This article points out the criteria necessary in order for a qualitative scientific method to qualify itself as phenomenological in a descriptive Husserlian sense. One would have to employ description within the attitude of the phenomenological reduction, and seek the most invariant meanings for a context. The results of this analysis are used to critique an article by Klein and Westcott , that presents a typology of the development of the phenomenological psychological method.

In adapting Husserl’s philosophical phenomenological method to conduct research in psychology I included Husserl’s two methodical steps, the epochē and the reduction, as part of the scientific procedure. Zahavi objected to my use of those steps. This article is a response to his objections and it is a reaffirmation of the necessity of the epochē and reduction for Husserlian phenomenological psychological research. A description of Husserl’s acknowledged types of psychology and a description of his transcendental phenomenology are also presented along (...) with two outlines of how Husserlian phenomenological research could be conducted. (shrink)

La Dictio 17 (= 239 Vogel) di Ennodio è una controuersia in cui il declamatore si scaglia contro un figlio che non ha provveduto al mantenimento del padre anziano tanto da provocarne la morte. L’argomentazione è rafforzata da esempi di animali, aquile e lupi, che, a differenza dell’accusato, si prendono cura dei genitori. Nell’esempio delle aquile è sfruttato un tema ampiamente diffuso nella tradizione esegetica biblica; in particolare, Ennodio dimostra strette consonanze con la versione di questo motivo che si legge (...) in Paolino di Nola (Carm. 24 Hartel). Più oscuro rimane l’esempio dei lupi che in genere sono contraddistinti da ferocia e rapacità, mentre in Ennodio dimostrano una singolare benevolenza verso i genitori. Anche in questo caso si propongono alcuni precedenti biblici che possono aver influenzato la loro caratterizzazione positiva nella controuersia ennodiana. Una lettura della Dictio 17 in chiave soltanto allegorica è da evitare, ma la scelta di questi esempi animali, connotati in modo fortemente cristiano, permette di pensare a un’interpretazione su più livelli, retorico, morale e spirituale. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 19 Heft: 1 Seiten: 203-238.

Discusses the phenomenological foundations for qualitative research in psychology which operates out of the intersection of phenomenological philosophy, science, and psychology; challenges long-standing assumptions about the practice of grounding the science of psychology in empiricism and asserts that the broader philosophy of phenomenological theory of science permits more adequate psychological development"--Provided by publisher.

The use of rights based arguments to justify claims that donor offspring should have access to information identifying their gamete donor has become increasingly widespread. In this paper, I do not intend to revisit the debate about the validity of such rights. Rather, the purpose is to examine the way that such alleged rights have been implemented by those legislatures that have allowed access to identifying information. I will argue that serious inconsistencies exist between the claim that donor offspring have (...) a right to know the identity of their gamete donor and the way such a right is currently met in practice. I hope to show that in systems where non‐anonymous donation is practised, an understanding of the proclaimed right of donor offspring to know their genetic identity is one composed of two different rights – the right to know the circumstances of their conception and the right to information identifying the gamete donor – can provide important insights into this important area of public policy. (shrink)

This Chapter aims to present a very preliminary exploration of the role and functioning of some ‘leading ideas’ that represent the most consistent attempts to balance freedom of scientific research with the need to protect participants and the community as a whole. To this end, we searched two databases, a scientific and a legal one, for some keywords (Freedom of research, Precautionary principle, Risk-based approach, Responsible research and innovation), to check the consistency of their presence and evolution over time. Without (...) aiming to in-depth investigate the precise connotations of each term and the context in which they are used from time to time, the core idea is to provide a very first quantitative exploration, which lays the foundations for further future investigation. (shrink)

It seems that many qualitative researchers have still not contextualized the role of validity in qualitative analysis.This article enumerates three factors that must be taken into account: The philosophy of science within which one works, the discipline to which one belongs, and the subfield of specialization that one pursues. Most researchers have encountered the question of validity within the context of empirical science, but validity does not have the same role within a phenomenological philosophy of science. Within the discipline of (...) psychology, certain subfields ignore the validity issue for good reasons and other subfields specialize in developing strategies for validity. This article analyzes the reasons that the specialty of "test construction" focuses so strongly on validity issues and concludes that phenomenological qualitative research is not at all similar to the situation one finds in test construction. Rather, phenomenological qualitative research is closer to experimental situations and so the validity issue is not as pressing as is often supposed. The article ends with two different Husserlian perspectives on a theory of knowledge. (shrink)

The author explains that his background was in experimental psychology but that he wanted to study the whole person and not fragmented psychological processes. He also desired a non-reductionistic method for studying humans. Fortunately he came across the work of Edmund Husserl and discovered in the latter’s thought a way of researching humans that met the criteria he was seeking. Eventually he developed a phenomenological method for researching humans in a psychological way based upon the work of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. (...) This article briefly describes the method. (shrink)

Abstract.The starting point of deontic logic is the distinction between non‐normative necessity and normative necessity. The first part of the paper shows that the distinction between normative necessity and non‐normative necessity occurs already in Aristotle's Orgunon. The second part of the paper makes a further distinction within normative deon itself: The distinction between deontic deon and anankastic deon. Anankastic deon behaves differently from deontic deon in a very important respect: Deontic indifference has no anankastic counterpart.

The investigation of concept of “true” and “false” has long privileged in contemporary philosophy apophantic truth, that is, the truth of dicta (sentences or propositions). To which entities, though, beyond dicta, the predicate ‘true’ pertains? This paper sheds a light on the less frequently investigated cases where we speak of a truth of things, or res. We say, for instance, that a 17 euros banknote is not a true banknote, or that a true soldier ought to be brave. The paper, (...) thus, distinguishes, beside the concept of de dicto (apophantic) truth, the concept of de re truth and two of its subspecies: eidological truth and idiological truth. (shrink)

Our position is that psychology must have a sound basis if it is to develop properly. Due to the historical influences of the physical sciences on the development of psychology, we do not believe that psychology has been developing within a proper frame of reference and it is our opinion that a phenomenological perspective can provide a more adequate frame of reference. This is true for experimental psychology as well as clinical psychology and personality theory. However, in order to understand (...) the project of phenomenological psychology, it should be understood that a wholly different way of looking at psychological subject matter and methods is being suggested and thus, standard natural scientific criteria are not applicable. The lack of appreciation of this fact has led to innumerable misunderstandings in the past and still contributes to communication problems in the present. Consequently, after the clarification of key terms and after speaking to these difficulties of communication, the approach in this article was to speak from within the perspective of phenomenological psychology itself and we have tried to describe the general kinds of problems that spontaneously arose when we attempted to do research on psychological phenomena. The presence of these problems in no way altered our fundamental thesis that, in principle, it is possible to conduct precise and rigorous experiments within the framework of phenomenological psychology even though different means of executing precision and rigor will have to be invented. The specific challenge mentioned in this paper concerning the articulation of the praxis of phenomenological psychology was seen in the light of being able to conceive of new ways of approaching the phenomena of psychology, and this is essentially a theoretical task. (shrink)

J.H. van den Berg was a member of the Utrecht school of phenomenology that flourished in Holland during the 1950s and early 1960s. He was a psychiatrist who had a private practice and he taught at the University of Leiden. Along with other members of the Utrecht school, not all of whom were psychiatrists, he was among the first to apply the insights drawn from existential-phenomenological philosophy to psychology and psychiatry. As with the philosophers, he emphasized that subjectivity was engaged (...) with the world and its activities had to be described. He emphasized that insights into experience as lived, or the phenomenal level, was what was critical for psychologists to understand. (shrink)

Nel contesto della presente crisi climatica ed ambientale, istituzioni pubbliche e private promuovono la costruzione di ‘infrastrutture viventi’. L’articolo analizza l’economia biopolitica che caratterizza questi progetti, concentrandosi sull’infrastrutturalizzazione del pioppo: un genus botanico ampiamente utilizzato come ‘barriera contro la desertificazione’, ‘struttura di fitorisanamento’, e ‘pozzo di assorbimento di anidride carbonica’. Questi progetti mobilizzano il metabolismo della cellula vivente, dando forma a nuove reti di potere bio-infrastrutturale ed elaborate strategie di accumulazione del capitale.

In this article the phenomonelogical approach to qualitative research is compared with certain other qualitative approaches following other paradigms. The thesis is that a deepened understanding of phenomenological philosophy can provide the alternative framework that many of these authors have been seeking. The comparison with other approaches is made in terms of theoretical and methodical consistency. Theoretically, the argument is that the situation known as "mixed discourse" exists because practitioners have not sufficiently freed themselves from the criteria and practices of (...) traditional paradigms in which most qualitative researchers have been trained. The shift from the collection of numerical data to linguistic data takes place without appropriate shift in theoretical context. This state of affairs should be overcome in order to strengthen qualitative research. On the other hand, many qualitative researchers carry on practices that seem to be analogous to phenomenological prescriptions which are explicitly usually misunderstood or resisted when stated directly and generically. Thus, greater theoretical clarity and consistency as well as deeper reflection or better utilization of imaginative possibilities still seem to be called for in order to bring better theoretical conceptualization and more consistent practices to qualitative research. (shrink)