Hermeneutics and phenomenology are described as two related holistic methods currently used in qualitative research in social and health sciences. The two terms are combined in usage – hermeneutic phenomenology or interpretive phenomenology (given that hermeneutics is a Geisteswissenschaft of interpretation) – and researchers who apply them invariably claim that the philosophical foundations of what they do are justified through the ground-breaking works of German philosophers Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer (the latter was a student of the former). 

Hermeneutics is based upon the historicity of Dasein as a being that has its own being as its primary issue. To be historical is to be temporal, i.e., to exist and to project in time. Hence hermeneutic circle necessarily involves the fore-conception (Vorgriff) of time and the temporal, i.e. temporality as such. For ontology to be able to tackle the task of the historicity of being, it needs to first and foremost look at what it means to be temporal. For Heidegger, the clue to this investigation is found in none other than Dasein itself (Heidegger, 2011, Chapter 1).

Dasein, as temporal being (Zeitlichsein), is its factical being-in-the-world – the fore-having in hermeneutic circle. The fore-conception of time in Dasein therefore goes hand in hand with its fore-having in the “worlding” of its being.

Dasein, existing in time, has a unique mode of being that Heidegger calls “Jeweiligkeit”. Through Dasein, the universal passage of time is characterised by the particularity of this or that human Dasein in the facticity of his or her being-there – but not forever. God does not have Dasein. Jeweiligkeit as a mode of being is hence the opposite of God’s eternal being. If existence can only be understood qua being-in-the-world as temporal, then in the phenomenological sense, God does not exist. By this it is meant that the temporal-historical question of existence does not apply or relate to God. In other words, God is something else altogether. Hence the incarnation of God qua Dasein in the form of the historical figure of Jesus Christ is the central tenet of the Christian religion that differentiates it from other faith traditions. In Jesus, God partook in history. In contrast, the indigenous, pre-Christian religions of Europe did not place the divine in history, but in mythology. Mythology is not temporal, even if its indigenous telling, e.g. in the form of sagas (Sagen) in pre-Christian Nordic religion, took place in time qua Dasein and was conditioned by Dasein‘s mortality as being-towards-death (Sein zum Tode). Being indigenous, Nordic paganism could only live through its adherents. If the Nordic Volk dies out, the religion itself ceases to exist, too. (Hence the “folkish” debate is a real question in the revival of Nordic and other forms of European paganism in today’s society.) Christianity, on the other hand, can be resuscitated through its sacred texts even after all Christians have passed away. It is a religion of the book – hence hermeneutics in the sense of the interpretation of sacred texts. Pagan hermeneutics, however, can operate non-textually, such as through oral transmissions, archaeological artefacts and ritual practices, for as long as the Volk of its original adherents continues to exist in unbroken lineages through the generations: it involves the living transmission of the pagan Mitdasein.

References

Heidegger, Martin. The concept of time. Translated by Ingo Farin with Alex Skinner. London: Continuum, 2011.

Anyone who has studied Heidegger with mindfulness (Besinnung) will appreciate the heroic efforts at which the German philosopher struggled against the forgetting of being (Seinsvergessenheit) in the Western metaphysical tradition.
In his postwar works, Heidegger placed great emphasis on the power of language as a gathering place of what forgetting of being is not, i.e., remembrance of being. Being is retrieved (wiedergeholt) from memory (Gedächtnis) in the uncovering that is the clearing of being (Lichtung des Seins) that language can guide us to, even if the philosophical signposts (Wegweiser) are not readily found in the obscure wooded paths (Holzwege) that have to be travelled in Dasein‘s daily struggle – if mindfulness has been invited into its being with itself and others – against the collective amnesia of the question of being in the “they”, das Man.

Fore-having (Vorhaben), a component of hermeneutic circle, is not given a detailed explanation in Being and time. In Ontology: the hermeneutics of facticity, which is based on a lecture course and lecture notes written by Heidegger in 1923, four years before the publication of Being and time, we get more clues as to what the German philosopher really meant by fore-having. It turns out that fore-having is the factical being-in-the-world of Dasein – factical in that Dasein is there, is a there-being – and hence relates to the “worlding” of Dasein as a non-solipsistic being who is interrelated with others and all that is accessible to its senses in regard to other forms of beings on earth.

The “worlding” of my being as Dasein is my fore-having in hermeneutic circle; understanding and interpretation, the two fundamental aspects and issues of hermeneutics, stem from this facticity. And as Heidegger elucidates in Being and time, the phenomenon of Jemeinigkeit indicates that Dasein is first and foremost mine. This substitutes the vexing problem of “consciousness” in the dualistic schema of traditional metaphysics, which Husserl, the founder of the phenomenological movement, was himself unable to disentangle himself from.

While thinking about being (Sein) is present and integral to both philosophy and religion – and I include occultism, many forms of which use magic, in the latter -, philosophers do not appeal to faith (Glaube). The religious do; and dependent on which faith they adhere to, non-negotiable statements about their faith which are all shared by the faithful in a particular faith makes religion completely distinct from philosophy (it is in this sense that Buddhism is a religion, not a philosophy). These unalterable statements constitute the beliefs (Glaube) of the faithful (Gläubige). 

The main principle of the hermeneutic circle is that the sum is more than its parts. From a nursing researcher’s perspective, this principle also serves as the fundamental distinction between qualitative and quantitative research.

Unlike Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger did not use the scientific findings on human psychology and physiology to illustrate even the ontic aspects of being-in-the-world; instead he relied on insights from everyday experience as well as from unsettling experiences such as Angst and, via Hölderlin, the problematic of madness (which is not discussed in Being and time). One example from psychology, which is used in an article called On the madness and charm of crushes from the website of The philosopher’s mail (founded and possibly also co-written by Alain de Botton, a popular Swiss-British “philosopher of everyday life”), talks about the ability of our brain to fill out the missing details when looking at, say, the sketch of a face instead of a true-to-life portrait. The main point of the article is to discuss the everyday phenomenon of crush: just perceiving a few attractive details of a stranger in public or in a fleeting encounter is enough for us to project our idealisation of that man or woman on to that other whom we actually know nothing about.

In phenomenological terms, crush – Schwärmerei in German – is an example of what Heidegger calls Stimmung in Being and time; and like falling in love, it is not a topic discussed in his magnum opus. Yet crush as Stimmung can throw light on the workings of the hermeneutic circle, which supposedly comes naturally to Dasein: the wholeness of another, desirable person is projected based on perception of a few physical details. Yet once we get to know this person, perhaps even after the success of starting a love affair, he or she may turn out to be someone completely different from the one that we initially imagined and fantasised about.

And yet, given that the traditional theory of truth is replaced by the phenomenology of aletheia in the hermeneutic circle, is not Stimmung the only guideline that Dasein has in order to experience “truth”, even if turns out to be something quite other than truth as we normally understand it? Aletheia is phenomenological precisely because it stops us from thinking about truth as an object that can be attained with certitude: religious or ideological dogma can never be aletheia. Coming back to crush, its imaginative or illusory quality has nothing deficient about it – as cynics and Buddhists would put it – but entails the wholeness of the truth experience. Resonating with Nietzsche, we can say that in hermeneutics, truth is appearance; for aletheia is what is shown, i.e., the essential meaning of phenomenon itself. It naturally leaves us very vulnerable, perhaps even frightened, because of this complete absence of guarantee for our needs, dreams and desires in aletheia. The projecting open of Dasein is precisely that, and the temporality of futurity (Zukünftigkeit) can only come to us under the guise of the unknown.

Given the widespread adoption of van Manen’s “hermeneutic phenomenology” in doctoral theses in nursing theory, from a Heideggerian perspective it is imperative to point out the actual paucity of hermeneutic method in this Canadian theorist’s popular writings. For example, when it is stated in a recent PhD thesis from the University of Adelaide by Nooredin Mohammadi, A hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry into the lived experience of Muslim patients in Australian hospitals, that a nursing scholar can skip reading the “difficult” texts of Heidegger and Gadamer by turning to van Manen instead, implying therefore that the latter’s work is the culmination of the two German philosophers’ hermeneutic philosophy, nothing is further from the truth. Such methodological naïveté, if not outright error, hampers the growth of authentic hermeneutics in nursing theory and scholarship. In the Australian context, between 1998 and 2012 seven theses, Masters as well as PhD, are listed in the Libraries Australia catalogue (accessed 15 May 2014) as having used van Manen’s “hermeneutic phenomenology”. With one exception, which relates to education theory (van Manen’s own background), all came from the discipline of nursing studies.

The central thesis of van Manen’s “hermeneutic phenomenology” in his famous work Researching lived experience (referred to hereafter as van Manen 1990) is that thematic analysis of a written account of lived experience helps a researcher anchor its meaning. A theme is like a signpost in the narrative landscape of a lived experience that guides the researcher to the oft-hidden region of meaning embedded in the text.

However, can the very notion of “theme” be taken for granted in a hermeneutic approach to lived experience? The answer is no, and it is based on the primacy of ontological difference between being (Sein) and beings (Seiende) in the fundamental ontology (Fundamentalontologie) of Dasein analytic in Being and time (referred to hereafter as Heidegger 1996). In explaining the very question of thematisation (Thematisierung) in fundamental ontology, Heidegger looks at the forestructure (Vor-struktur) of Dasein‘s everyday understanding of being.

Fundamentally speaking, the existential situation of Dasein is such that the everyday proximity of the ontic distracts Dasein from the deeper question of the ontological meaning of beings that are all around it in its being-in-the-world. The readiness-to-hand (Zuhandenheit) of beings disposes Dasein to view being as essentially pragmata: being as things that have the structure of “in order to”, e.g., the clock is used in our everyday life in order to tell time. This apparent obviousness in meaning actually conceals the ontological question of what it is in the first place that makes Dasein has the comportment towards beings as things. By determining the being of beings as pragmata, the thematisation of being itself withdraws from view. Acculturated as such, Dasein is ensnared by the false security of the forgetfulness of being (Seinsvergessenheit). There is no thematisation as such without ontological difference.

And yet, echoing Gadamer’s affirmation of prejudice (Vorurteil) as a necessary part of the hermeneutic circle, Dasein‘s all-too-ready understanding of the meaning of being as pragmata is not to be rejected outright, but is to be taken into view as an essential fore-sight (Vor-sicht) in its pre-philosophical seeing of being as being-in-order-to: prior to ontology is Dasein‘s comportment to being as homo faber, as a being who uses things to make other things that, too, are useful, in order to ensure survival, i.e., to prevent untimely death, in a hostile world. Simply speaking, the anthropology of Dasein cannot be conceived without the environing Zuhandenheit of beings. Hence the mode of being that is Zuhandenheit belongs to Dasein‘s fore-structure (Vor-struktur) in its hermeneutic engagement with the world and its inescapable being in it.

Kant famously declares in Critique of pure reason that being is not a predicate: this means that being does not provide us with any additional information about anything. It simply posits a thing – that a thing is. In other words, while everybody thinks, rightly or wrongly, that he or she understands what being means, there is something curiously empty about being as well. Being is a determination that does not say anything descriptive about a being, such as a tree or a book. Yet being plays a primordial role in the horizon of human understanding, otherwise Dasein will not be able to tell the difference between being and nothing, which means that philosophical thinking would not have been possible in human history at all. Given that this is not the case, there is something that can be called ontological priority in the universal question of being, as posed by none other than Dasein itself. And it is through Dasein that the traditional metaphysics of representational thinking of being as pragmata can be overcome and another way of thinking pointed at by Heidegger in his life work – which retrieves the question of being through a reflective recalling (andenkendes Denken) (Heidegger, 1998, p. ?) – can be invited into the primordial event of the hermeneutic circle. However, at the same time, Dasein must have the awareness not to reduce itself to a mere subjectivity that metaphysically represents the being of beings only through its own idea and image; the “I think” of Cartesian philosophy, which even phenomenology cannot free itself from in its historic beginnings under the guidance of Husserl, is not the essence, projection and unfolding of being (Sein).

Taking the above hermeneutic reflection into account, it is now clear that van Manen’s methodological reliance on the narrative of lived experience is an example of thinking continuously under the shadow of metaphysics; his nomenclature of “hermeneutic phenomenology” is hollow without the primordial way-showing of andenkendes Denken. Without this primordial way of thinking as indicated by Heidegger in the Greek spirit of daimonion – the inspirational, but also uncanny, shining in the showing in the phenomenon of aletheia that has always accompanied humanity -, there can be no Ereignis: the appropriation that is the coming of being to itself in the turning that is the full circle of ontological fulfilment.

Hermeneutics removes any notion of a fixed, metaphysical essence from Dasein and throws it into the constant flux of temporality. As temporal, Dasein is also a being of history and of destiny, both of which are intimately bound up with Dasein‘s understanding of being which is horizonally determined. The view from the top differs from the view from below; Dasein‘s understanding of being (Seinsverständnis), too, shifts and turns according to its interpretation of where it is at in the historicising temporalisation of its being-in-the-world (In-der-Welt-sein).

That Dasein can make an assertion at all – that the southerly winds are cold or that someone seriously ill is dying – is based on the universal truth of the uncoveredness of being (Sein) qua beings (Seiende) that it has access to thanks to its ontological structure as being-in-the-world (In-der-Welt-sein) (Heidegger, 1988, p. 208). Without language, Dasein becomes ontologically impossible. Indeed Heidegger, in his postwar career, famously stated that “language is the house of being” (Heidegger, 1982 , p. 5). Were being to become homeless, Dasein cannot be in the world.

As being-in-the-world, Dasein is not only Mitdasein but also exists alongside other beings. Language, while at Dasein‘s disposal, is at the same time through which Dasein can express its being alongside other beings. Hence, as a whole, language is not the sum total of words but the existential expressivity of Dasein and carries its temporality, and hence its historicity, in the history of being (Heidegger, 1988, p. 208). The concept of historicity is significant in respect of language. Instead of transparency in meaning, Heidegger understands language as problematised by the advent of technology and of das Man, the average, anonymous person in mass society that impoverishes Dasein‘s potentiality-of-being. Viewing this problematic in the context of hermeneutics, it becomes clear that in order to understand what Dasein expresses in language, interpretation qua Mitdasein is required. In Truth and method, Gadamer sees this as an opportunity for “fusion of horizons” (Horizontverschmelzung) in Mitdasein and not a cause for pessimism. Its challenge, however, is taken up by an American philosopher from a non-phenomenological tradition such as Davidson, in what he calls “radical interpretation”, which in fact implies the existence of the hermeneutic Vor-Struktur in communication. This points to the universality of the hermeneutic circle, given that it is not confined to phenomenology and its practitioners’ insights.

In Being and time, the universal question of the meaning of being is asked, with no one final metaphysical answer (i.e., without any dogma), by way of fundamental ontology (Fundamentalontologie) in which Dasein, the being-in-the-world that we ourselves are when we live in ecstatic-temporal ek-sistence and do not degrade ourselves as mere objective presence among other beings, is the central character in the polemos of the question of being. Given that the structure of Dasein‘s understanding follows the movement of the hermeneutic circle, it can be said that fundamental ontology is the appropriate ontology for hermeneutics. Given that hermeneutics qua Dasein cannot do without language, Dasein uses language in a hermeneutic way, and this means in the form of the hermeneutic circle. Because of this, words do not actually refer to objects, but primordially express Dasein‘s comportment to being (Seinsverhältnis). Language and Dasein‘s mode of being are intimately bound up and cannot be understood separately from each other. Primordially speaking, language is translated into Dasein. This is the basic Ereignis of fundamental ontology, where being comes into the realm of the question of being and takes up residence in language as Dasein‘s expressivity.

References

Heidegger, Martin. (1982) On the way to language. Trans. by Peter D. Hertz. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

Heidegger, Martin. (1988) The basic problems of phenomenology. Trans. by Alfred Hofstadter. (Revised edition) Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Is Heidegger’s philosophy “phenomenology”? Or was what he was doing in effect Ab-bildung (Heidegger, 1988) and Destruktion (Heidegger, 1996) from within the contemporary movement of phenomenology? To answer this question, it is useful to turn to The basic problems of phenomenology, which is based on Heidegger’s lecture course given in 1927 (Heidegger, 1988).

Comparing The basic problems of phenomenology to a recent translation of his lecture course given during the winter semester of 1919-1920, which is published as Basic problems of phenomenology (Heidegger, 2013), it is quite clear to the reader that in the space of seven years leading up to the publication of Being and time in 1927, Heidegger abandoned his initial hopes for the new movement of phenomenology to be capable of giving access to the essential question of being (Seinsfrage) in philosophical thinking. Through his re-interpretation and his appropriation of Dilthey’s hermeneutic questions during the same period in his early career, Heidegger was finally able to demonstrate in Being and time that the promise of ontological opening in phenomenology can only be carried out by “destroying” or “de-representing” (ab-bilden) the Cartesian transcendetalism of Husserl, the founding father of phenomenology and Heidegger’s original mentor, and uncover an Ereignis or an arche of appropriation where being (Sein) can be truly understood as being (Sein) by way of the hermeneutics of its standing place in the life-world (Lebenswelt), namely Dasein. In other words, Heidegger can only enter into the hermeneutic circle by abandoning Husserl’s vision and project.