Value Of Phenomenology Research Articles

From Meaning to Ecocide: The Value of Phenomenology for Green Criminology

The planetary crisis that we face today is not only a result of human-induced environmental degradation, but also of a deep crisis of meaning and value in human existence. In consequence, this article will demonstrate the value of phenomenology towards the existential paradigm within green criminology and its importance to overcome a lived experience that is opposed to the planet’s ecological balance. The article will present Martin Heidegger’s phenomenology through his conception of ‘being-here’, which elaborates on the modes of unreflective and unselfconsciousness of everyday existence. This will then be developed into the theory of being-towards-ecocide that is concerned with the meaning of the individual’s encounter with ecocide. Finally, the value of phenomenology as a conceptual tool for the analysis of green crimes and harms will be outlined as a necessary shift towards transcending ecocide and for an existential, theoretical, and systematic construction for the world of everyday life.

Using phenomenology in careers research: student experiences of unpaid work

ABSTRACT Career guidance has been criticised for focusing on individual agency, complying with discourses that “responsibilise” individuals to manage their careers. A social justice approach argues for a more nuanced recognition of the interplay of structure and agency, which raises questions about how to do this in practice? In this paper we argue for the value of interpretive phenomenology which challenges what is taken-for-granted, illuminates the nature of shared experience and enables a deeper understanding of individuals within their environment. Through interviews with higher education students and recent graduates, we illustrate how experiences of unpaid work are intricately interwoven with biography, relationships, location and resources over time. We illustrate how a . pragmatic phenomenological approach offers valuable theoretical tools for socially just guidance practice and research.

Eco-Psychological and Phenomenological Approach to Sustainability

Our purpose is to show the value of eco-psychology and phenomenology for a cognitive paradigm fostering sustainable development. Our hypothesis is that those fields help lay the groundwork for truly sustainable development. Our method is a review of scholarly and theoretical work on the origins of the modern paradigm that has governed conceptions of development, and on eco-psychology, phenomenology, cognitive science, and sustainable development. Our contribution is a fully informed understanding of psychological and socio-cultural issues relevant to sustainability. The prevailing conception of development derives from the origins of modern science in seventeenth-century Europe. Francis Bacon and René Descartes elaborated a vision of development, or material progress, based on exploitation of a nature without inherent value, as a source of raw materials for human purposes. Eco-psychology aims to repair the rift between humanity and nature. Our dominant idea of development implies the alienation from nature that makes it difficult to prioritize authentic sustainability. Maurice Merleau-Ponty makes the crucial point that “we can never grasp the world in its totality but we grasp it according to the mode in which we inhabit it” (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, as cited in Buckley, 2013). What will we sustain? How will we negotiate the socio-cultural and psychological obstacles and achieve reconciliation? What are some examples of meaningful, practical movement toward sustainability?Keywords: eco-psychology, phenomenological, sustainability, mindset/paradigm, mindfulness, emotions, healing

„Sprawy korzenne”. Fenomenologia Zuzanny Ginczanki

The paper concerns Zuzanna Ginczanka’s floristic signatures (trees, flowers and fruits), which are used by the poet to construct literary tropes. It shows how, by means of these signatures, the following oppositions are introduced: life/death, surface/depth, outside/inside, form/substance, phenomenon/essence. The crux of the argument is that in Ginczanka’s poetry there is a conflict concerning the value of phenomenology, i.e. what is really important: the phenomena (trees, flowers, fruits) or the hidden essences („the Questions of Root”)? I go on to argue that the poet’s thinking corresponds to Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, in which the subject’s experience is considered to be related to his life environment and the philosophy of the body is identified with the phenomenology of perception. Emphasizing „the Questions of Root” in the very title of the paper indicates what is most problematic for Ginczanka and, at the same time, what determines her recognition of poetry as an expression of unattainable desires.

„Sprawy korzenne”. Fenomenologia Zuzanny Ginczanki

The paper concerns Zuzanna Ginczanka’s floristic signatures (trees, flowers and fruits), which are used by the poet to construct literary tropes. It shows how, by means of these signatures, the following oppositions are introduced: life/death, surface/depth, outside/inside, form/substance, phenomenon/essence. The crux of the argument is that in Ginczanka’s poetry there is a conflict concerning the value of phenomenology, i.e. what is really important: the phenomena (trees, flowers, fruits) or the hidden essences („the Questions of Root”)? I go on to argue that the poet’s thinking corresponds to Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, in which the subject’s experience is considered to be related to his life environment and the philosophy of the body is identified with the phenomenology of perception. Emphasizing „the Questions of Root” in the very title of the paper indicates what is most problematic for Ginczanka and, at the same time, what determines her recognition of poetry as an expression of unattainable desires.

The journeys of a film phenomenologist: An interview with Vivian Sobchack on being and becoming

In this interview Vivian Sobchack, a leading film phenomenologist worldwide and Professor Emerita at UCLA, looks back at her career as a film and media scholar. She relates how she first wanted to become a novelist – as well as an astronomer – before academia and the study of film attracted her attention. She describes how she became interested in existential phenomenology, how her groundbreaking book The Address of the Eye took shape, and how it has influenced film studies since its first publication 25 years ago. She also reflects on the value of phenomenology as a research method and responds to criticism leveled against it as a philosophy that is too subjectivist and a-political.

Sartre's Literary Phenomenology

This article focuses on the relation between philosophy and literature in early Sartre, showing how his literary writing can be seen as philosophically significant by interpreting Sartre as practising a variant of phenomenological method. I first clarify Sartre’s approach to phenomenological method by comparing and contrasting it with Husserl’s. Despite agreeing that philosophy is a reflective descriptive study of essences, Sartre sees no use for phenomenological reduction and free variation. I then consider the philosophical function of Sartre’s literary works, arguing that, although these cannot reliably convey philosophical theories, their significance lies in describing concrete situations that ground reflective theoretical concepts. However, this grounding function can be understood only if Sartre is seen as realising Husserl’s phenomenological method – including phenomenological reduction and free variation – more fully than he acknowledges. Finally, I address two challenges to my view and briefly assess the value of literary phenomenology as a philosophical method.

Living Alterities: Phenomenology, Embodiment, and Race

Living Alterities: Phenomenology, Embodiment, and Race

Phenomenology as a Potential Methodology for Subjective Knowing in Science Education Research

This paper charts the journey that led to the author's discovery of phenomenology as a potential research methodology in the field of science education, and describes the impact on his own thinking and approach of his encounters with the work of Husserl and Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Van Manen. Drawing on this theoretical framework, the author argues that, as a methodology for investigating scientific thinking in relation to life experience, learning and curriculum design, phenomenology not only provides a means of accessing subjective knowing and pure perception, but is sufficiently rigorous and systematic to represent the lifeworld experiences of research participants with a high degree of accuracy. In the process, he highlights the uniqueness and value of phenomenology in relation to quantitative and other qualitative research methods. The aim of this paper is to inspire insight into the value in science education research of using a methodology that fosters a deeper understanding of both teachers’ and learners’ lived experience of the scientific world. The challenge to science specialists, whether educators or researchers, would be to shift their default mode of understanding from the object pole to the ego pole, from the physical object to the human subject, from the observable and measurable to the lived as the true source of human knowledge.

The Possibilities of Phenomenology for Organizational Research

Qualitative researchers have developed and employed a variety of phenomenological methodologies to examine individuals’ experiences. However, there is little guidance to help researchers choose between these variations to meet the specific needs of their studies. The purpose of this article is to illuminate the scope and value of phenomenology by developing a typology that classifies and contrasts five popular phenomenological methodologies. By explicating each methodology’s differing assumptions, aims, and analytical steps, the article generates a series of guidelines to inform researchers’ selections. Subsequent sections distinguish the family of phenomenological methodologies from other qualitative methodologies, such as narrative analysis and autoethnography. The article then identifies institutional work and organizational identity as topical bodies of research with particular research needs that phenomenology could address.

The Applicability of Phenomenology in the Study of Religion

This art icle seeks to investigate the applicability of phenomenology of Relig ion in the study of Relig ion. It outlines the central concerns of the method and illustrates how the Western context has shaped the development of phenomenology. After examin ing the characteristics of the method, a critical approach is adopted regarding the value of phenomenology with special reference to the study of African traditional religions. In this article it is argued that while phenomenological ideals are appealing, there is need to exercise caution. There is the danger that students might absolutise the method. In addition, a call is made for African scholars of religion to participate in methodological debates. This is necessary in order to avoid the unfortunate impression that it is the prerogative of Western scholars. The article concludes by showing the amb iguous nature of the phenomenology of religion.

The Value of a Phenomenology of the Emotions for Cultivating One's Own Character

The Value of a Phenomenology of the Emotions for Cultivating One's Own Character

On Seeing: Remarks on Metzger’s Laws of Seeing

Nowadays cognitive science often views sensorial presentations and mental presentations as mutually exclusive, and they are also given separate treatment by neurophysiologists and by cognitive scientists, and some phenomena (like anomalous surfaces or various types of imagery) are reduced to either the former or the latter. Since no adequate methods for its investigation have been developed, the level of perceptual experiences analysed by Gestaltists and magnificently illustrated by Metzger in his Laws of Seeing remains unexplored. Starting from Metzger’s analyses the paper deals with the question of the theoretical value of experimental phenomenology to the theory of knowledge and ontology.

La humildad de la fenomenología

From our current situation and looking at the future this essay tries to think what is the possible significance and value of Phenomenology. It will be sustained that there is a genuine necessity of Phenomenology. This necessity, I contend, arises from the rational humility that is idiosyncratic to it. Effectively, the exposition makes clear that, beyond any particular conception of how phenomenology is to be concretely accomplished, humility determines phenomenology as a rational endeavor practically deployed. The practical need of phenomenology is identical with the practical need of such a rational humility.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: The View from the Interior: The New Body Scholarship in Renaissance/Early Modern Studies

Teaching & Learning Guide for: The View from the Interior: The New Body Scholarship in Renaissance/Early Modern Studies

On the Value of Phenomenology Across Disciplines and Traditions

Philosophical phenomenology has often been regarded as having more to do with subjective psychology and exegesis than with contemporary problems facing analytical cognitive science. Dan Zahavi, in his book Subjectivity and Selfhood, strongly challenges this understanding of phenomenology by focusing upon the relations among experience, self-awareness, and selfhood and, thereby, providing an account of the self that has significance for cognitive scientists and analytical philosophers of mind, as well as for phenomenologists. Although the subjective element of consciousness or, rather, the phenomenal first-person perspective has enjoyed greater attention in recent years, Zahavi claims that the utility of philosophical phenomenology stretches beyond its usual limits of analyzing the nature of consciousness. Phenomenology, Zahavi writes, "can also offer a conceptual framework for understanding subjectivity that might be of considerably more value than some of the models currently in vogue in cognitive science" (p. 5). Specifically, Zahavi targets higher-order representational theories. He also critiques the view that the experience of oneself or others as minded beings requires a theory of mind. This is commonly referred to as the theory-theory of mind view. According to this view, an understanding of the mind from both the first-person and third-person perspective is founded upon theoretical knowledge. One important implication of this view is that human beings must first acquire a basis of theoretical knowledge before a first-person perspective of the self as a minded being and the understanding of other humans as minded beings can take place. Zahavi critiques the theory-theory of mind view as uninformed insofar as it denies the fundamental importance of an understanding of the mind as acquired through phenomenal experience. In this clearly written and carefully articulated book, Zahavi succeeds in moving philosophical phenomenology forward and into its deserved role in discussions concerning the nature of the self and consciousness through thoughtful

Summary remarks: Fundamental physics with the cosmic microwave background radiation

This article is less a summary of the meeting, vibrant as it was, than a reflection on the present state of CMB studies. We are at an interesting juncture: in the week before the Irvine meeting, the rich results of the WMAP 3-year study were released, and the next goals in CMB studies have been examined in some detail by a recent multi-agency Task Force. I will look at the value of theory and phenomenology to the field, and the increasing importance of CMB studies to fundamental physics. Then I’ll move to challenges facing us over the next decade or so. These include coping with foreground emission, polarized and unpolarized, and readjusting the sociology of our field as experiments grow more complex and costly.

A Theoretical Discussion About the Clinical Value of Phenomenology for Nurses

This article develops a theoretical discussion related to the value of a phenomenological framework in contributing to contemporary nursing knowledge. Nursing is based on the understanding of patients' personal experiences and their responses to their illness. Phenomenological methodology utilizes the patient's own language to reflect meanings embedded in their health experience.

The partner's experience of breast cancer: a phenomenological approach.

The aim of this study is to describe the immediate 'lived experience' of partners of breast cancer patients. Previous attempts to explore the reactions and feelings of partners have been restricted mainly to quantitative research methods. While these methods are valuable in collecting information on specific areas of concern, they are limited to gathering information that the researcher sees as important. Thus, the value of phenomenology is demonstrated in describing the experience as a whole. A problem in using this method is that it can be time-consuming, hence only seven participants were included in the study. The participants were selected on the basis that they had personally lived the experience and were willing to participate. Data collection was by means of in-depth, tape-recorded interviews that were transcribed and analysed. Significant statements were extracted from the data and linked to each other to form separate themes. The six themes which were identified are described: anticipating fate; fear; denial; helplessness; sharing of altered body image; and diversity of emotions. Finally, the implications for nursing are discussed.

Social theory and prospects in social geography

There is little doubt that a phenomenological approach in the Husserlian mould is valuable in curbing the excessive positivism and naivety that have characterised much of the social geography undertaken in Britain during the past twenty years. However, the operational value of phenomenology in social geography is more controversial. Ley's formulation of a phenomenologically based social geography focussing on the concept of place suffers from certain methodological and theoretical problems that stem, in part, from his adoption of Schutz's conceptualisation of the social world. A phenomenologically inspired but modified approach, involving the concepts of structuration and power and drawing heavily on the work of Giddens, is suggested as superior. This conceptualisation, which connects human action with structural explanation, permits a valuable reformulation of the geography of mental illness and may have similarly worthwhile applications in other areas of interest to social geographers.