TO ADD: Detmer 2013 Phenomenology

 

(Detmer, 2013)

Husserl advocates that bracketing means that objects of experience, the phenomena, are studied in their own terms (p.63).

Rather than informing readers of events that happened at distant times or places, or the results of a scientific experiment conducted in laboratories, phenomenology discusses the fundamental data of human experience. Readers are therefore well equipped to think along with phenomenological authors and to evaluate phenomenological texts by comparing the descriptions they contain to their own experience (p.18).

Phenomenological writings usually contain fewer arguments than other philosophical works, rather they act as maps and guideposts to assist readers to find in their own experience what the phenomenological authors find in theirs (p.19).

Detmer (2013) states that according to Husserl, to clarify something, even in logic and mathematics, disciplines which deal with abstract entities, is to ground it in direct, lived experiences (p.22).

Phenomenology’s intention is to clarify the meanings of the basic concepts and categories of all specialised disciplines and areas of inquiry by grounding them in the essential structures, carefully observed and described, of lived experiences (p.23).

Meaning is not identical to, or reducible to what we perceive, since (a) one and the same perception can give rise to a variety of meanings (and judgements), and (b) one and the same meaning (and judgment) can be founded on different perceptions (p.99).

One of the widely criticised aspects of Husserl’s thought was that philosophy should be ‘presupposition-less’ and researchers should bracket our beliefs (p.112).

This was challenged by Charles Hartshorne (ref) who said we are all bound to have presuppositions as we are motivated by the desire to answer definitive questions and test theories which is formed on the basis of some prior beliefs and are guided by some sense of what is important, relevant or interesting to find out about a topic (p.112).

Husserl also proposed ‘phenomenological reduction’ in which the theorising and positing of the natural attitude are to be ‘bracketed’ to set aside and turn away from any personal judgements to allow researchers to focus on what they might obscure, which is the lived experience of participants (p.143).

Another way to grasp the point of phenomenological reduction is simply to recall that phenomenology is committed to relying exclusively on what is actually presented in experience (p.144).

The point of reduction is to bring our assumptions to our awareness, so that they can be set aside, or put in ‘brackets’ (p.144).

It enables us to put into focus and thematise, to make explicit, to focus on the natural attitude, which we ordinarily would take for granted and fail to examine (p.144).

And we can critically evaluate those things that we may not ordinarily see because it is the taken for granted ubiquitous content that is right before our eyes or under our noses and for these things to show themselves (p.144).

Reduction = epoche