to redefine a discourse about meanings, relationships and values in psychiatry as primary [4]. Postpsychiatry differ from anti-psychiatry in that it neither propose new theories about madness nor seek to replace the medical techniques of psychiatry with new therapies. Rather, it opens up spaces in which other perspectives can assume validity and brings up voices of service users and survivors to the centre stage [5]. There is no single definition of the concept of recovery for people with mental health problems. Post-psychiatrist had taken up recovery concept and in many ways enriched it by discussing from various dimensions. One of the major philosophical issues with modern psychiatry, according to post-psychiatrists, is the problems of dualisms exemplified by Jaspersian phenomenology and biopsychosocial model, where experiences are treated in separate realms. Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology proposed by postpsychiatrists sees human experience as being indissolubly tied to culture and narrative, with temporality and embodiment, resulting in negating separate biological, psychological or cultural worlds that exist outside human experience and acknowledging the complexity and integrity of human experience [6]. From the above perspective, recovery can be discussed in multiple dimensions. The most commonly accepted three meaning of recovery are the restoration of a person to a healthy or normal condition after being ill, recovery of something lost or taken away and procedure of gaining possession of some property or right by a legal verdict [6]. The major limitation with first meaning, the major meaning in modern psychiatry, is that not all who experience mental illness accept that they are ill nor they consider their experience as abnormal. Hence, recovery from the perspective of such & N. A. Uvais druvaisna@gmail.com