Phenomenology (methodology)
Phenomenology literally means the theory of appearance (from the Greek phainomenon "visible, appearance"; logos "speech, teaching"). It is a methodology of the sciences and is devoted to the description and classification of appearances (phenomena) in nature and society. This way of working is characteristic of a descriptive science .
Phenomenology in science
Since science in itself is a study of phenomena and their connections, phenomenology describes a methodology that separates the descriptive aspects of science from the experimental and theoretical methods. It thus forms the basic prerequisite for the paradigm of consistency with the observable as the only lawful underlying concept of truth in modern science. For the delimitation see also nomothetic versus idiographic research .
“A descriptive (positive) science describes and explains without evaluating or deriving recommendations for action or norms. It is free from a value judgment. ( Max Weber's postulate of freedom from value judgments ) "
In German, phenomenological disciplines are given additions such as -kunde , descriptive or descriptive or traditionally with -graphie ( Greek γράφειν gráphein , German ' to write' ): For example, geography ( geography ) is - in the original sense - the purely descriptive discipline of geosciences , or historiography is the documentation of history itself in the context of historical science .
Phenomenological approach
Scientific phenomenology includes the areas:
- Morphology , the study of the shape or appearance of the objects under investigation
- Chorology , the study of space, spatial allocation and spatial reference
- Chronology , the study of time, temporal allocation and processes
- Taxonomy , the systematic order of things
The “first look” at the empirical data on a research project , the first phase of a systematic scientific work (collection of material) is often referred to as phenomenology. “Phenomenological” here mostly denotes the matter of describing the matter itself. A test procedure is described as possible without the aid of theories , animal behavior is only described, not interpreted in terms of human understanding, only seen what happens. Part of the phenomenological work is also the description of an experiment and the test logging , i.e. the description of the measurement results and the conditions under which they were obtained.
With this inventory one then goes into theoretical science , in which one tries to fathom mechanisms of action and cause-effect relationships , or, where these are still inaccessible or too complex, to establish statistical relationships . This means that one can move on to modeling , and in many branches of knowledge - nature - as well as the humanities - and also structural sciences - phenomenologically oriented areas of application then arise in the prognosis (prediction) .
Phenomenological attitude in special sciences
Examples of phenomenological sub-disciplines
- Astronomical phenomenology , the preoccupation with the celestial phenomena, regardless of their enormously different origins compared to other natural sciences
- Synoptic meteorology , representation of the weather including forecast
- Phenology , climatology of weather effects based on the development phenomena in nature
- Phenomenological sociology , observational theory of action
- Phenomenology of religion , a very descriptive approach to religious studies
An example from the theory of superconductivity
In physics, phenomenological theories (as opposed to microscopic or atomistic theories) are those theories which describe the phenomena and their consequences without errors without explaining their causes. The Ginsburg-Landau theory of superconductivity is a good example . This theory was set up flawlessly in 1950. However, the microscopic cause of the superconductivity remained open: the carriers of the superconductivity were initially assigned the undetermined electrical charge q , the value of which could not be specified. It was not until 1957 that the microscopic BCS theory explained that these are not new particles, but rather weakly bound pairs of ordinary electrons, so-called Cooper pairs , and that consequently q = −2e , where e denotes the elementary charge .
The fame of the theoretical understanding of superconductivity has not earned the phenomenological Ginsburg-Landau theory, but the microscopic BCS theory, since the former can be derived from the latter.
Therapeutic theories
In humanistic- therapeutic theories, gestalt therapy , conversation therapy or logotherapy and existential analysis , phenomenology is often in the foreground as an epistemological tool. In modern psychoanalysis , too, there is a dedicated turn to a phenomenological approach. This can be observed in particular in relational and intersubjective psychoanalysis . In addition to the philosophers Edmund Husserl and Martin Buber , phenomenologists such as B. called Emmanuel Levinas . Common to all theories is the caution with regard to quick interpretation, not wanting to absolutize theories, but always to remain connected to the concrete area of experience of everyday life, and to respect the autonomy of the experience of the other.
See also
literature
- Klaus Schwarzwäller: Theology or Phenomenology. Considerations on the methodology of theological understanding. Kaiser, Munich 1966, OCLC 781530569 .
- Edmund Husserl, Elisabeth Ströker: The crisis of the European sciences and the transcendental phenomenology. Meiner, Hamburg 1977, ISBN 3-7873-0349-9 .
- Edmund Husserl, Klaus Held: The phenomenological method. Reclam, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-15-008084-3 .
- In-Cheol Park: The Science of the Lifeworld. On the methodology of Husserl's later phenomenology. Rodopi, Amsterdam / New York 2001, ISBN 90-420-1457-1 .
Web links
- Phenomenology as a research style and its importance for cultural and aesthetic education. at kubi-online.de, accessed on November 7, 2016.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Apparition Doctrine . In: Duden , accessed on June 30, 2017.
- ↑ Patrick Körner: Value Basis and Life Practice - The Freedom of Values Postulate in Critical Rationalism and its relevance to the theory of ideology. (PDF; p. 12.) mythos-magazin.de; Retrieved November 7, 2016.
- ↑ Superconductivity - Phenomenology. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) at physik.uni-dortmund.de; Retrieved November 7, 2016.
