Phenomenological Principles Research Articles

Investigación cualitativa: Método fenomenológico hermenéutico

<p>Este artículo presenta nociones fundamentales de uno de los métodos de investigación cualitativa, nos referimos a la fenomenología hermenéutica sustentada en las teorías de Van Manen, Raquel Ayala y Miguel Martínez. Este enfoque conduce a la descripción e interpretación de la esencia de las experiencias vividas, reconoconoce el significado y la importacia en la pedagogía, psicología y sociología según la experiencia recogida. Este método constituye procesos rigurosos y coherentes de las dimensiones éticas de la experiencia cotidiana, difícilmente accesibles por otros métodos usuales de investigación. En esta contribución, se presenta algunas nociones metodológicas centradas en los principios de la fenomenología y sus fases: etapa previa o clarificación de presupuestos, recoger la experiencia vivida, reflexionar acerca de la experiencia vivida o etapa estructural y, finalmente, escribir-reflexionar acerca de la experiencia vivida evidenciada en fisonomía individual y grupal o llamada también texto fenomenológico.</p>

SA93 - IMAGING GENETICS TOWARDS A NEW DIAGNOSIS OF SCHIZOPHRENIA

Background Current diagnoses of Schizophrenia (SZ) and related psychiatric disorders are catalogued by phenomenological principles and clinical descriptions. Complicated gene and environmental factor interactions likely play an important role in the onset of SZ and induce great heterogeneity. This unclear etiology and heterogeneity prevent the establishing of accurate subgroups within SZ through clinical observation alone; simultaneously, the boundaries among psychiatric disorders previously drawn by phenomenological findings are merging because there is great overlap, especially in genetic variations and brain imaging findings. By characterizing and quantifying brain regions affected in psychiatric disorders, imaging genetics is a valuable research method to fulfill a new diagnostic system. We review contributions of imaging genetics to SZ diagnosis, limitations, and possible future directions. Methods Among numerous imaging genetic studies, we reviewed recent studies with relatively clear and consistent findings. They were either done in task-phase imaging to indicate certain cognitive impairments of SZ, or the genes included were highlighted in SZ itself or an important cognitive domain related to SZ. Results Some pioneering studies contribute to subtypes and disorder boundaries. The clustering study from Arnedo et al. formed correlations between disjoined networks of symptom groups and Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) sets, and it may be promising for future SZ subtypes. Bipolar-SZ Network on Intermediate Phenotypes studies combining various clinical biomarkers and brain imaging divided SZ, bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder into three different “biotypes” regardless original diagnoses, and it provided meaningful insight into the disorder boundaries. For imaging genetics research, large numbers of associations between functional imaging intermediate phenotypes and genes have been found in working memory, episodic memory, emotion, attention, cognitive control, and theory of mind in SZ or healthy risk allele carriers. Such associations were difficult to identify while using structural brains measures. Discussion Imaging genetics will continue to shape the diagnosis of SZ and related disorders. However, there are still problems to solve. Most importantly, the logic behind imaging genetics has been questioned. Franke et al. reminds us the structural brain deficits believed to be important pathological alterations of SZ may reflect prenatal and later development environmental effects not specific to SZ, or the diagnostic category of SZ may not be uniformly organized. The following aspects need future effort. Firstly, more brain measures need to be introduced, and the criteria of intermediate phenotypes should be carefully checked. The specificity of brain alterations will need careful examination in clinical settings. Secondly, more genetic factors need to be collected. Polygenic risk scores, parallel independent component analysis and other clustering method may be promising. Factors other than SNPs, such as copy number variations and regulatory factors will need to be included. Finally, imaging genetics will need compatible phenomenological assessment scales which need not distinguish current diagnoses but provide a comprehensive scan of clinical features.

Религиоведческое наследие Жака Ваарденбурга: критический анализ

The article discusses the legacy of a Dutch scholar of religion J. Waardenburg. Waardenburg criticizes the classical phenomenology of religion for its theological orientation, its idea of religion as sui generis phenomenon, its construction of a system of religious phenomena, its departure from the principles of philosophical phenomenology. The project of Waardenburg’s Neophenomenology is based on social and anthropological studies of religion with special emphasis on the cultural anthropology of C. Geertz. The methodology proposed by Waardenburg is rooted in the philosophy of M. Heidegger and hermeneutics of H-G. Gadamer. Waardenburg proposes to return to the apparatus of philosophical phenomenology, focusing on the process of intention. It seems that the main problem of the neophenomenological project is its applicability. In the writings of Waardenburg we see a lot of criticism of classical phenomenology, much less guidance on the principles of neophenomenological research and lack of specific research program. Waardenburg uses the same empathy, because religious scholar should reconstruct the intention of believers with the help of his own imagination. It seems that such a path is much more subjective than the project of classical phenomenology of religion, since the declared intentionality rests not even on the intuition and personal religious experience, as it was in classical phenomenology, but in the practice of actor’s game. The article also examines his book “Religion and religion...”, in which the principles of the new project ought to be shown, but on the contrary, religion is defined there as separate and independent sphere and universal phenomenon with a set of essential characteristics.

Lived Experiences of a Community: Merging Interpretive Phenomenology and Community-Based Participatory Research

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) and interpretive phenomenology, when merged, can provide insight into the experiences of a homogenous community. The purpose of this manuscript is 2-fold. First, we aim to provide a conceptual view of merging methodological approaches of phenomenology and CBPR. Principles of interpretive phenomenology, the philosophical stance, and the qualitative analysis methodology, as well as how interpretive phenomenology is complementary to CBPR, are reviewed. Second, the utility, rationale, and feasibility of merging these diverse approaches are explored. For illustrative purposes, exemplars from a Parkinson’s disease stakeholder study are used to discuss aims, methods, and results. Focus group data collection strategies and the use of Template Analysis as an analytic tool are also described. Themes that materialized from the data focused on support group experiences for this rural community. In keeping with interpretive phenomenology, the researchers’ interpretation of these themes led to the understanding of an overall essence, or essential theme, of this community’s lived experiences.

Emerging Phenomenological and Biological Principles of Consciousness: Top Insights of Prevailing Models, Concepts, and Observations

We are all aware that our experience is structured into left and right, up and down, and we can understand from our own experience that consciousness is unified into a singular whole. Although we can understand such basic phenomenological axioms of experience, there are many more principles that we cannot elucidate from our natural perspective alone. In this article, we review potential principles of consciousness revealed by prominent consciousness models, theories, and experimental observations such as the Default Space Theory, Operational Architectonics Theory, and Integrated Information Theory, which reveal biological and phenomenological foundations upon which consciousness is formed and maintained. The fundamental concepts we explore and consider worthy have largely emerged from commonalties shared by the various models which have gained attention. The concepts we review include the unity of consciousness, bioelectric operations as the substrate of consciousness, the emergence of a virtual 3D matrix, and the top-down dominance of perception.

МОДЕЛЮВАННЯ МОЖЛИВИХ СВІТІВ У ПРОЗІ СИГІЗМУНДА КРЖИЖАНОВСЬКОГО

Modern researchers consider the oeuvre of Sigizmund Dominikovich Krzhizhanovsky, the Russian-speaking writer of Polish origin, to be a “literary phenomenon” and a “literary discovery” of the twentieth century. Publications, translations into many world languages and active scholar familiarization with the writer’s heritage begins in the end of XX – at the beginning of XXI centuries. The article examines the Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s prose that presents the original artistic heterogeneous universe, where a “multidimensional world” becomes the structure creating model. In the Krzhizhanovsky’s prose a word-creative experiment plays an important role in the creation of many interconnected worlds. The number of writer’s occasional forms even does not undergo an approximate estimation. The second important factor of creating a model of “multidimensional world” is defamiliarization (by Victor Shklovsky) as a phenomenological and gnoseological principle and method. The writer’s artistic consciousness is based on the phenomenon of understanding, connected with the change of vision and understanding, which pulls objects or things out of usual contexts of recognition and re-describing them as a “new discovered” phenomena. Due to this the usual appears unusual, strange. Krzhizhanovsky creates conditional, metaphysical, phantasmagorical and paradoxical worlds. In these strange worlds boundaries of Real and Irreal are blurred, the fiction itself acquires a real image, and reality emerges fantastic. The “logic” of alogism and paradoxes often functions in these worlds. In the artistic language the writer uses the strategy of “morbid” nomination that creatively enriches speech resources and refreshes the literary thesaurus. In the Krzhizhanovsky’s artistic world dominant narrative and pictorial strategies are also based on the next methods: the reviving of things, phenomena and abstract notions, thoughts and words, etc.; materialisation and narrative implementation of metaphors; the use of grotesque. An important role is played by the saturated intertextuality and game modus at different levels: from language and speech to codification of culture. In such a way the author’s model of Philosophy of creativity and philosophy of culture as an endless polyphonic polylog, continuous creative process and boundless creative imagination is realized.

РЕПРЕЗЕНТАЦИЯ ПАЛОМНИЧЕСКОЙ ПРАКТИКИ В ЭЛЕКТРОННОМ ДНЕВНИКЕ КРЕСТОХОДЦА: CASE STUDY

The article presents a case study of a walking pilgrimage to the village of Velikorecki (Kirov region), which is described in an electronic diary of a participant in a mass cross-religious procession. As an object of the case study, the electronic diary gives the richest material for the study of the “exceptional case”: it is a fairly voluminous text, its author is an experienced pilgrim who not only describes in detail all that is happening, but also seeks to evaluate, comprehend events and phenomena based on his own worldview attitudes. The codification of the text on the basis of the theoretical and methodological principles of phenomenology (A. Schütz, P. Berger) made it possible to analyze the features of motivation, ritual behavior and religious experience of the nematode and build. In the mini-theory presented, it is stated that the text of the diary embodies the traditional practice of walking pilgrimage that has developed for centuries in the national culture...

Phenomenology as the Methodology of Historical Poetics

Phenomenology as the method of displaying essence behind the outer outlook of the observed phenomena gains wide use within various realms of knowledge. It has become the basis for diagnostics and the study of phylogenies within biology. Its various aspects are applied in different branches of humanities, meanwhile, it lacks its approach towards the history of culture. The definition of phenomena and epiphenomena as the prerequisite for mental experiments can exemplify its effectiveness for the historical researches. The phenomenological principle of subjective activity makes it possible to develop the doctrine of intentional reflection as the instrument for disclosing targets in the situations of conflicts. The concept of eidetic reduction and the evaluation of a priori experience turn to become effective for the study of historical consciousness. The intuitionist logics aims at the presentation of proper names conforming to the peculiarities of unique and irreproducible historic events. The distance of historical objects can be conceived on the basis of cycled constructions as the instrument of eidetic logics. The concept of inter-subjective relations generalizes that of communication as the condition of existence of ideal objects. Phenomenological models have proved to become effective to explain such peculiarities of stylistic development as the permanence of traditions together with their revival and transformation. There arises the principle of mutuality of synchronic and diachronic aspects of text together with the formation of the concept of history as text. Theatrical interpretation becomes the model of a mental experiment in history.

Navigating neoliberal school spaces: Parent and school staff perspectives on racially disproportional school exclusions in England

This article uses phenomenology and critical race theory to explore educators’, parents’, and education social workers’ experiences with policies and discipline practices in English schools. Critical race theory was used to center the significance of race and neoliberal school reforms on disparities, while phenomenological principles were applied to understand participant lived experiences in these settings. Participant perspectives were captured using semi-structured interviews and focus groups. Findings indicate that pressurized school environments and racial bias fostered racialized neoliberalism and hindered how education social workers and pastoral carer workers advocated for students at risk of school exclusion.

Grynoji ir dialoginė fenomenologija


 [straipsnis ir santrauka lietuvių kalba; santrauka anglų kalba]
 Straipsnyje siekiama parodyti, kodėl reikia atmesti populiarią fenomenologijos sampratą, pagal kurią fenomenologija yra pirmąja asmens perspektyva paremta refleksija. Straipsnyje argumentuojama, kad tyrinėjimas gali būti įvardijamas kaip fenomenologinis huserliškąja prasme, jeigu ir tik jeigu jis yra paremtas trimis pamatiniais fenomenologiniais principais – epoché, fenomenologine redukcija ir eidetine variacija – suprantant juos kaip nepakeičiamus fenomenologinius principus, sudarančius grynosios fenomenologijos pamatą. Šie trys fenomenologiniai principai yra būtini, bet nepakankami: jie turi būti papildyti faktinės variacijos principu. Straipsnyje pristatoma pozicija, kad faktinės variacijos inkorporavimas į fenomenologinių tyrinėjimų lauką transformuoja grynąją fenomenologiją į dialoginę fenomenologiją.

On the nature and systematic role of evidence: Husserl as a proponent of mentalist evidentialism?

AbstractIn this paper, I shall show that for Husserl, (a) evidence determines epistemic justification and (b) evidence is linked to originary givenness in the sense that one's ultimate evidence consists of one's originary presentive intuitions. This means that in contemporary analytic terminology, Husserl is a proponent of evidentialism and mentalism. Evidentialism and mentalism have been introduced into current debates by Earl Conee and Richard Feldman. Finally, I shall highlight that there is one significant difference between Husserl and Earl Conee and Richard Feldman. Although Conee and Feldman argue that the fundamental principles of epistemology are principles of best explanation, Husserl opts for phenomenological principles as the most fundamental epistemic principles. The main difference is that for Husserl, experiences gain their justificatory force by virtue of their phenomenal character, namely, their originary givenness.

Sustaining social entrepreneurship through networks in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

This paper’s purpose is to elaborate the role of networks in the social entrepreneurial process and their positive outcomes. Social networks contribute to the establishment, sustenance and expansion of the small- and medium-sized social entrepreneurship projects in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The research design and methodology are based on the principles of phenomenology coupled with insights from 10 social entrepreneurs regarding the role of networks in their journey of a start-up’s sustenance and expansion. Findings indicate that networks support resource management and help in building social ties and social capital, and unveil the core of social entrepreneurship to suggest an institutional framework that can encourage the youth in the region to perceive their ventures for the benefit of the society.

Interpreting the first-year experience of a non-traditional student: A case study

This article concerns non-traditional students’ involvement in Australian higher education. It aims to deepen understanding of enabling and constraining factors for this group’s retention, through an in-depth case study of a non-traditional student’s university experience. The study is underpinned by principles of phenomenology, hermeneutics and idiography with data analysis involving an inductive coding process and a thematic analysis. Findings draw attention to the need to provide support for non-traditional university students in developing a sense of connectedness and resourcefulness. The study makes an original contribution to knowledge by challenging the assumption that western theories of psychology, which privilege an individualist perspective, adequately explain and predict behaviours of non-traditional students who are members of collective social systems. It emphasises the need for researchers and practitioners to adopt an interpretative stance that accommodates a collectivist perspective. Without this approach, student behaviours may be misinterpreted and their circumstances may be unfairly undervalued.

Meaning making from life to language:The Semiotic Hierarchy and phenomenology

AbstractThe paper rethinks a proposal for a unified cognitive semiotic framework,The Semiotic Hierarchy,in explicitly phenomenological terms, following above all the work of Merleau-Ponty. The main changes to the earlier formulation of the theory are the following. First, the claim that a general concept of meaning can be understood as the value-based relationship between the subject and the world is shown to correspond to the most fundamental concept of phenomenology:intentionality, understood as “openness to the world.” Second, the rather strict nature of the original hierarchy of meaning levels made the model rather static and one-directional, thus resembling an old-fashionedscala naturae. Reformulating the relationship between the levels in terms of the dynamical notion ofFundierungavoids this pitfall. Third, the phenomenological analysis allows, somewhat paradoxically, both a greater number of levels (life, subjectivity, intersubjectivity, sign function, language) and less discrete borders between these. Fourth, there is an intimate relation between (levels and kinds of) intentionality and normativity, making the normativity of language a special case. Fifth, to each level of meaning corresponds a dialectics of spontaneity and sedimentation, with corresponding normative structures (e.g., habits, emotions, conventions, signs and grammar) both emerging from and constraining, but not determining, subject-world interactions. Sixth and finally, the analysis follows the basic phenomenological principle to examine the phenomena without theoretical preconceptions, and without premature explanations. This implies a focus on human experience, even when dealing with the “biological” level of meaning, with the possibility of extending the analysis to non-human subjects through empathy. The intention is that this phenomenologically interpreted version of the Semiotic Hierarchy may serve as a useful tool against any kind of meaning reductionism, whether biological, mental, social or linguistic.

Mothers’ Experience of Post-Traumatic Growth in Pediatric Kidney Transplantation

ABSTRACTParenting a child with chronic kidney disease has a profound impact on the parental caregivers across social, emotional, and physical functioning. As the survival rates for children with chronic kidney disease increase, the demands on parents caring for these children intensify. The aim of this study was to understand the lived experience of being a mother of a child who has undergone kidney transplantation. Seven mothers caring for children with chronic kidney disease in Ontario, Canada participated in in-depth interviews that were analyzed according to the principles of hermeneutic phenomenology. The present study presents the findings concerning post-traumatic growth: personal strength, new possibilities, enhanced relationships, appreciation of life and spiritual change. Recognizing positive aspects of stressful situations and the potential for growth can impact the practice of social workers and other health-care professionals. Ultimately the assistance that is provided to parent caregivers can be improved with a better understanding of the whole experience.

Incorporating a visual method into an interpretative phenomenological analysis study: A practical guide

Despite the recent interest in visual methods within qualitative psychology, few researchers have offered papers discussing the process involved in implementing such an approach. With this in mind, the following article, based on research conducted for the first author’s PhD, discusses why and how a visual method was used as part of the data collection, what it brought to the study and some cautions about its use. In the example described, the method contributed to an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), and it is argued that such an addition to the design sits well with the principles of phenomenology and can enhance access to lived experiences for both participant and researcher.

Principles of structural phenomenology

Structural phenomenology is both a general theory of experience and a scientific method, whose contours and potentially considerable explanatory power have been fundamentally obscured by its complex historical genesis. Barring a few partial or indirect attempts (Holenstein 1976, Piana 1996, Coquet 2007, Groupe µ 2015), no explicit analysis and certainly no synthetic account of its core tenets have been provided. Indeed, structural phenomenology has generally not been framed as a coherent tradition, theory or model in its own right. At best, the term seems to refer only to the indefinite conceptual space where structuralism and phenomenology have on occasion intersected. Because the works of Edmund Husserl, the Gestalt psychologists, Roman Jakobson, Maurice Merleau-Ponty or Jacques Derrida all provide, to varying extents, strong examples of productive convergences or intersections between these two traditions, it is nonetheless quite clear that explorations of structural-phenomenological ideas constituted not a fleeting episode, but a persistent undercurrent in 20th Century European intellectual history. As we hope to clarify here, moreover, it is possible not only to isolate a number of defining ideas in this existing nexus of exchanges between phenomenological and structuralist approaches, but also to distill these ideas into a set of consistent principles that can provide a first outline of the theoretical scope of structural phenomenology.

Роль мовної гри в реалізації феноменологічних експериментів Тараса Прохаська.

Phenomenological experiments by T. Prokhasko are primarily related with the attempts of the characters in his texts to objectively describe and learn what is usually considered to be subjective - consciousness, feeling, perception. Verbalization of such a life philosophy has affected the specifics of the language in his works. The language-game in the texts of the collection "The Lexicon of Secret Knowledge" is used on the phonetic, lexical and syntactic levels. Language-game on the syntactic level is crucial for writer’s idiostyle, because it is created by using stream of consciousness technique, cataloging, cinematography, recombination, detailing, etc. Language-game on the syntactic level is used to put emphasis on the details of the author's point of view, in an attempt to present reality not by the description of the reality, but by passing impressions of it. Because of that the syntax of Taras Prokhasko is complex and consists of repetitions, chiasmuses, amplifications, and other types of complex sentence structure. All of this is in order to convey the aesthetic principles of phenomenology to the reader.

The lived experience of first year undergraduate student nurses: A hermeneutic phenomenological study

IntroductionThis study gives insight into the experiences and perceptions of one group of undergraduate nursing students as they make the transition into Higher Education and the nursing profession, during the first year, of their three-year programme. Research has shown that first year undergraduate experience is complex and challenging for any student. For undergraduate nursing students, the process of achieving additional professional practice competencies required for United Kingdom nursing registration adds additional responsibility and potentially, more pressure. Few studies have considered student nurses' lived experiences during their first year of study in any depth. Study AimThis study aimed to understand how one group of undergraduate nursing students perceived their experiences of the transition into higher education and nursing profession. DesignFramed within an interpretive philosophical paradigm, a hermeneutic phenomenological approach enabled the exploration of participants' lived experiences. Setting and ParticipantsThe study took place at a Higher Education Institution approved nurse education provider in the North of England, United Kingdom (UK). Following ethical approval, ten first year student nurses from a range of different backgrounds gave informed consent to participate. MethodsOver a one year period between 2013 and 2014 participants provided data at three points during their first year (four months, eight months and twelve months) via semi-structured, digitally recorded individual interviews (n=30) and digital recordings of critical incident accounts as they occurred (n=30). Data was transcribed verbatim, systematically thematically analysed drawing on hermeneutic phenomenological principles and verified for thematic accuracy by participants in 2015. FindingsFive themes emerged from the data: uncertainty; expectations; learning to survive; seeking support; and moving forward. Findings identify that the participants had developed skills to survive however considerable variation in their experience, influenced motivation and behaviour. They developed their own skills of coping to deal with the demands of academic life and those of the practice setting. An explanatory student journey model demonstrated that developing self-efficacy was key to their successful transition through the first year of undergraduate study. ConclusionsUnderstanding the first year student nurse perspective and insight into their coping strategies are key to supporting a positive learning journey. Positive feedback from nurse educators, a growing sense of nursing community and motivation to succeed facilitates their internalisation of nursing identity, norms and values and an active pursuit of learning towards graduate status and becoming a nurse.

A phenomenological exploration of graduate nurse transition to professional practice within a transition to practice program

AimTo explore the experiences of graduate nurses enrolled in a transition program, to gain insight into what graduates experienced as beneficial, as barriers and to seek meaning to the phenomena of transition as experienced within a transition program. BackgroundA graduate nurse’s transition to professional practice is a time of high emotion where graduates leave the familiar grounds of university for the unknown of professional practice. Numerous studies, spanning many decades, have investigated issues regarding transition leading to the development of transition programs to aid the recognised burden. MethodThe researchers used principles of hermeneutic phenomenology to explore the language used in semi-structured interviews of seven graduate nurses undertaking a Transition to Professional Practice Program in an Australian metropolitan hospital to investigate the lived experiences of transition within a transition program. ResultsThematic analysis of transcribed interviews revealed that transition from student to professional is a time of many new demands that causes shock and can lead to negative emotions. However, many constructive responses and positive emotions were also present. These responses included positive feelings in the care of patients and of support received by graduates from dedicated educators linked to the transition program and by senior nurses on the ward. ConclusionTransition to practice is an important stage in the career of a Registered Nurse and the transition issues related by graduate nurses in this study corresponded with issues raised in similar transition literature suggesting that continued work is required. However, the benefits of dedicated staff in aiding transition as expressed by the participants of this study is a positive affirmation of the advantages of graduates being enrolled in a transition program.