Home 9 Passage 9 Phenomenological Questioning

Heidegger says, “all questioning related to phenomenology should itself be phenomenological and should be settled phenomenologically” (2013a, p. 4). The phrase phenomenology as an original science should not be confused with qualitative empirical inquiries that are based on the factualities of life. And we must not reduce a phenomenon or event to an objectifying concept, theory, causal, or scientific explanation. So where to begin? If phenomenology is the study of phenomena then what is a “phenomenon”? Any object and event can be considered a phenomenon, but phenomenologists have a special meaning in mind. To see something phenomenologically, one needs to adopt a special attitude so that the taken-for-granted meaning of a phenomenon turns phenomenal, which means that the obvious becomes questionable and enigmatic. That special attitude that one needs to assume is described by Merleau-Ponty as the heuristic of wonder (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. xiii). But how can wonder be a method? The Phenomenological Question. Obviously a phenomenological study should be guided by a phenomenological question. But questions that are abstract, theoretical, conceptual, or that ask for explanations, perceptions, views, factual information, or interpretations will not lend themselves to conduct phenomenological exploration and reflection. As well, phenomenological inquiry often begins with a question that comprises an element of wonder: discovering the extraordinary in the ordinary, the strange in the taken for granted. A phenomenological inquiry asks what is given in immediate experience and how it is given or appears to us.