Beyond Words: Unleashing the Hidden Dimensions of Linguistic Phenomenology
Table of Contents
I. Introduction
Phenomenology is the study of experience and
how we experience it. It studies structures of conscious experience as
experienced from a first-person point of view along with its intentionality.
Heidegger pointed out that we are often not explicitly conscious of our
habitual patterns of action.
Phenomenology is a broad discipline and a
method of inquiry in philosophy. It has been largely developed by Edmund
Husserl and Martin Heidegger. It is based on the premise that reality consists
of objects and events (phenomena) as they are perceived in human consciousness.
It can be understood as a branch of metaphysics. It is more descriptive than
prescriptive. Physical objects do not exist as things in themselves but only as
perceptual phenomena. Experience includes not only relatively passive
experiences of sensory perception but also imagination thought, emotion,
desire, volition and action. In short, it includes everything we live through
or perform.
II. History
The term ‘phenomenology' was first introduced
by Johnson Heinrich Lambert (1728-1777). It was subsequently used by Immanuel
Kant and J.G. Fichte and Hegel. Phenomenology as it is understood today is the
vision of Edmund Husserl. He introduced the concept of intentionality which
means that consciousness is always intentional or directed. Husserl formulated
Realist Phenomenology and later Transcendental Phenomenology. Heidegger
criticised and enlarged Husserl’s phenomenological enquiry in his work Being and
Time (1927). Later Sartre developed Existentialist phenomenology.
III. Philosophy
Modern philosophical tendency stresses the perceiver’s central role in determining the meaning. It is known as phenomenology. Edmund Husserl believed that the proper object of philosophical investigation is the contents of our consciousness and not the objects of the world. Consciousness is always something. This something that appears to our consciousness is real to us. ‘Phenomena’ is a Greek word. It means “things that are appearing “. Phenomenology claims to show us the underlying nature both of human consciousness and of phenomena.
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It was an attempt to revive the idea that the
individual human mind is the centre and the origin of all meanings. The act of
interpretation is possible because the texts allow the reader access to the
author’s consciousness. Poulet says,
It is open to me, welcomes me, lets me look deep inside itself and … allows me to think what it thinks and feel what it feels.
The shift towards a reader-oriented theory is
pre-figured in the rejection of Husserl’s objective view by his pupil Martin
Heidegger. Heidegger argued that what is distinctive about human existence is
‘givenness’. Our consciousness both projects the things of the world and at the
same time is subjected to the world by the very nature of existence in the
world.
We are all flung down into the world into a time
and place we did not choose. However, it is our world in so far as our
consciousness projects it. We can never adopt a detached attitude towards the
world. Our thinking is always historical being situational. History is not
social or external but personal and inward. Hans-Georg Gadamer in Truth and
Method applied Heidegger’s situational approach to literary theory.
IV. Different Terms of Phenomenology
The important terms of phenomenology are as
follows:
(1). Intentionality
Intentionality refers to the notion that
consciousness is always the consciousness of something. The intention here does
not mean its ordinary meaning. Originally, it refers to consciousness as
“stretching out”. Thus here it refers to consciousness stretching out toward
its object. Consciousness occurs as the simultaneity of a conscious act and its
object. Intentionality is thus ‘aboutness.’ The object of consciousness need
not be a physical object; it can just as well be a fantasy or memory.
Therefore, the structures of consciousness are perception, memory, fantasy etc.
(2) Intuition
Intuition in phenomenology refers to the cases
where the intentional object is directly present to the intentionality at play.
If the intention is filled by the direct apprehension of the object, you have
an intuited object. For example, if a plate of food is before you, seeing it,
feeling it and imagining it, these are filled intentions. Then the object is
intuited. If you don’t have the object before you, the object is not intuited.
(3) Evidence
In phenomenology, the concept of evidence is
meant to signify the subjective achievement of truth. Evidence is the
successful presentation of an intelligible object, the successful presentation
of something whose truth becomes manifest in the evidencing itself
(4) Noesis and Noema
These terms are derived from the Greek nous
(mind). Noesis means the ideal content and noema is an intentional act. Noesis is
the part of the act that gives it a particular sense of character. Noesis is
always related to noema. These terms were used by Husserl.
(5) Empathy and Inter-subjectivity
In phenomenology, empathy refers to the
experience of one’s body to another. While we identify others with their
physical bodies, this kind of phenomenology requires that we focus on the
subjectivity of the other as well as our inter-subjective engagement with them.
The experience of your own body as your own subjectivity is then applied to the
experience of another’s body. The experience of empathy is important in the
phenomenological account of inter-subjectivity. In phenomenology
inter-subjectivity constitutes objectivity.
(6) Life World
Life-word is the meaning of the German word
Lebenswelt. It is the world each one of us lives in. We may call it background
or horizon of experience. The lifeworld is both personal and intersubjective.
V. Realist
Munich group at the University of Munich early
formulation. It analyzed the intentional structures of mental acts as they are
directed both at real and ideal objects.
VI. Transcendental
Husserl’s later formulations in his book Ideas
took the intuitive experience of phenomena as its starting point. It describes
the essence of what we experience.
VII. Existentialist
Heidegger’s extended explanation in his work
Being and Time (1927) stated that the observer cannot separate himself from the
observed (world). It is, therefore, a combination of the phenomenological
method with the importance of understanding man in the existential world.
Sartre was influenced by this ideology. It was Hansgeorg Gadamer who applied
Heidegger’s situation approach to literary theory. He argued that a literary
work does not pop into the world as a finished and neatly parcelled bundle of
meaning. It depends on the historical situation of the interpreter. Gadamer
influenced reception theory.
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