Phenomenology as rhetoric The literature on ‘nursing phenomenology’ is driven by a range of ontological and epistemological considerations, intended to distance it from conventionally scientific approaches. However, this paper examines a series of discrepancies between phenomenological rhetoric and phenomenological practice. The rhetoric celebrates perceptions and experience; but the concluding moment of a research report almost always makes implicit claims about reality. The rhetoric insists on uniquely personal meanings; but the practice offers blank, anonymous abstractions. The rhetoric invites us to believe (...) that knowing is subjective and involved, but at the same time it recommends a technique (bracketing) which can only represent a crude, and entirely misconceived, gesture towards objectivity. Finally, the rhetoric claims that generalisation is beside the point; but the majority of researchers generalise anyway. In quietly ignoring their own rhetoric, ‘phenomenologists’ appropriate scientific prerogatives illegitimately. For their methods do not entitle them to lay claim to anything resembling ‘objectivity’, or generalisability, or ‘reality’, or theoretical abstraction. Like other researchers, they want to talk in generalisable terms about reality; they want to be objective, they want to do theory. But they are saddled with a philosophy that is disabling, because it says they can only talk about perceptions, and meanings, and uniqueness. (shrink)

Grondin situates Gadamer's concerns in the context of traditional philosophical issues, showing, for example, how Gadamer both continues and significantly modifies Descartes' approach to the philosophical problem of method and advances rather than simply follows Heidegger's treatment of the relationship of thinking to language. In doing this Grondin shows that the issues of philosophical hermeneutics are relevant to contemporary concerns in science and history.

Increasingly, nurses use the philosophy of hermeneutics, especially Heideggerian and Gadamerian hermeneutics, to inform interpretive research. However, application of the work of these philosophers to interpretive nursing research has proved problematic as it fails to recognise, or act upon, obligations inherent in their work. Through a review of hermeneutically informed nursing research, methodological implications regarding the use of hermeneutic philosophy are examined in relation to: (i) the need to address forestructures and pre-understandings; (ii) checking interpretations with research participants; (iii) seeking (...) objectivity, consensus and accuracy in textual interpretation; (iv) evaluating interpretations; and (v) gaining entry into the hermeneutic circle. This review suggests that despite obligations inherent in Heideggerian and Gadamerian hermeneutic philosophy, nurses fail to actualise these obligations in their research. In following Heidegger, nurses need to make the scientific theme secure by working out their forestructures in terms of the phenomenon under investigation. Those following Gadamer need to accept that interpretation seeks to manifest textual meanings rather than individual ones. And, whether following Heidegger or Gadamer, the way to make manifest textual meanings is to engage with the text within the hermeneutic circle by continuing to address forestructures and pre-understandings and by considering their influences upon the research. (shrink)

Exploring Ricoeur’s hermeneutic theory of interpretation as a method of analysing research texts Increasingly, researchers use hermeneutic philosophy to inform the conduct of interpretive research. Congruence between the philosophical foundations of a study, and the methodological processes through which study findings are actualised, obliges hermeneutic researchers to use (or develop) hermeneutic approaches to research interviewing and textual analysis. Paul Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation provides one approach through which researchers using hermeneutics can achieve congruence between philosophy, methodology and method.Ricoeur’s theory of (...) interpretation acknowledges the interrelationship between epistemology (interpretation) and ontology (interpreter). Also, Ricoeur notes the way interpretation moves forward from naive understanding, where the interpreter has a superficial grasp of the whole of the text, to deeper understanding, where the interpreter understands the parts of the text in relation to the whole and the whole of the text in relation to its parts (the hermeneutic circle). In this way, Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation provides researchers with a method of developing intersubjective knowledge.Through exposition of the concepts of Ricoeur’s theory, which include distanciation, appropriation, explanation and understanding, guess, and validation, a hermeneutic approach to textual analysis is presented, discussed and critiqued. Examples from nursing research are also used to demonstrate points under discussion. It is suggested that, in conjunction with Gadamer’s hermeneutic of understanding, Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation warrants consideration as a method of textual analysis. (shrink)

Written in the 1960s, TRUTH AND METHOD is Gadamer's magnum opus.

Discussion about a dignified death has almost exclusively been applied to palliative care and people dying of cancer. As populations are getting older in the western world and living with chronic illnesses affecting their everyday lives, it is relevant to broaden the definition of palliative care to include other groups of people. The aim of the study was to explore the views on dignity at the end of life of 12 elderly people living in two nursing homes in Sweden. A (...) hermeneutic approach was used to interpret the material, which was gathered during semi-structured interviews. A total of 39 interviews were transcribed. The analysis revealed three themes: (1) the unrecognizable body; (2) fragility and dependency; and (3) inner strength and a sense of coherence. (shrink)

Hermeneutic research in nursing: developing a Gadamerian‐based research method This paper takes the stance that although there are many different approaches to phenomenological and hermeneutic research, some of these have become blurred due to multiple interpretations of translated materials. Working from original texts by the German philosophers, this paper reconsiders the relevance of phenomenology and hermeneutics to nursing research. We trace the development of Gadamer's philosophy in order to propose a research method based in this tradition. Five steps have been (...) identified as a guide for nurse researchers. These are deciding upon a question, identification of preunderstandings, gaining understanding through dialogue with participants, gaining understanding through dialogue with text and establishing trustworthiness. (shrink)

What is the difference between hermeneutics and deconstruction? This essay provides an answer by following the guiding thread of understanding that was already brought to the fore in Paris during the "improbable debate" between Gadamer and Derrida. Maybe there was and still is a "dialogue" between the two most important currents of continental philosophy, as Derrida suggests in his talk commemorating Gadamer at Heidelberg in 2002. It is a dialogue that passes through poetry, and above all the poems of Celan. (...) In this way, the distance or the proximity between hermeneutics and deconstruction rests in the meaning of understanding: the one beginning from the uninterrupted dialogue, the other from the difference of interruption. Through a phenomenology of saying and of understanding, this essay asks at the same time how the differences of deconstruction are the stars necessary for the constellation of hermeneutics, and how the constellation is nevertheless necessary for every new star. It is perhaps the Schibboleth of Celan that indicates the point of orientation. (shrink)

Written in the 1960s, TRUTH AND METHOD is Gadamer's magnum opus. Looking behind the self-consciousness of science, he discusses the tense relationship between truth and methodology. In examining the different experiences of truth, he aims to "present the hermeneutic phenomenon in its fullest extent.

Grondin situates Gadamer's concerns in the context of traditional philosophical issues, showing, for example, how Gadamer both continues and significantly modifies Descartes' approach to the philosophical problem of method and advances rather than simply follows Heidegger's treatment of the relationship of thinking to language. In doing this Grondin shows that the issues of philosophical hermeneutics are relevant to contemporary concerns in science and history.

This is a collection in translation of essays by Paul Ricoeur which presents a comprehensive view of his philosophical hermeneutics, its relation to the views of his predecessors in the tradition and its consequences for the social sciences. The volume has three parts. The studies in the first part examine the history of hermeneutics, its central themes and the outstanding issues it has to confront. In Part II, Ricoeur's own current, constructive position is developed. A concept of the text is (...) formulated as the implications of the theory are pursued into the domains of sociology, psychoanalysis and history. Many of the essays appear here in English for the first time; the editor's introduction brings out their background in Ricoeur's thought and the continuity of his concerns. The volume will be of great importance for those interested in hermeneutics and Ricoeur's contribution to it, and will demonstrate how much his approach offers to a number of disciplines. (shrink)