Phenomenological description

Phenomenological description is a method of phenomenology. A phenomenological description attempts to depict the structure of first person lived experience, rather than theoretically explain it. This method was first conceived of by Edmund Husserl. It was developed through the latter work of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Immanuel Levinas and Maurice Merleau-Ponty — and others. It has also been developed through recent strands of modern psychology and cognitive science.

Husserl originally conceived of and developed the method of phenomenological description. A Husserlian description uncovers or discloses the structures and forms of conscious experience. A Husserlian description typically begins by describing an actual experience in the first person. For example, in The Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time Husserl describes the phenomenon of being conscious of an individual, actual tone. This description is "a typical example of Husserl's descriptive... method". Another good example of Husserl describing the structure of a conscious experience is his description of the act of naming his inkpot, provided in the Logical Investigations.

However, although Husserl's descriptions may begin at this basic level, they are often considerably more lengthy, involved and complex. For example they often range from descriptions of the singular and empirical to descriptions of the essential and universal. Husserlian descriptions often depict the essential or invariant structures of conscious experience. For example, immediately after he describes the singular example of naming his inkpot in Logical Investigations he proceeds to describe the phenomenon of naming at the more general, invariant and essential level.

Heidegger's explication of phenomenological description is sketched out in the Introduction to Being and Time. There he argues that the way to best approach the question of the meaning of Being is to examine the concrete ways in which phenomena show themselves in themselves — as they seem in consciousness. By examining the way phenomena immediately present themselves, we can get insight into how revealing as such occurs. For Heidegger, truth is always revealing — aletheia. Important to note is that Heidegger's method of phenomenology is that it represents a new tradition of "hermeneutic phenomenology" as opposed to merely descriptive, as in the Husserlian tradition.

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