[+] Max van Manen: “Lived Experience Research: Pedagogy in the Perspective of the Human Sciences,” trans. Song Guangwen et al., ed. Li Shuying, Educational Science Press, 2003
Lately I have been paying attention to the phenomenology of education, and I came across this book. But rather than a work on pedagogy, this book is really more like an introduction to (applied) phenomenology; the whole book is trying to describe a human-scientific mode of inquiry—phenomenology.
The author, Van Manen, is a Canadian scholar and one of the founders of “phenomenological pedagogy.” He edits the journal *Phenomenology + Pedagogy*. But he is originally from the Netherlands, and his native language is Dutch; of course he also knows German very well, so his academic lineage is mainly Continental. He cites Heidegger, Gadamer, Merleau-Ponty, and so on, as well as some Dutch phenomenologists with whom I am not familiar, but he does not cite American phenomenologists like Dreyfus at all—by which I mean, that’s a good thing.
The Chinese translation I have in hand was already in its third printing by 2008, with a total of 13,000 copies, so it seems to have sold quite well. I wonder whether it has had any impact on the domestic education studies field. As for the phenomenological philosophical circle, I think this “phenomenological pedagogy” is also worth paying attention to. In fact, according to the intent of phenomenology, phenomenology should have been “applied” from the very beginning; you can regard him as a pedagogue who applies phenomenology, or you can say that he is simply a phenomenologist.
This book is basically an organizing of methodology. Although it offers some case studies of educational applications, it is obviously not all that satisfying, so the overall feeling is somewhat hollow, with too much filler. Still, for readers who know nothing at all about phenomenology, these “filler” passages are also worth reading. The author has two other pedagogical monographs in Chinese translation: “The Secret of Childhood,” “Teaching Tact.” In those two books, the author does not talk about “phenomenology” at all, but he is in fact still carrying through the phenomenological intent he set out in this book.
When it comes to research on phenomenology, one route is to become increasingly scholastic and textual, circling around classic texts and technical terminology; another route is to become increasingly mystified, turning phenomenology into something like metaphysics, Zen, or a form of cultivation and enlightenment. But I think neither of these routes is good. What truly develops phenomenology is “application” of the sort Van Manen does. Of course, whether he does it well, and whether there is distortion or oversimplification, is another matter; but the route itself is a very good one.
Below I quote a few passages from the original. The book is quite thick, but I have only excerpted the opening section’s basic outline of phenomenology:
Page 2 In this book, the human-scientific method is openly positioned as phenomenological, hermeneutic, and semiotic or linguistic. This is not merely because of the author’s particular interests or preferences, but more because pedagogy requires us to maintain a phenomenological sensitivity to lived experience (children’s reality and life-world).
Page 3 To a certain extent, the thinking in this article comes from the European tradition of educational thought; therefore, we have tried to offer a methodological interpretation of the works of German and Dutch scholars.
Page 11 The aim of phenomenological research is to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature or meaning of our everyday lived experience, … What distinguishes it from any other science is that it tries to give a delicate description of our pre-reflective mode of experiencing the world, rather than simply classifying, grading, or abstracting it. Therefore, phenomenology cannot provide us with effective theories for explaining or controlling the world; instead, it provides us with possible insights that make our connection with the world more direct.
Page 12 …For example, if we try to reflect on our anger while we are angry, we discover that the anger has already changed or disappeared. Therefore, phenomenological reflection is not introspection but retrospection. Reflection on lived experience is always recollection…////——this is a matter for discussion.
Page 13 Phenomenology tries systematically to reveal and describe the intrinsic structures of meaning in lived experience; this common core or essence can perhaps only be grasped intuitively through the events or instances encountered in lived experience.
Page 16 Just like poetics, in phenomenological research it is also inappropriate to ask for conclusions and summaries; overgeneralizing poetic meaning in order to state results destroys the result, because poetry itself is the result.
Page 20 I do not deny that we need a rational foundation, but I will try to broaden the understanding of the concept of reason.
Page 23 Phenomenology invokes our direct ordinary experience in order to carry out a structured analysis of those things that are most ordinary, most familiar, and most self-evident. The aim is to produce a lively, vivid, heuristic textual description of the human actions, intentions, and experiences we encounter in the life-world. For this purpose, human scientists often make use of the works of poets, Gestell, artists, or cinematographers—because in such materials one can find specific situations of human beings, and in a concentrated, transcendent way one can find all kinds of possible human experiences… But this does not mean confusing the human sciences with poetry, fiction, and works of art… The difference is that phenomenology aims at clarification and at finding the common core of meaning, whereas poets and literary writers preserve implication and singularity.
Page 28 Phenomenology is neither pure specificity nor complete universality. Merleau-Ponty believed that the phenomenological attitude is even more complex than a mixture of empiricism and idealism. The object that phenomenology is interested in “is neither eternal, without a basis in reality, nor merely a thing, doomed to be replaced by another thing tomorrow and thus deprived of any intrinsic value.” Thus, phenomenology lies in mediating, in a personal way, the contradiction between specificity and universality.
Page 28 Phenomenology does not solve problems… Meaningful problems can be understood better or more deeply, and therefore, on the basis of that understanding, I can act more comprehensively and more adroitly in certain situations. But to some extent, meaningful problems are never समाप्त? No, in English: never come to an end; they remain forever the subject matter of dialogical relations in everyday life.
Page 33 A successful phenomenological description is an appropriate articulation of certain aspects of the life-world—it resonates with our lived experience. Baidendike once mentioned “phenomenological nodding” as a way of expressing agreement in one of his lectures. A successful phenomenological description will make us nod again and again, … It is borne out by lived experience, and in turn bears witness to lived experience.
Page 37 Although the phenomenological method truly is a method without method, phenomenological research nonetheless follows a certain tradition, possesses a certain body of knowledge, and includes the life history of the thinker; all of this together constitutes the source and methodological foundation of modern human-scientific research practice.
family resemblance → family meaning resemblance
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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