PROYECTOS EN TORNO A LOS CUALES SE HA DESARROLLADO LA PROPUESTA DE INTERVENCIÓN

Philosophy, defined by Heidegger (1 982) as the science of world-views and reason, was initiated some 2500 years ago in fourth-century Greece, by

philosophers who questioned the meaning of life and who struggled to balance understanding of worldly and cosmic matters. Plato intermingled questions such as "Why is there anything at all and not nothing?" and "Why are things the way they are?" while questioning the right way to live (Gadamer, 1 975). Gadamer

( 1 98 1 ) explained that Socrates, and later, Plato and Aristotle, believed that philosophy is a process of thoughts and debates that one has in order to achieve harmony between logos (spoken and unspoken thoughts) and ergon (the way one is). Heidegger ( 1 958b) explained that the word philosophy originated from the Greek meaning of path. The path lies before us but it comes from somewhere (has a history) and is going somewhere (has a future). To gain understanding, we are required to examine the phenomenon that shows itself on this path. The path (or j ourney to understand the meaning of life) is lost unless the history and the future is incorporated into the present (Heidegger, 1 958b). In essence, philosophy is a science that addresses the understanding of one's life-world that leads to logical reasoning.

The founding of modem philosophy has been attributed to Descartes ( 1 596- 1 650), who spent much of his life seeking a foundation from which he could balance the existence of God, proper scientific methodology, and the material world.

Understanding of the relationship between God, the world, and humankind poses questions that cannot be answered by traditional foundations (the myths and legends) of culture (Gadamer, 1 98 1 ). Descartes believed that the key to

philosophical understanding was an individual human's certainty of hislher own existence that was differentiated from all other worldly matters and from other minds. Descartes' musings were amid a world of dramatic change for the European world. During the fifteenth century there were voyages of discovery; the Protestant Reformation dominated sixteenth century understanding of the world; and the seventeenth century was overwhelmed with scientific exploration. This led to Descartes concluding that subjectivity was the centre of philosophy (Cahoone, 1 996).

In contrast to questioning the meaning of life and the right way to live, or subjectivity as the centre of philosophy, Kant ( 1 724- 1 804) argued that humans had the freedom to determine the understanding of life, and failure to use that understanding demonstrated immaturity, compounded by cowardice or laziness. Kant contended that to remain immature resulted in humans relying on others to guide them, leading to a lack of reflective thinking (Cahoone, 1 996).

Kant ( 1 996) contended that social structures such as religion and bureaucracy prevented reflective thinking; only political and religious leaders had the freedom to understand the meaning of life by exploring the meaning of God. While the opportunities to explore were accessible to few, such exploration would lead to truth and logical reasoning.

Despite the intentions to generate environments of reasoning, philosophers such as Husserl ( 1 859-1 938) struggled to explain theories of knowledge acquisition and philosophical knowing (Bell, 1 990). Husserl' s early writings reflected thinking that knowledge became logical and sound when it could be based on concrete notions such as arithmetic, because such knowledge could be traced back to the original notion, or objective knowledge (Bell, 1 990). Therefore, the aim of philosophy was to make intelligible how humankind grew to possess notions or perceptions such as arithmetic, based on reflections that are grounded in current understanding (Bell, 1 990). Husserl argued that such approaches satisfied the reductionist's call for a systematic and comprehensive articulation of knowledge (Gadamer, 1 98 1 ).

Although philosophy is a science, because it focuses on the relationship between human beings, and life-worlds 1 , _{it is not a positivist science (Gadamer, 1 98 1 ).}

Philosophy, according to Heidegger ( 1 962) is distinguished by the fact that understanding life is not gained by other scientific methods, it is bound up with understanding tradition, and traditional knowledge. Heidegger (2000, p. 1 )

reverted to Plato's original question and asked "Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?" In order to answer this, Heidegger contended that rather than

determine incidents that lead to knowledge, it is necessary to understand happenings that lead to understanding being. Such scientific exploration is phenomenology. By making the distinction between being and beings in general, it is possible to reason and to determine the things that are. In other words while traditional scientific approaches (ontical inquiry) focus on generating general knowledge, or knowledge that occurs from everyday knowing, hermeneutics

1 Life-world refers to the everyday surroundings (world) that surround human beings, and exploration of life-world forms the foundation of investigation of human sciences (Dahlberg,

focuses on the study of the meaning of being (ontology) and generates

understanding of the nature of existence (Dahlberg et aI. , 200 1 ). All ontological knowledge comes from worldly knowledge and what is already known; it is a priori.

3.2.1 A priori

In order to determine the things that are, Heidegger ( 1 982) claimed that

phenomenology must not be confined to positivist methodologies; it is necessary to determine the characteristics and sources of knowledge. Knowledge about basic concepts determines and guides any additional scientific enquiry; not only extending knowledge, but also reinforcing what is already known (Heidegger,

1 962). For example any study into disease causality, such as cancer, is based on the current knowledge about cancer. Positivist scientific methods demonstrate logic by revealing the results and describing the pathway that led to the findings (Heidegger, 1 962).

Heidegger believed that since the original works of Socrates and Aristotle, studies of the attributes of living in a certain way and gaining knowledge of philosophical truths, precede any explorations of life (Heidegger, 1 982). Such philosophical truths are termed a priori. A priori knowledge is given knowledge embedded in the world in which we live. Husserl himself, struggled to acknowledge the influence of intuition on self, in his desire to depend upon experience alone as a teacher (Bell, 1 990). Therefore, the source of a priori knowledge needs to be explored in order to understand being human (Heidegger, 1 962). Phenomenology will not answer the development of knowledge between life and humankind unless there is an exploration of the relationship between humankind and worldly knowledge. Phenomenology is an exploration of a priori understanding, or a standpoint of the phenomena that constitute humanity (Heidegger, 1 982).