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Phenomenology….Phenomenology….The Origins of Qualitative The Origins of Qualitative

ResearchResearch

Otherwise, known as the really weird stuff.....

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Phenomenology....Phenomenology....

Origins in the four branches of Philosophy...epistemology

Epistemology, the study of knowledge

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EpistemologyEpistemology

The Study of Knowing....– How do we know?? – What do we know? – Can we Know? – Can anything be known?

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Metaphysics...Metaphysics...

Who Am I? Why am I here? Why am I involved in the study of

education? Why do I want to become a teacher?

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The Threat of EmpiricismThe Threat of Empiricism

What is empiricism......– All knowing is reduced to experience– No possibility of spontaneous ideas or a priori

thought.

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EmpiricismEmpiricismEmpiricismEmpiricism

the theory that experience rather than reason is source of knowledge.

Experience of bodily sensations is the precondition for further knowledge.

Knowledge is valid and reliable only if it conforms to sensory criteria.

Subjective knowledge is tenuous.

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The Threat of RationalismThe Threat of Rationalism

The mind was capable of recognizing reality by means of reason, a faculty that existed independent of experience.

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Edmund Husserl (1859 -1938)Edmund Husserl (1859 -1938)

German Philosopher who revolted against the concepts of empiricism and rationalism as the only means of knowing...there is more to man than what is described by these two “isms”, I.e., rationalism and empiricism.

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Husserl...Husserl...

Husserl is the father of phenomenology. Born in the former Czechloslovakia, Husserl studied in Leipzig, Berlin and Vienna, where he also taught. He began his studies as a mathematician, but his studies were influenced by Brentano, who moved him to study more psychology and philosophy.

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Husserl...Husserl...

He wrote his first book in 1891, The Philosophy of Arithmetic. This book dealt mostly with mathematical issues, but his interests soon shifted. Husserl immersed himself in the study of logic from 1890-1900, and he soon after produced another text: Logical Investigations(1901).

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Edmund HusserlEdmund Husserl

The Philosophy of Arithmetic. This book dealt mostly with mathematical issues, but his interests soon shifted. Husserl immersed himself in the study of logic from 1890-1900, and he soon after produced another text: Logical Investigations(1901).

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Husserl...Husserl...

Some of his major ideas of this era were intentionality, relations, and identity of things. He came to focus on perceptual experience, and as he began to shed his early Kantian ways, he wrote Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy(1913).

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Husserl….Husserl….

Husserl attempted to shift the focus of philosophy away from large scale theorization, towards a more precise study of discrete phenomena, ideas and simple events. He was interested in the essential structure of things, using eidetic analysis of intentionality to yield apodictic (necessary) truths.

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Husserl...Husserl...

Husserl aided philosophy, breaking the Cartesian trap of dualism with new ideas like intentionality. He was perhaps the most important force in revitalizing 20th century continental philosophy.

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PhenomenologyPhenomenology

All knowledge and all truth depend on their existence on careful and accurate description of first person human experience, exactly as that experience manifests itself to us.

Description is truth, accurate and if free from assumptions and first person.

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Phenomenology....Phenomenology....

To know thoroughly and achieve accuracy in knowing anything, I must bracket my experience and detach self from involvement in the experience. I must observe, analyze and describe with unnerving precision.

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Requirements of the MethodRequirements of the Method

1. Presuppositionless Description and self. 2. Description - Careful, radical empiricism

(Wm James). 3. Analysis, Epoche, Bracketing and

Distancing. 4. Intentionality 5. Constitutionality

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Outline of Important SubjectsOutline of Important Subjects

Descriptive method Presuppositionless perspective Descriptive technique Epoche

– Experience simplicity– Bracketing

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Outline continued..Outline continued.. 6. The subjective Perspective 7. Theory of Reduction

– Phenomenologically Reduction– Eidetic Reduction– Transcendental Reduction

7. Intentionality– Subject/Object Interdependency– Direction– Constitution– Time

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Outline ContinuedOutline Continued

Transcendental ego and empirical ego The Body-Subject

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Existentialism...Existentialism...

First Original (?) Philosophy of the Modern Age..

The Relationship of Phenomenology to Existentialism– Jean Paul Sartre– Maurice Merleau-Ponty– Martin Heidegger– Soren Kierkegaard....

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Jean Paul SartreJean Paul Sartre

Sartre was a writer and existentialist following World War II. At the heart of his philosophy is a deep yearning for freedom and a concomitant sense of responsibility. While one is never free of their situation, Sartre felt, "in the end one is always responsible for what is made of one."

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Jean Paul SartreJean Paul Sartre

Sartre studied Husserl as a student, and was fascinated by phenomenology. Some of his works from this period include The Imagination(1936), and The Transcendence of the Ego(1937). He discusses his ideas about the self in this period of his works, insisting that the self is not merely self-consciousness, but that it is out in the world.

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Sartre...Sartre...

In 1943 Sartre published Being and Nothingness, perhaps his most influential work. In it he states that consciousness is nothing, but that the self is on a journey to being something. His later works include many plays, but most notably Critique of Dialectical Reason(1958-59), where he turns more toward politics, and Marxism.

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Sartre And educationSartre And education

The tyranny of objectification and what it does to the human spirit…and the humanity of man toward others. Why…the necessity of phenomenology and existentialism.

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Martin HeideggerMartin Heidegger

HEIDEGGER, Martin (1889-1976), German philosopher. Heidegger studied Roman Catholic theology and then philosophy at the University of Freiburg, where he was a student of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. Heidegger began teaching at Freiburg in 1915. After teaching (1923-28) at Marburg, he became a professor of philosophy at Freiburg in 1928.

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Heidegger...Heidegger...

He died in Messkirch on May 26, 1976. Besides Husserl, Heidegger was especially influenced by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, and by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. His work had a crucial influence on the French existentialist Jean Paul Sartre.

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Heidegger...Heidegger...

Heidegger wrote Being and Time (1927; trans. 1962) An Introduction to Metaphysics (1953; trans. 1959). Vom Wesen des Grundes (1929), Was ist Metaphysik? (1929), Vom Wesen der Wahrheit Einführung in die Metaphysik (1953), Identität und Differenz (1957), Die Frage nach dem Ding (1962).

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Heidegger and educationHeidegger and education

To the things themselves…to know is to experience existentially…to the things..

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Maurice Merleau PontyMaurice Merleau Ponty

Maurice Merleau-Ponty was born 14 March 1908, before the first World War. As with many of his generation, Merleau-Ponty lost his father to the war. Maurice Merleau-Ponty developed his existential philosophy by drawing heavily upon the works of Edmund Husserl.

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Merleau-PontyMerleau-Ponty

Merleau-Ponty has been categorized as both a phenomenologist and an existentialist. Each holds as a primary tenet that the individual defines both self and the world experienced.

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Immediate Experience: The Immediate Experience: The Lebenswelt Lebenswelt

It was Merleau-Ponty's contention that science and too much abstraction had resulted in a philosophical tendency to reduce every phenomena, every object, every person to nothing more than collected data. Merleau-Ponty believed that philosophers had a duty to relate things as they were viewed, not as science described them.

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LebensweltLebenswelt

We must return to the Lebenswelt, the world in which we meet in the lived-in experience, our immediate experience of the world. In contrast to Sartre's contention "we are condemned to freedom,” Merleau-Ponty stated "we are condemned to meaning."

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Merleau-Ponty...Merleau-Ponty...

According to his theories, since we are only able to know ourselves based upon the input of others, all of our actions, thoughts, and statements define us and have historical consequences. In accordance with the idea that true human nature never ceases to change, Merleau-Ponty described philosophy as "like art, the act of bringing truth into being."

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Merleau-Ponty and EducationMerleau-Ponty and Education

The Body-Subject…I learn with my body and through my body…See Jerry Gill.

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Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855) is arguably both the father of existentialism and of modern psychology. He wrote voluminously during his short lifetime, publishing a variety of philosophical and theological works, including shorter discourses and newspaper articles. He also kept journals which we possess, amounting to several volumes.

Soren KierkegaardSoren Kierkegaard

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Kierkegaard...Kierkegaard...

It was not uncommon for him to publish several works in one year, with two or three appearing in very close proximity. Altogether, his literary output is enormous for a man who died at the age of 42.

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In 1843 Kierkegaard began his pseudonymous authorship on philosophical and theological subjects. His purpose for the pseudonyms was mainly to undermine the Hegelian "system" and an uncritical and dispassionate view of one's relationship with God.

Kierkegaard..and educationKierkegaard..and education

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Kierkegaard...Kierkegaard...

Education should be critical that all can be known through the objective…God does exist…and we know it through a leap of faith...