The Reduction - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

The Reduction

On: van

Manen

2014;

Chapter 8

N Friesen Jan. 21, 2015Slide2

Heuristic Reduction

Eidetic Reduction

Bracketing the Self – self and other in language

Ethics of the reduction

Merleau-Ponty

and “

intersubjectivity

”Slide3

“Natural Attitude” and the Heuristic Reduction

“the

lifeworld

, for us who

wakingly

live in it, is always there, existing in advance for us, the ‘ground’ of all praxis, whether theoretical or

extratheoretical

. The world is

pregiven

to us, the waking, always somehow practically interested subjects, not occasionally but always and necessarily as the universal field of all actual and possible praxis, as horizon. To live is always to live-in-certainty-of-the-world.” (1970, p. 142)

“Phenomenology

is the

method to

break through this

taken-for-

grantedness

and get to the meaning structures of

our experiences

. This basic method is called the reduction

.” (van

Manen

, 2014)

In wonder we see the unusual in the usual, the extraordinary in the ordinary

.

(van

Manen

,

2014; examples of “wonder?”)Slide4

Heuristic Reduction: van Manen

But

it requires

that the various dimensions

of lived

meaning of some selected

human experience

are investigated for their various sources and layers of meaning,

rather than

being overlaid with a particular frame of

meaning.

Most theories

contain some

phenomenological material, or they are built on certain intuitions

that presume

phenomenological understandings.

It may be necessary to explicate assumptions and interests to “exorcise” them, in an attempt to let speak that what wishes to speak.Slide5

Eidetic Reduction: Husserl

…we

vary the perceptual object, table, with a completely free

optionalness

, yet in such a manner that we keep perception fixed as perception of

something… [E.g.,] by

fictively changing the shape or the color of the object quite arbitrarily, keeping identical only its perceptual appearing. In other words:

Abstaining

from acceptance of its being, we change the fact of this perception into a pure possibility, one among other quite ‘optional’ pure possibilities - but possibilities that are possible perceptions

.”

(1970, S. 70-71). Slide6

Eidetic Variation: Example

“Imagine a situation in which two mothers are speaking to one another by telephone. Their respective children are playing together in an area between their two houses. As neighbors, both mothers can watch the children through their own open windows. The subject of the telephone conversation is the behavior of the children at play and the behaviors of the children in general.”

“Imagine an altered situation in which the two mothers have opened the windows and are calling back and forth. In reference with the objective aspect of space, this structure of social praxis is labelled, face-to-face-communication- from-a-distance.”

Calling across to one another through the open window obviously includes the acoustical space in between.Slide7

Linguistic Variation and Analysis

Secrecy, privacy, reserve, stealth, furtiveness, solitude, isolation, covertness,

Tact - reserve: privacy, protection, “giving” space, neglect, freedom, independence, dependence, afar, near, .

Online, offline; virtual, real, physical

;

cyberspace,

meatspace

; asynchronous,

realtime

(

Echtzeit

); on the screen, presence, distance, etc.

Videoconference, online conference, chat, (threaded) discussion, Slide8

Bracketing the Self

To

do this

I need to bracket my

self

, and at the level of

intersubjectivity

ask, "How

does childhood remembrance appear

in consciousness or show

itself

in lived experience?"

And I will have to observe that this memory is contained or held in

the "

things" (in this case, my experience of the autumn leaves), and I need to

realize that

memories are released by sensory organs and limbs (touch, sound, smell

, vision

). In other words, when I ask, "where and how do childhood

memories show

themselves?" then I have to describe how "the memories are

experienced in

the things and the spatial contexts of

our

world, and

we

may release them

with our bodies

. However, this is a contingent

event.”Slide9

Friesen on 4 relations to “Self

”

(

Irrgang

,

2007)

The

first-person perspective of the “I,” which corresponds

to

subjective

knowledge;

The

second-person perspective of “you,” which corresponds to

ethical

concerns;

The

third-person perspective of “it” or “one,” corresponding to

objective knowledge; The first-person plural perspective of “we,” corresponding to intersubjective knowledge. Slide10

Ethical Dimension

“…phenomenological meaning and understanding have to be produced constantly anew by the writers and the readers of phenomenological texts and other media.” (van

Manen

, 2014)

“This

also means that the writer needs to become aware

of the potential effects

of the text on different readers

.”

“In

other words, it is also possible to experience the other

in

the vocative: as an appeal, as someone who stirs and touches me. This is

especially true

of situations where we meet the other in his or her vulnerability,

as when

we happen to be handed a hurt and helpless child or when we

suddenly see a person fall in front of us.”Slide11

Ethical Dimension

Peppers

(2006) explains that

we

“is a dangerous pronoun when it hides histories of internal conflict under false or superficial commonality.” Leaving little or no opportunity for confirmation or qualification, saying “we” in a text often simply assumes that the reader is a part of the superficial agreement. It tacitly but unmistakably asks the reader to

align. In

doing so tacitly or implicitly—rather than forthrightly or explicitly—it does not readily allow for conflict and disagreement. By using “we” in this book, I am aware of this dilemma. Slide12

Merleau-Ponty on

Intersubjectivity

The

phenomenological world is… the sense which is revealed where the paths of my various experiences intersect, and also where my own and other people’s intersect and engage each other like gears... It is thus inseparable from subjectivity and

intersubjectivity

, which find their unity when I either take up my past experiences in those of the present, or other people’s in my own. …We witness every minute the miracle of related experiences, and yet nobody knows better than we do how this miracle is worked, for we are ourselves this network of relationships. (2002, p. xxii)

Intersubjectivity

, as

Merleau-Ponty

indicates, designates the intersection, “blending,” or mutual conformity of plural subjectivities (2002, p. xii): “perspectives blend, perceptions confirm each other, a meaning emerges” (2002, p. xxii). Slide13

Merleau-Ponty on

Intersubjectivity

We

witness every minute the miracle of related experiences, and yet nobody knows better than we do how this miracle is worked, for we are ourselves this network of relationships. The world and reason are not problematical. We may say, if we wish, that they are mysterious, but their mystery defines them: there can be no question of dispelling it by some “solution” (2002, p. xxiii, emphases added

)

Friesen:

“

Phenomenological

writing as an ethical engagement; we address the other as

‘you’

in saying

‘we.’”Slide14

Michel Foucault

O.F.

Bollnow

H-G

Gadamer

Hannah Arendt

B

Waldenfels

M.

Merleau-Ponty

Eugen Fink

Edith Stein

E. Husserl

Martin Heidegger