A Heideggerian Phenomenological Perspective on the Concept of Person… Not Functionalist or Deterministic

LEONARD, V.W. (1994) A Heideggerian Phenomenological Perspective on the Concept of Person. In: P. BENNER (Ed.), Interpretive Phenomenology: Embodiment, Caring, and Ethics in Heath and Illness. Sage Publications, Inc. pp43-64

“Disputes in hermeneutic interpretation resolve based on the plausibility of alternative interpretations, and the plausibility of an interpretation, cannot be reduced to a-priori-derived, cut-and-dried criteria.” (p61)

Annotation:
Ihde (2009) states that a criticism of phenomenology is that it is perceived as antiscientific and “locked into idealism or solipsism” (p23). Hirsch (1967, p166) criticises the hermeneutic circle’s circularity of thinking as an imprisonment of thought that can lead to self-confirming hypotheses in the interpreter. The nature of interpretation as understood within a holistic and phenomenological perspective acknowledges that a ‘correct’ interpretation cannot be produced by functionalist or deterministic hard science, as science is not suited to the explaining how humans process and experience the world. From a functionalist and deterministic perspective the hermeneutic methods are viewed at best with scepticism and at worst academic hostility.

A Heideggerian Phenomenological Perspective on the Concept of Person… Criticism: No Clear Termination

LEONARD, V.W. (1994) A Heideggerian Phenomenological Perspective on the Concept of Person. In: P. BENNER (Ed.), Interpretive Phenomenology: Embodiment, Caring, and Ethics in Heath and Illness. Sage Publications, Inc. pp43-64

“The interpretive process is necessarily circular, moving back and forth between part and whole, and between the initial forestructure and what is being revealed in the data of the inquiry. (…) The interpretive process follows this part-whole strategy until the researcher is satisfied with the depth of his or her understanding. Thus the interpretive process has no clear termination.” (p57)

Annotation:
‘No clear termination’ is a point of criticism that hermeneutics encounters frequently. As the act of interpretation continues until the interpreter “is satisfied with the depth of his or her understanding” (p57), it is indeed dependent on the background that the interpreter has. 

Validity in Interpretation… Criticism of the Hermeneutic Circle

HIRSCH, E.D. (1967) Validity in Interpretation. New Haven: Yale University Press

“Every interpreter labors under the handicap of an inevitable circularity: all his internal evidence tends to support his hypothesis because much of it is was constituted by his hypothesis. This is another description of the relationship between an intrinsic genre and the implications which it generates. An interpretive hypothesis – that is, a guess about genre – tends to be a self-confirming hypothesis. Thus the distressing unwillingness of many interpreters to relinquish their sense of certainty is the result not of native close-mindedness but of imprisonment in a hermeneutic circle.” (p166)

Annotation:
Hirsch criticises the hermeneutic circle’s circularity of thinking as an imprisonment of thought that can lead to self-confirming hypotheses in the interpreter. 

Guerilla Metaphysics… Critical of Phenomenology

HARMAN, G. (2007) Guerilla Metaphysics: Phenomenology and the Carpentry of Things. Open Court Publishing Company.

“When we speak of the relation within the heart of things as perceived, let’s refer to sensual relations, in keeping with the discoveries of the carnal phenomenologists. (…) Phenomenologists know that the intentional object can never become present in the flesh, but they also know that there is no purely given sense data free from the spectre of intentional objects. (…) The phenomenology of perception plays out only on this sensual level, making no claim to drive into physical reality itself – indeed, in its abhorrence of all naturalism it even tends to deny the very existence of a physical realm, and certainly holds it at arm’s length from philosophy.” (p#)

Annotation:
Harman is critical of phenomenology as the associated perception is never located in the physical external tangible world, but in a cognitively sensual internal personal world of interpretation and experiences.