Expanded version of presentation given at Meiji University, Tokyo, 30 July 2016

1. Intentionality &
Narrativity in
Phenomenological
Research
Human Science and Phenomenology:
Reconsidering the Approach to
Experiences of Others
Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan
30 July 2016
Marc Applebaum PhD

2. Expanded presentation
This is an expanded version of the presentation I
gave at Meiji University in Tokyo on June 30,
2016, as part of a workshop kindly organized by
Drs. Shogo Tanaka and Kayoko Ueda. Dr. Ueda,
Dr. Masahiro Nochi, and Dr. Susi Ferrarello were
the other forum participants.
My full article, Intentionality and Narrativity in
Phenomenological Psychological Research,
relies primarily on Husserl’s Analyses
Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, and
Ricoeur’s Time and Narrative.

3. Dynamism of
consciousness
For Husserl consciousness is characterized
by a constant ebb and flow of passive and
active intentionality
They are simultaneous layers of the locus of
consciousness that is the human being
The locus is multi-layered, and includes what
Husserl calls the personal ego, the
transcendental ego, and pre-egoic, primordial
strata
The personal layer is “in time,” the pre-
reflective layers are timeless

4. Phenomenological modes
Husserl’s static phenomenology
descriptively analyzes the contents of
active intentionality
His genetic phenomenology interpretively
explicates the contents of passive
intentionality
In Husserl’s work there is not a fixed
opposition between describing and
interpreting

5. Husserl’s methods
Static phenomenology: a descriptive
science that seeks to articulate the
intuitive grasping of objects in active
intentionality (reflective consciousness)
Husserl them began to explore the
passive genesis of meaning (pre-
reflective, pre-linguistic consciousness),
developing a genetic praxis that is
descriptive and hermeneutic
This was necessary because passive
intentionality cannot be accessed through

6. Genetic inquiry
Husserl spoke of investigating “on the basis of
concrete experience and description,” which
required
“Discovering the method of correlation-research,
the method for questioning back behind
intentional objectivity in a concretely disclosive
way. In a manner of speaking, genuine analysis
of consciousness is a hermeneutic of conscious
life, that latter taken as that which continuously
intends entities (identities) and constitutes them
within its own self in manifolds of consciousness
that pertain to those entities in essential ways.”

7. “Interpretation” for
PsychologyOne meaning of interpretation is a
position-taking with respect to the object
of consciousness, a perspective (Husserl,
Logical Investigations, Ideas I)
An alternate meaning of interpretation is a
self-consciously theorizing attitude, either
on the part of the researcher or the
research participant
I argue that in our interview data we
invariably encounter a variety of
intentional relations to the noematic object

8. “Perceptive interpretation”
Husserl names the actively intentional
determining of an object as something an
interpretive act, Auffassung, which can be
understood as a constituting interpretation,
or as Husserl puts it in Logical Investigations,
a “perceptive interpretation.” (1984, p. 762)

9. Descriptive research
practice
“Have you had an experience of X?”
For example: “Have you had an
experience of feeling deeply cared for by
another person? If so, can you describe in
detail what that experience was like?”
Amedeo Giorgi (2009) The Descriptive
Phenomenological Method in Psychology

10. Descriptive research
attitude
Aims to elucidate the psychological
structure of the phenomenon by gathering
descriptions in the natural attitude of
everyday life
We do not prompt participants to self-
consciously interpret or explain
However, rich description is required for
the data to be psychologically revelatory

11. What is “rich data”?
I propose that rich data stays close to the
lived interconnectedness, for the
participant, of passive and active
intentionality
We do not aim to encourage reflective
self-interpretation on the part of the
participant
But can we say that the natural attitude is
free of self-interpretation?

12. Varied modes of
interpretationDetermination (Auffassung): the participant’s
narrative is a specific position-taking with
respect to the experience
Emplotment: the participant’s narrative
articulation of their experience is a mimetic,
linguistic expression, not equivalent to the
prelinguistic expression “itself”
The narrative is representative of the
speaker’s narrative identity as protagonist of
their story, which is given in dialogue with a
particular Other in a particular social context

13. Interviews as narrative
• Interview narratives are interpretive in that
they are the participant’s selective
articulation of what she lived, an
emplotment that is sense-bestowing
through the exclusion of some some
details and highlighting of others in line
with an emerging plot
• Such narratives are mimetic acts in
relation to passive lived-experiences
understood as a limit rather than as
something that can be seized absolutely

14. The interview is an
experience
We ought not to neglect that the interview
itself is a lived-experience
We know as researchers that we are part
of the research situation
Our data is relational data, unavoidably, it
is as story told to an Other and
unavoidably in a kind of interchange with
the Other

15. Varieties of intending and
speaking
Speaking from an experience to the
Other
Speaking about an experience to the
Other
Explaining an experience to the
Other

16. Speaking from
The participant brings forward a meaning
that is immanent for them
This means it is already present
passively; they are actively grasping it
Their attention is first and foremost on the
intuitive presence of the phenomenon for
them

17. Speaking about
The participant is reflectively aware that
he or she is striving to convey the sense
of their story to the interviewer
Still in contact with the experience as
intuitively present, however attention is
largely focused on the expressive goal
and achieving an adequate objectification
of the story for the Other
Contact with the passively sedimented
meaning of the narrative may even be
lost as the expressive goal takes center
stage

18. Explaining to the Other
The participant goes beyond trying to
convey the sense of her story and seeks
to provide an explanatory or causal
account of the experience to the Other
In a theorizing or quasi-theorizing way
Example: “My therapist and I eventually
understood that what this experience
meant was X,” or “When I read Jung, I
understood that I was experiencing the
Great Mother archetype…”

19. Conclusions
Data is inescapably relational and arises
in a kind of dialogue
This does not mean that we need to
prompt participants to actively theorize
about their experiences
The varieties and constant shifting of the
colors and modes of intentionality
requires great sensitivity and care

20. References
Giorgi, A. (2009). The descriptive phenomenological method in
psychology: A modified Husserlian approach. Pittsburgh: Duquesne
University Press
Husserl, E. (1982). Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a
phenomenological philosophy: First book, General introduction to a
pure phenomenology. (F. Kersten, Trans.). Boston: Kluwer.
Husserl, E. (1997). Phenomenology and anthropology (T. Sheehan &
R. E., Trans.). In T. Sheehan & R. E. Palmer (Eds.), Edmund Husserl:
Collected works, vol. 6: Psychological and transcendental
phenomenology and the confrontation with Heidegger (1927-1931)
(pp. 485-500). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Husserl, E. (2001). Analyses concerning passive and active synthesis:
Lectures on transcendental logic. A. J. Steinbock (Trans.). Boston:
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Husserl, E. (2001b) Logical Investigations Volumes 1-2. J. N. Findlay
(Trans.). New York: Routledge.
Ihde, D. (1971). Hermeneutic phenomenology: The philosophy of Paul
Ricoeur. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

21. Thank you for your
attention!
Contact: mapplebaum@saybrook.edu
Blog: www.phenomenologyblog.com