I must admit that, while I think I have more than two braincells to rub together, a lot of philosophical concepts really puzzle me. One of them is “phenomenology.” I can parse the term itself as
phenomenon–an observable fact or occurrence;
ology–study of
So I gather that phenomenology is the study of observable facts or occurrences. I’ve also read that a phenomenon strictly applies to an occurrence that is perceivable through a person’s senses.
But that’s where I get stuck. I read the definition of phenomenology and then I see the term “historical phenomenology”, which seems to have its own set of definitions that I can’t reconcile with the original definition of phenomenology.
I’ve searched around, but I can’t seem to get my head around what it is exactly. Will someone please help me understand this term by explaining it to me in simple terms?
You can think of phenomenology as the study of experiences, and how those experiences are constructed from the moment-to-moment sensory phenomena that we encounter.
So, for example, a phenomenological analysis of the act of reading at book would look at how the meaning the of text dynamically emerges as each new word is read off the page. This is a different approach than the typical type of analysis taught in English class where the text is treated as a fixed object with static internal features (characters, themes, styles, etc.) A phenomenological approach treats its object as a process, not a thing.
Historical phenomenology could mean a couple of different things, depending on the context. It might mean investigating the role that memory plays in the construction of the moment-to-moment experience. So, for example, if I’m reading a novel my interpretation isn’t controlled merely by the stream of sensory information coming in through my eyes. It’s also modulated by my “historical” knowledge of other novels and past events.
On the other hand it could mean an experience that has been explicitly structured to recapitulate the historical evolution of a particular mode of thought. For example, if you wanted to teach someone about quantum mechanics you could just tell them what our current understanding of it is. Or, you could describe to them step by step how that understanding was built up over time, leading them through the various wrong theories and dead ends before arriving at our current understanding. That way the phenomenological experience of learning about quantum mechanics would mimic the historical process.
In the context of what I’m reading (here’s the abstract, in case you’re interested), I think this definition is what is meant.
A follow up: If, for example, I wanted to do a phenomenological analysis of your post above, I would be studying how the meaning of this post changes from word to word as it is read. In other words, I could be studying how the meaning of this post changes (or might change) meaning from
to
But from whose perspective? Mine? Other Dopers? Both? Is there a “correct” meaning, or does that matter? How does one go about studying other people’s dynamic perceptions? Brain scans? Self-reporting?
Obviously, I still don’t fully grasp the concept, but I am clearer on it than I was yesterday. Your examples helped greatly. I would appreciate it if you could elaborate on the questions above, however.
Phenomenology is also an area of metaphysics in philosophy. The study of experience as mentioned above, but as it relates to mind. How we derive meaning and make sense from our experience in the world.
Husserl was an early 20th century continental philosopher, much of what he did went on to influence Heidegger and his version of existentialism. Husserl makes mention earlier work of Kant, Spinoza and Hegel as influences. I think Kant and Spinoza’s work related more to the nature of perception and that direct experience of the world is behind a ‘veil of perception’. Hegel did his own monumental work on the subject but I was never able to get very far or make much sense of it.
What I got out of Husserl, is that pure experience is of limited usefulness until we build a conceptual framework to make sense of it with. Perception is basically meaningless without concept. The problem is that the more developed our concepts, the further away from the reality of pure experience we get. This process is tempered by self conscious “I moments” where we directly question our own consciousness (who am I type experiences). This sort of state brings us back to a raw form of experience, which grounds us. This is similar to Descartes reconstructing his foundations and existence from a simple thought (cogito ergo sum). As soon as we try to make sense of our experience we begin to conceptualize and are brought back into the world of thought rather than pure experience.
Ha! When I googled “historical phenomenology” after reading your original post that’s one of the links that came up. Clearly the term is not very widely used.
Good observation! You’ve hit upon a central critique of phenomenological critical theories. When we talk about the experience of the reader, which reader are we talking about? (Traditional structuralist approaches to literature avoid this problem by focusing on the work in isolation and ignoring the reader. Personally I think that’s just sweeping the problem under the rug … .)
There are a variety of different answers to the question of what constitutes a “correct” reading of a text. Some theorists argue for authorial intent as the arbiter. The best reading is the reading that most closely matches the reading that the author intended when he wrote the work. There’s a problem with this though. Sometimes interesting readings emerge that clearly weren’t intended by the author. And sometimes its impossible to establish what the author’s intentions were.
Other critics have developed the idea of “interpretive communities” We can’t know exactly how a particular individual will experience a particular text. But we can make generalizations about how a group of individuals sharing a common cultural background will tend to respond. So a work can be analyzed by how it relates to a set of cultural norms. (This approach is particularly useful when talking about multicultural issues.)
The approach of the deconstructionists is to examine a multiplicity of different (and contradictory) individual readings simultaneously to reveal the instability of the text, and the fundamental impossibility of conveying any fixed meaning.
I could go on. There are other ideas like “the informed reader”, or “the ideal reader”. Each formulation (with the exception of deconstruction) is an attempt to privilege a particular viewpoint over others as a way of arriving at a “correct” interpretation.
Personally I believe that “correct” is not a helpful term when it comes to describing an interpretation of a text. I prefer “interesting” or “useful”. Different readers may use texts in a variety of ways and if their experience is interesting or useful* to them*, then their reading is a valid reading. Studying literature then is not a matter of uncovering “what it really means” but rather honing critical techniques that allow you to produce more interesting and useful readings on your own. As part of this process you may study previous good interpretations, not because those good interpretations are “correct” but because they model a way of engaging with literature that’s personally rewarding.
Yes, all of this has been very helpful, Hamster King. I have to say that I don’t believe in a single correct interpretation either. Unfortunately, looking for the “correct” answer still seems to be ingrained in the pedagogy of literature, or at least it was when I took those classes not so many years ago in high school.
I remember going to a study group for the Advanced Placement exam where we read over an example essay question that asked us to compare two passages about (and I’ll never forget this) the Okefenokee Swamp. One was clearly encyclopedic, the other creative. According to the official AP exam grader who had come to help us study, the biggest reason a lot of the students who had answered this question in the past got it wrong" was because they interpreted the creative passage as expressing fear and uncertainty, not the “correct” emotion of excitement. Shame on them!
There are other examples of cases in English class where I supposedly just didn’t see what the author was getting at; I was always puzzled by the assertion that everything must have only the meaning that Mrs. Crabtree thought it did.
Am I right in concluding that there would be a natural conflict between phenomenological analysis and the traditional analysis of a written work that many literature scholars would prefer?
It depends on what you mean by “many literature scholars”. I suspect that most English lit professors are post-structuralists these days, even if they don’t typically teach it as part of their undergrad survey courses. (The “phenomenological approach” is more typically called transactional theory or reader-response theory. It’s only one flavor of post-structuralism.)
You can think of the traditional formalist approach to literature that’s taught in high school/beginning college as the “Newtonian Mechanics” of literary criticism. It provides the basic critical tools for identifying subtexts, themes, symbolism, etc. And for many purposes it’s good enough. If you’ve just watched The Wizard of Oz and want to talk about Dorothy’s character development over the course of the movie, you don’t really need much in the way of post-structural analysis.
On the other hand, if you want to talk about, say, the role that The Wizard of Oz plays in gay subculture, you need some different critical tools. You can’t just look at the work in isolation. Instead you need to look at how a particular interpretive community might construct a meaning that may contradict the standard interpretation of the norm. Post-structuralist approaches are the “Quantum Mechanics” of literary theory, designed to attack questions that lie outside the reach of the basic formalist/structuralist model.
(Of course, you could say “That’s silly. The creators of The Wizard of Oz didn’t put a gay subtext in the movie. Anybody who says otherwise is just imagining things!” But all that is, really, is a refusal to engage with a phenomenon because it doesn’t fit your model. The “Friends of Dorothy” is a real part of culture and if you want to understand it, you have to move past “Well, they just shouldn’t do that!” into some form of critical engagement with explanatory value.)
Just as a lot of high school students are taught Newtonian mechanics as “physics”, they’re also taught formalist criticism as “English lit”. But if you move on to grad school you’ll discover that most scholarship is operating in a very different frame.
(One place that phenomenological analysis does crop up in lower-level courses is in “literature appreciation” courses. Here the goal typically isn’t to have students pick apart a work to understand how it works, but rather to teach non-English majors how to read more deeply and more satisfyingly. So there’s less emphasis on “what does it mean?” and more on “how does it make you feel?” This form of “phenomenology lite” is really just a strategy designed to prod students to engage directly with an work instead of worrying over ferreting out the “correct” reading.)