La objeción de conciencia a los juramentos promisorios y promesas

The transition of phenomenological thought to a research methodology was based upon a dissatisfaction with the empirical methods of traditional research. In psychological research as Brentano, Husserl and Heidegger found, the person and their life world was removed from research and as a consequence the results lost meaning. There have been many translations of the phenomenological theory of Husserl and Heidegger into research method but it was never their intention. Theirs was a pure philosophy and their discussions on method related to philosophical method as explicating thought and ideas in order to determine Being, knowledge and truth. This fundamental flaw in contemporary human science research methods has temporarily caused some confusion as noted by Crotty in 1990.

However its attraction in thought and detail provided social scientists such as van Kaam, Giorgi, Colazzi and van Manen with a philosophical framework to develop a method of examining experience as it is lived in the context in which is exist. However van Manen does not attempt to move pure phenomenology into a research method. He has moved being-in the-world and being as a lived experience to a point where they are objects of interest in human science. Van Manen has taken from the philosophy and from the phenomenologists the concept of human science research – the lived experience.

Van Manen does not become submerged in the phenomenological philosophy rather he raises to a point a clarity so that in principle the philosophy of phenomenology can be the foundation for a human science research method. He says that the starting point is the belief that human science research is textual reflection on lived

experiences. His intent is to have an increase in ones thoughtfulness and orientation focused on the experience itself for itself. He clearly articulates the defining aspects of phenomenology {how one orients to the lived experience} and hermeneutics {how one interprets the “texts” of life} (van Manen, 1990:4).

The attraction of van Manen is that by using a phenomenological stance we are able to take a step back from the search for truth and knowledge (in a purely scientific way) and see what has been there all the time. Van Manen conceptualises

phenomenological research as;

• The study of lived experiences (Husserl’s influence)

• The explication of phenomena as they present themselves to consciousness (Heidegger’s influence)

• The study of essences (Husserl and Merleau-Ponty’s influence)

• The description of the experiential meanings as we live them (Merleau-Ponty and Gadamer’s influence)

• The attentive practice of thoughtfulness (Heidegger’s influence)

• A search for what it means to be human

• A poetizing activity (Merleau-Ponty and Marcel’s

influence)

(van Manen 1990:7-14) Phenomenology is not

• An empirical science

• Mere speculative inquiry in the sense of unworldly reflection

• Mere particularity nor universality

• Problem solving

(van Manen, 1990:21-23)

By clearly articulating what phenomenological research is and is not van Manen was then able to move towards developing a process that could be used in its entirety and flexible enough to say if the basic tenet and integrity of exploring the lived

experience as it is lived is maintained then what is required of the process may be eclectic. This deep understanding of the philosophy permits the lived experience to come into being naturally and not to be forced to show itself.

Orbe (2000) values phenomenology as a research method as it enables the researcher to listen and to see what is there before it is reflected upon and therefore changed. He supports van Manen’s notion of what phenomenological research is and is not. Both Orbe (2000) and van Manen (1990) recognised the difficulties of removing self and bias and that it is a practiced skill of continual re-focusing that finally elicits the true meanings of lived experiences.

The utility of phenomenological research is seen by Orbe as one that can

compliment, complicate and extend current knowledge. Phenomenological research is seen as a facilitator of knowledge. It does not a Caelli (2000) argued eliminate culture but rather embraces the fullness of the experience.

It is from the same vatage point, of the dissatisfaction with the research method of empricial science to inform some researchers and to answer the (research) questions they had that both the philposy and reseach methodology of phenomenology formed. This was a somewhat gentle growth where researchers like van Manen saw the possibilities of a pure research method in a philospical movement. To van Manen and others removing the research question to the laboratory removed it from its existance and from the things themselves. van Manen was one who was able to take the life world to a point where a hermeneutic analysis was possible.

3.5. C

This chapter has concentrated on the development of phenomenological thought and the philosophers who were responsible for this analysis. The literature tends to remove the philosophy from the life world of its proponents however the influence of the life experiences and the social and historical events of the time did have an influence. Phenomenology developed from a fundamental dissatisfaction with traditional science and the methods of scientific research, basically the humanness of the phenomenon of interest was removed and the phenomenologist believed that this produced results that had some utility but were changed by methods used.

Theirs was a philosophical analysis of bringing to our attention man as an

experiential phenomenological being. As a being that has value just by existence a value they believed had been lost over time. Truth to the phenomenologist was not the truth of science but the truth of existence and being and time. The use of speech and texts to bring to ones attention the reality of a situation resulted in a

hermeneutical development and interpretation. Returning to Nietzsche’s analogy of science and its quest to quantify the canvas and the colours and failure to explore the image becomes a phenomenology truth. The phenomenologist draw out the

experience of the image how it is interpreted by an individual and how each

individual will have a different perspective of the image, and each is right, as there is neither right nor wrong just interpretation.

This philosophical perspective supported the development of a new research method so that the experiences as they are lived and from each individual horizon could be explored for what they are not what science wants them to be. The movement from a philosophy to a research method is fraught with difficulties as this was not the intension of the phenomenologists. However van Manen’s contemporary use of the phenomenological philosophy to develop a method of research practice has produced a structure that can be utilised to explore an experience of life from the vantage of the individual.