Phenomenological Inquiry

Phenomenological inquiry may be explored and studied in terms of the following topical domains: orientations, sources of meaning, methodology, methods, writing, and practice.

Phenomenology is an influential and complex philosophic tradition that has given rise to various related philosophical movements such as existentialism, poststructuralism, postmodernism, feminism, culture critique, and various forms of analytical and new theory. Major contemporary figures such as Foucault, Derrida, Rorty, find the impetus and sources of their writings in earlier phenomenological works by Husserl, Heidegger, Blanchot, Levinas, and others.

But phenomenology may also be considered a human science method: a profoundly reflective inquiry into human meaning. Phenomenology as a research perspective can be studied in terms of several domains of inquiry:

1. We may distinguish various traditions or orientations such as transcendental, existential, hermeneutic, historical, ethical, and language phenomenologies;
   
   
2. Phenomenological inquiry probes and draws from different sources of meaning;
   
   
3. Phenomenological inquiry can be understood in terms of the philosophical or methodological attitudes associated with the reductio and the vocatio;
   
   
4. The more procedural dimensions of phenomenological inquiry can be explored in terms of empirical methods and reflective methods;
   
   
5. Ultimately phenomenological inquiry cannot be separated from the practice of writing.
   
   
6. Phenomenological inquiry can be studied in terms of its practical consequences for human living.

© Max van Manen, 2002
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