‘Hermeneutics and phenomenology in research’ Colin Hunter

This paper forms the basis of a lecture delivered at the Melbourne College of Divinity 2004 Residential School which had the theme ‘Harvesting Wisdom For Reflective Practice’. It may be viewed at: http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/chunter/web/phenom.html

Qualitative methods of research are based on the premise that, when it comes to understanding human experience, the separation between researcher and researched, between subject and object, is a fiction. Experience, and the meaning attributed to experience, are not immediately observable and accessible to a true/false analysis and therefore lie outside the boundaries of a positivist framework. Some approaches to psychological and social research have sought to observe and analyse human behaviour using positivist principles[1], but these still do not address the question of meaning (the why rather than the what or how). In this paper I want to trace the foundational developments in hermeneutics and phenomenology that underpin phenomenological research.

My interest in the topic was sparked by research that I undertook into students’ experiences of Supervised Theological Field Education (STFE). As a field education director I was curious to know what it was like to prepare or present a case study, to develop goals in consultation with a supervisor, and to experience a range of other situations that pertain to this particular form of theological education. Because STFE is itself an enquiry into students’ experiences in ministry, there was a serendipitous resonance between the processes of STFE and the phenomenological method of enquiry that formed the basis of the research.

1. Hermeneutics

The modern discipline of hermeneutics emerged as a response to the questions raised by the Reformation debate about the authentic meaning of the Biblical text and by the Enlightenment questions about epistemology and philology. The Reformers challenged the Roman Catholic understanding that the text could only be interpreted through the lens of tradition and that its true meaning was not immediately evident to the individual reader. They asserted that truth was accessible to the contemporary reader and that the basis for faith and doctrine could be developed sola scriptura without reference to tradition[2].

Whilst not advocating a return to the authority of tradition as the interpretive framework for Scripture, Friedrich Ast (1778-1841) recognised that hermeneutics involved more than merely reading and understanding the language of the text. He proposed three levels of interpretation:

Ø the hermeneutic of the letter (grammatical interpretation);

Ø the hermeneutic of the sense (the matter addressed within the text);

Ø the hermeneutic of the spirit (both the spirit of the age in which the document was written and the individuality or ‘genius’ of the author)[3].

Hermeneutics, for Ast, required an understanding of the world-view of the author and his/her community and of the particular ‘controlling idea’ embodied in the text. It was an attempt to re-create, as far as possible, the original intention of the author liberated from the contamination of traditional interpretations and contemporary culture.

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) agreed with Ast that hermeneutics required that the hearer engage the mind of the author as well as the words of the text. In his concept of the ‘hermeneutical circle’, Schleiermacher grappled with the complex issues of how humans understand. They understand, he claimed, by comparing the object of inquiry with what they already know, thus learning is analogical in character. But they cannot fully understand a finite object (a sentence or a statement) unless they relate it to the whole context in which it exists (the intention or idea of the author). It is this dialectical movement between text and context, part and whole, that constitutes the ‘hermeneutical circle’. Schleiermacher’s purpose in the practice of hermeneutics was not so much to seek understanding as to ‘avoid misunderstanding’, misunderstanding being the default outcome when interpreting a text. His dual ‘grammatical’ and ‘psychological’ approach to interpretation recognised that the text had to be understood as the author would have intended it, and this required rigorous literary and historical analysis. However the author’s intention could not be fully conveyed through the medium of language and therefore the interpreter had to, as far as possible, understand the mind of the author. What made this re-experiencing of the author’s thinking possible for Schleiermacher was the ‘shared human spirit’ of the author and the reader, but it required a rigorous method to bridge the gap and avoid the misunderstanding that was the inevitable consequence of a ‘lax practice of understanding’[4].

Schleiermacher’s concern with hermeneutics was still essentially to provide a method of interpreting Scripture for the modern mind in a way that had integrity and relevance. Wilhelm Dilthey’s (1833-1911) contribution to the development of hermeneutics was to expand the horizon of interpretation to include the humanities and social sciences, ‘… that is … all those disciplines which interpret expressions of man’s (sic) inner life, whether the expressions be gestures, historical actions, codified law, art works or literature’[5]. All of these expressions of life are open to inquiry as to their meaning but the methods used differ from objective scientific investigation; ‘Scientific experiments seek to know and explain. Inquiry into human affairs seeks to understand’[6].

Dilthey set great store on ‘lived experience’ (Erlebnis) and of the possibility of interpreting expressions of lived experience because ‘all humans participate in a common Spirit’[7] (as for Schleiermacher). He moved the locus of understanding from sacred text to human experience although that experience was more than the subjective experience of an individual. Each individual had a ‘world-view’ (Weltanschauung) which was shaped, not only in the intellect, but in the whole of life which includes feeling and will as well as thinking. Dilthey had a strong sense of humans as historical beings in which the world-view of the individual developed within a society and culture, so that relationships and the sensations and feelings engendered by their experience in the world, all contributed to their world-view. The texts humans produced, whether written or artistic, were expressions of that world-view, and the task of hermeneutics was to re-create in the mind of the reader, the world-view of the author[8]. This understanding of the task of hermeneutics would change radically in the later twentieth century arising particularly out of the thinking of Martin Heidegger. According to Heidegger, ‘interpretation is not an isolated activity, but the basic structure of experience’[9]; i.e. to be human is to be an interpreter of experience. Hermeneutics presupposes a text, which in Schleiermacher’s understanding, would mean the Biblical text, and the text becomes a lens through which experience is interpreted. Subsequent hermeneuticians have recognised that the principles of hermeneutics which evolved to interpret Scripture for differing contexts, can apply to any text, or even works of art which are also expressions of meaning. Spinelli used the example of the irritation that abstract art induces in many people (because of its seeming ‘meaninglessness’) to make the point that artistic expression is in fact ‘meaningful’[10].

In the recent research I conducted into students’ experiences of STFE, the participants created texts in prose, verse and art in:

Ø their responses to questionnaires.

Ø their creative representations of the experience of, say, presenting a case study to their peers.

Ø a synthetic essence statement developed jointly at the conclusion of the research session.

If I were to follow Schleiermacher’s approach to hermeneutics, it would be necessary to interpret these texts from an understanding of the minds of the authors in dialogue with their life situation. Paul Ricoeur suggested a different approach; that the text needs to stand alone as an objective reality since the mind of the author is inaccessible to the reader[11]. I would want to take an intermediate position that does take seriously the author’s intent and life situation, but which also takes seriously the reader’s capacity to derive contemporary meaning from the text that may go beyond the understanding of the author and the original readership. In my approach to this method, I not only had access to written documents (i.e. the questionnaires), but also, for a brief time, to the authors of the documents in the research sessions. This enabled me to adopt what Denzin and Lincoln describe as a constructivist approach[12] to understanding the meaning of the experience being researched, by working intersubjectively with the research participants in that process. By inviting the participants to identify key words and phrases and to produce individual and group statements of meaning, they participate, not only in providing data for me to interpret, but by participating intersubjectively with each other in the interpretation of the experience. Of course the meanings derived in this process still do not claim to be absolute or universal because of the limitations of language and what Gadamer called the ‘horizon of meaning within which the statements were placed’[13].

A final word about the methodology of hermeneutics relates to what is called a ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ that approaches a text asking the question about what is missing and what is false, recognising the human capacity to interpret the same material in a variety of ways. Ricoeur recognised that the desire for objectivity creates a distance between the reader and the text, particularly if some false assumptions or understandings are recognised in the world-view of the author. However he wanted to preserve the sense that the truth in a text can still be discerned provided the methodology used is able to identify and clear away whatever arises from a false consciousness of the author – a process he described as ‘demystification’[14]. Of course this raises the question of what is meant by ‘truth’ and ‘falsehood’, a question that is more than semantic. A hermeneutic approach to a text written when the predominant world view was that the earth is flat, does not mean that the text is incapable of being a vehicle for truth for a modern reader, merely that the world view of the author needs to be recognised and accounted for in the hermeneutical process. In the process of interpretation, one must also take into account the world-view of the interpreter and recognise that it has limitations and errors, as does the author’s. The corrective to the interpreter’s bias is ‘bracketing’ which van Manen described as ‘the act of suspending one’s various beliefs in the natural world in order to study the essential structures of the world’[15]. This idea of bracketing is reflected in the Whitehead method of theological reflection used widely in STFE; the first stage in their method is described as ‘Attending’, the principal requirement of which is the ‘capacity to suspend premature judgement’[16].

2. Phenomenology

Edmund Husserl was educated as a mathematician and was awarded his Ph.D. for a dissertation entitled ‘Contributions to the Theory of the Calculus of Variations’. However his real interest, even while studying, was in philosophy, particularly the theories of Wilhelm Wundt[17]. Mathematics was a primary focus for the logicians who developed the theories behind logical positivism. Doubtless this blending of two disciplines, which represented quite different epistemologies, inspired Husserl to develop a way of experiencing and interpreting the world that was as rigorous as the mathematical model of his primary education, but as open to the complexities and relativities of his reading of philosophy.

Husserl did not deny that there was a ‘real world out there’ accessible to the body and the senses and constantly present to him whether or not he was always aware of it. He described this as the ‘world in which I find myself or the natural world-about-me’ which is always present, and contrasted it with ‘the arithmetical world [which] is there for me only when and so long as I occupy the arithmetical standpoint’[18]. But just as the individual inhabits a natural world, so does her neighbour, and the neighbour experiences the natural world in her own way. In order to live together, the individual and the neighbour must ‘set up in common an objective spatio-temporal fact-world as the world about us that is there for us all, and to which we ourselves none the less belong’[19]. It is this shared world of fact and interpretation that Husserl described as ‘the intersubjective natural world-about-me’.

Husserl believed that much more could be known and asserted about the natural world than logical positivism would allow, but he developed what would in time be seen to be an unrealistic model of inquiry. He proposed that it was possible for the skilled researcher to achieve ‘pure consciousness’, or ‘transcendental consciousness’, by ‘bracketing out’ the individual’s experience that had been contaminated by culture, history and societal pressure. His concept of ‘phenomenological ?????e’ (or ‘phenomenological reduction’) required that the researcher’s experience of ‘the natural world’ be set aside; that she identify that her perceptions are eidetic (remembered and therefore interpreted) in character and bracket out those perceptions when interpreting human experience. What remained in the mind of the researcher after such a process would be an understanding of the ‘essence’ of the experience. Through the method of transcendental phenomenology, in which the researcher bracketed out personal experience and ‘transcended’ the distortions of history, culture and society, ‘pure consciousness’ was able to identify the true nature or ‘essence’ of the experience. What Husserl appears to have done, is to surreptitiously re-instate the subject-object differentiation that was seen to be the deep flaw in logical positivism[20].

Whilst the method of transcendental phenomenology pioneered by Husserl may have been flawed[21] (in that what it asks of the human mind is an impossibility), his reflections on the functioning of the mind and the way in which humans attribute meaning to experience are foundational for qualitative research methods. The intention of these reflections was to demonstrate how a pure description of a phenomenon could be developed. His reflections revolved around the complex concepts of ‘intentionality’, ‘noesis’ and ‘noema’. ‘Intentionality’ is the function of the mind that relates to consciousness and awareness; in particular it refers to the capacity of the mind to direct its attention ‘towards some entity, whether that entity exists or not’[22]. The mind can focus on real objects that can be seen, touched, heard, or it can focus on images, concepts or memories, and this selective attention involves choice; there is an intention involved in selecting the focus of attention.

‘Noesis’ and ‘noema’ have their root in the Greek word ‘????’?and originally had the meaning of ‘sense directed on and object’[23]. It could embrace aspects of ‘mind, insight, understanding, judgement and meaning’ and was often used in connection with making moral judgements. Noesis and noema, in Husserl’s description, are both related to intentionality, or the direction of the mind towards a phenomenon. Noema is his way of describing the immediate phenomenon of seeing, say, a flower. The flower is not the phenomenon – it has a reality in and of itself. The phenomenon is what happens in the mind on seeing the flower; the immediate intuitive, pre-reflective response. Noesis is the conscious examination and description of one’s experience of seeing the flower which involves the bringing together of sensory data, previous experience and evaluation of similar phenomena, memory, social evaluations of such a flower, all of which allows the individual to identify a range of possible meanings for the experience[24]. Both noema and noesis have to do with meaning. The issue that remains to be established is whether the experience of seeing the flower has intrinsic meaning embedded within it, or whether meaning is only that attributed by the experiencer.

Even within his own lifetime, Husserl came to recognise that the claims that he made for his method were exaggerated, in that no individual can so transcend the limitations of historical and cultural existence as to be able to discern the essential meaning of experience. Giorgi made the point that, not only did Husserl change his thinking over time, but those who built on his work and developed phenomenology as a research method took quite different approaches so that ‘a consensual, univocal interpretation of phenomenology is hard to find[25]’. Nevertheless the core of Husserl’s methodology, in which researchers attempt to ‘bracket out’ their own experience and cultural presuppositions, are invaluable tools for qualitative research and undergird the research methods that I have adopted.

3. Hermeneutical phenomenology

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a student of Husserl and hence had an interest in phenomenology. But unlike Husserl, whose training was in mathematics, Heidegger’s formation was in theology and this drew him towards a synthesis of phenomenology with hermeneutics, sometimes called ‘hermeneutical phenomenology’. Heidegger’s primary focus was on the structure of being , and for him the task of hermeneutics was to understand the mystery of being. Humankind was a ‘being-towards-death’[26] (i.e. time was the constraining horizon of being) and it was the awareness of temporality that gave hermeneutics its urgency. The conundrum of hermeneutics was that humans have being (sein), but that the meaning of their being was not immediately apparent and the potential for misunderstanding was great (as for Schleiermacher). Paul Tillich described the issue this way:

This approach (Heidegger’s method in ‘Being and Time’) must, however, be protected against a fundamental misunderstanding. It in no way assumes that man (sic) is more easily accessible as an object of knowledge, physical or psychological, than are non-human objects. Just the contrary is asserted. Man is the most difficult object encountered in the cognitive process. The point is that man is aware of the structures which make cognition possible. He lives in them and acts through them. They are immediately present to him. They are he himself[27].

The experience of ‘being-there’ (Dasein) was the starting point for Heidegger’s hermeneutic method: Dasein was the being of the enquirer[28]

which was apprehended through what he termed the ‘forestructure’ of understanding, and then expanded through a preliminary grasp of the ‘existentials’ (or structures of being), and on to an apprehension of Being itself. The ‘forestructure’ was an innate capacity of humans to intuit the meaning of Being and this was what allowed a shadowy grasp of the ‘existentials’ and a renewed experience of Dasein. Heidegger’s ‘hermeneutical circle’ was located in the lived experience of the interpreter rather than in the mind and world of the author of sacred text as it was for Schleiermacher. In order to access this cycle of meaning and interpretation, one must ‘endeavour to leap into the “circle”, primordially and wholly, so that even at the start of the analysis of Dasein we make sure that we have a full view of Dasein’s circular Being’[29]. The interpreter does not stand outside the circle and analyse existence from an objective, external perspective; rather it is the very fact of participating in the structures of Being that enables the interpreter to understand Being.

For Heidegger, what was of primary importance was the ‘Interpretation of authentically historical entities as regards their historicality’[30]. As for Dilthey, Heidegger’s understanding of humankind was that it was an essentially historical being, but that the meaning of its being was accessed through inquiry into the phenomenology of the existence in which it participated. Hermeneutical phenomenology was an essentially ontological task because humankind participates in Being and Being has a structure that is capable of being apprehended and understood. Understanding was a matter of uncovering the truth and the meaning of Being which were already there before us and capable of apprehension because of Dasein, ‘being-there’. This stands over against the tenets of logical positivism that explicitly exclude empirical experience from the framework of interpretation and require the observer to adopt a detached, objective perspective so that ‘truth is grounded, not in existence, but in perceiving an idea’[31]. It also stands against Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology that required that the observer ‘bracket out’ her experience of the natural world. Rather, for Heidegger, Being-in-the-world was always a Being-with-others-in-the world[32] and meaning was necessarily developed within a relationship or a community.

Hans Georg Gadamer, a student of Heidegger, was also critical of the ‘modern surrender to technical reason’[33]. Like Hegel, and contrary to Dilthey, Gadamer was suspicious of the merit of personal reflection as a way of accessing the meaning of human experience. Like Heidegger, Gadamer saw humankind as an intrinsically historical being and all interpretations of existence needed to be framed in terms of historical consciousness. Gadamer was also convinced of the importance of the close link between aesthetics and hermeneutics[34], but at the same time did not believe that the meaning of a work of art was immediately accessible – only historical works of art were open to interpretation and interpretation came as much from the evaluation of the community as it did from individual reflection. Gadamer wanted to rescue the concept of ‘prejudice’ from the pejorative connotations that now attach to it, and believed that ‘the prejudices of the individual, far more than his judgements, constitute the historical reality of his being’[35]. It is these prejudices which were formed by the participation of the individual in a family, a society and a state that were thus historically constituted and facilitated interpretation, contrary to Husserl who believed that they could be bracketed out by the skilled researcher. Subjectivity, according to Gadamer, was a ‘distorting mirror’; the task of hermeneutics was to bring about a ‘fusion of the horizons of the past and the present’, but it was the horizon of the past that needed to inform the horizon of the present.

I find myself caught between the thinking of two great minds. Whilst agreeing with Gadamer that historical awareness is vital to understanding, I consider that meaning can be discerned within contemporary experience provided the ‘horizon of the past’ is not ignored. In the theological reflection seminars that form part of STFE, one source of material for interpreting experience is ‘Tradition’, which includes Scripture and the history of Christian thought. However the sources of ‘Experience’ (of the community as well as the individual) and ‘Culture’ are regarded as equally important to the task. The research method that I used was most closely aligned with Husserl’s phenomenology, but engaged Heidegger’s concept of ‘Being with others in the World’ in the way that it invited the participants to seek to describe a common experience and together attribute meaning to that experience.

4. Hermeneutics and phenomenology in research

Lisa Ehrich has given an accurate description of the confusing landscape that confronts a novice researcher intending to employ phenomenological methods in research. The methods that I used in the research project did not neatly fit into any one methodological category, but this seems to be almost inevitable given the range of enquiries that can be made into human experience. Michael Crotty has identified the distinction between the original language and intention of phenomenology as practiced by its European founders (Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer et al), and as it has developed later in North America. The distinctions between the ‘new’ and ‘old’ phenomenologies, according to Crotty, are:

Ø The old phenomenology rejected inherited or commonly accepted meanings and sought an ‘objective’ interpretation of experience.

Ø New phenomenology aims at ‘putting oneself in the place of the other’, a concept foreign to the original practice of phenomenology.

Both approaches to phenomenology seek to understand human experience and phenomena; the old is based on the researcher analysing her/his own experience according to ‘objective’ criteria and methods; the new is based on the researcher ‘putting (her/himself) in the place of the other'[36]. The original purpose of phenomenology was, through critical analysis and methods, to understand the phenomenon being researched. New phenomenology is descriptive and seeks to bring clarity to the complexity of subjective human experience. In this sense the methodology I used was a hybrid of hermeneutics and new phenomenology.

Phenomenological research seeks understanding through description of lived experience using any of a variety of methods including interviews, discussion and participant observation. The objective is to gain rich descriptions of the experience under review, being as faithful as possible to the meanings attributed to the experience by the participants. The role of the principal researcher is to assist the participants explore their experience and, without imposing her/his own biases and interpretations on the data, seek to identify core themes and essences within the material gathered through applying phenomenological methods. This requires a sufficient degree of self-awareness on the part of the researcher to be able to ‘bracket out’ those biases and preconceptions with which s/he came to the research. Lester advocated striking ‘a balance between keeping a focus on the research issues and avoiding undue influence by the researcher’[37].

I came to the research with a clear desire; to enquire into and understand the experiences of students undertaking a unit of STFE. The questionnaires were directed to that end, and the interviews had as their aim the amplification of the descriptions of experience recorded in the questionnaire responses, thereby providing not only more material, but more deeply reflective material. Lester pointed out that phenomenological studies do not necessarily lend themselves to making generalised observations and that great care must be taken if any attempt is made to extrapolate the research findings to a general theory[38]. The method of processing data that I employed is not dissimilar to that employed in hermeneutics,[39] i.e. looking for themes and essences, and gathering them into a description of experience that did justice to the meanings identified by the participants.

5. References

Bauman, Zygmunt. Hermeneutics and Social Science: Approaches to Understanding. London: Hutchinson & Co, 1978.

Capps, Donald. Pastoral Care and Hermeneutics. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984.

Crotty, Michael. The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1998.

Denzin, Norman, and Yvonna Lincoln, eds. Handbook of Qualitative Research. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage, 2000.

Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Philosophical Hermeneutics. Translated by David E. Linge. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.

Giorgi, A., ed. Phenomenology and Psychological Research. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985.

Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson. First English ed. Southampton: Camelot Press Ltd, 1962.

Husserl, Edmund. Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. Translated by W.R. Boyce Gibson. 5th ed. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969.

Kittel, Gerhard, and Gerhard Friedrich, eds. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Abridged in one volume by Geoffrey Bromiley ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985.

Kockelmans, Joseph J., ed. Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl and Its Interpretation. New York: Doubleday, 1967.

Lester, Stan. An Introduction to Phenomenological Research, 1999. Available from http://www.devmts.demon.co.uk/resmethy.htm.

Lohse, Bernhard. Martin Luther: An Introduction to His Life and Work. Translated by Robert C. Schulz. Philadelphia: Forttress Press, 1986.

Moustakas, Clark. Phenomenological Research Methods. Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage Publications, 1994.

Palmer, Richard. Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer, Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology & Existential Philosophy. Evanston [Ill.]: Northwestern University Press 1969, 1969.

Spinelli, Ernesto. The Interpreted World: An Introduction to Phenomenological Psychology. Thousand Oaks Ca.: Sage Publications, 1989.

Tillich, Paul. Systematic Theology. Three vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951.

van Kamm, A. Existential Foundations of Psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966.

Van Manen, Max. Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for an Action-Sensitive Pedagogy. London, Ontario: The University of Western Ontario, 1990.

Whitehead, James D., and Evelyn Eaton Whitehead. Method in Ministry: Theological Reflection and Christian Ministry. revised and updated ed. Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1995.

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[1] A. van Kamm, Existential Foundations of Psychology (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966).

[2] Bernhard Lohse, Martin Luther: An Introduction to His Life and Work, trans. Robert C. Schulz (Philadelphia: Forttress Press, 1986), pp.159f.

[3] Richard Palmer, Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer, Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology & Existential Philosophy (Evanston [Ill.]: Northwestern University Press 1969, 1969), pp.78f.

[4] Hans-Georg Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans. David E. Linge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), p.xiii.

[5] Palmer, Hermeneutics, p.98.

[6] Michael Crotty, The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process (St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1998).

[7] Zygmunt Bauman, Hermeneutics and Social Science: Approaches to Understanding (London: Hutchinson & Co, 1978).

[8] Palmer, Hermeneutics, p.123.

[9] Clark Moustakas, Phenomenological Research Methods (Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage Publications, 1994), p.10.

[10] Ernesto Spinelli, The Interpreted World: An Introduction to Phenomenological Psychology (Thousand Oaks Ca.: Sage Publications, 1989), pp.6ff.

[11] Donald Capps, Pastoral Care and Hermeneutics (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), p.16.

[12] Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln, eds., Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage, 2000), p.158.

[13] Palmer, Hermeneutics, p.210.

[14] Capps, Pastoral Care and Hermeneutics, pp.30f.

[15] Max Van Manen, Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for an Action-Sensitive Pedagogy (London, Ontario: The University of Western Ontario, 1990), p.175.

[16] James D. Whitehead and Evelyn Eaton Whitehead, Method in Ministry: Theological Reflection and Christian Ministry, revised and updated ed. (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1995), p.13,pp.67-75.

[17] Joseph J. Kockelmans, ed., Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl and Its Interpretation (New York: Doubleday, 1967), p.17.

[18] Edmund Husserl, Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, trans. W.R. Boyce Gibson, 5th ed. (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969), pp.103f.

[19] Ibid., p.105.

[20] Palmer, Hermeneutics, pp.124-27. ‘Heidegger asserted in 1962 that Husserl’s phenomenology elaborated “a pattern set by Descartes,Kant and Fichte. The historicality of thought remains completely foreign to such a position”’.

[21] Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, p.xlv.

[22] Moustakas, Phenomenological Research Methods, p.28.

[23] Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, eds., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in one volume by Geoffrey Bromiley ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), pp.636ff.

[24] Moustakas, Phenomenological Research Methods, p.74.

[25] A. Giorgi, ed., Phenomenology and Psychological Research (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985), pp.23f.

[26] Bauman, Hermeneutics and Social Science, p.163.

[27] Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Three vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), p.168.

[28] Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, First English ed. (Southampton: Camelot Press Ltd, 1962), p.27.

[29] Ibid., p.363.

[30] Ibid., p.31.

[31] Palmer, Hermeneutics, p.143.

[32] Heidegger, Being and Time, p.154.

[33] Palmer, Hermeneutics, p.164.

[34] Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, pp.95ff.

[35] Crotty, The Foundations of Social Research, p.103.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Stan Lester, An Introduction to Phenomenological Research (1999 [cited); available from http://www.devmts.demon.co.uk/resmethy.htm.

[38] Ibid.([cited).

[39] Moustakas, Phenomenological Research Methods.