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Phenomenology As Philosophy and Method Applications to Ways of Doing Special Education

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Phenomenology As Philosophy and Method Applications to Ways of Doing Special Education JEAN C. McPHAIL ABSTRACT 1 HENOMENOLOGY IS A PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT The theoretical positions of the preceding two texts THAT APPROACHES THE STUDY OF HUMAN BEINGS AND THEIR create significantly different orientations to the life worlds CULTURE DIFFERENTLY FROM THE LOGICAL POSITIVIST MODEL of people. The quote by Merleau-Ponty describes the USED IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES AND IN SPECIAL EDUCA- essential focus of the phenomenological movement in TION. PHENOMENOLOGISTS VIEW THE APPLICATION OF THE philosophy—human consciousness. The Individualized Edu- LOGICAL POSITIVIST MODEL TO THE STUDY OF HUMAN BEINGS cation Program written for a 13-year-old young man with AS INAPPROPRIATE BECAUSE THE MODEL DOES NOT ADDRESS learning disabilities characterizes the prevalent view of THE UNIQUENESS OF HUMAN LIFE. IN THIS ARTICLE, THE individuals working in the field of special education—an THEORETICAL ASSUMPTIONS AND METHODOLOGICAL orientation directed toward changing the behavior of indi- ORIENTATIONS OF PHENOMENOLOGY ARE DISCUSSED, viduals with disabilities. Whereas phenomenology privi- FOLLOWED BY THEIR APPLICATIONS TO WAYS OF DOING leges the nature of the meanings that people construct in RESEARCH IN SPECIAL EDUCATION. their lives and that guide their actions, special education focuses on the study and practice of behavioral change outside the context of the life meanings of individuals with disabilities. The shift that Bruner (1990) described in the early stages of the cognitive revolution from an emphasis on the "construction of meaning to the processing of mean- P. HENOMENOLOGY IS AN INVENTORY OF CON- ing" (p. 4) aptly characterizes the essential differences JLsciousness HEN( as of that wherein a universe resides. between phenomenology and special education, respec- (Merleau-Ponty, 1963, p. 215) tively. In the construction of meaning, individuals' beliefs Present Level of Nathan has poor and desires are implicated, but in the processing of infor- Performance: grammar skills mation, an emphasis is placed on the computational sys- tems of mind without reference to individuals' meanings. Annual Goal: Learns Grammar Skills Philosophers are inquirers who are interested in Short-Term (1) Identifies parts of speech describing the foundational concepts within some domain. Instructional correctly. A group of philosophers whose theoretical beginnings can Objectives: (2) Writes correct sentences and be traced to Hegel (1910/1967) questioned the validity of uses them properly. employing the positivistic scientific model in studies of (3) Writes short paragraphs in human beings and their world. In spite of the wide accep- order to communicate more tance of this model in the natural sciences, these human effectively. (Individualized science philosophers objected to the analogy that was Education Program for a made between the content of the natural sciences—the 13-year-old young man natural world of plants, animals and other non-human with learning disabilities, material matter—and the subject matter of the human 1993) world, human beings, and their cultures. REMEDIAL AND SPECIAL EDUCATION i59 Volume 16. Number 3. May 1995, Pages 159-165, 177 In response to the faulty analogy perceived by these tradition of the natural sciences. While there has been human science philosophers, a movement of descriptive some counter-argument suggesting that the roots of spe- philosophy named phenomenology bloomed in the early cial education emerged from nonpositivistic theoretical twentieth century. This movement attempted to clarify a bases such as psychodynamic approaches (Ulman & way of viewing human beings and their lives that identified Rosenberg, 1986), the prevalent critical, philosophic view the essential uniqueness of the human world. Husserl (1913/ regards special education as emerging from a natural science 1962, 1936/1965), a man trained as a mathematician, is worldview. regarded as the father of phenomenology. Among his phe- Like the phenomenologists, the philosophic critics of nomenological followers are Schutz (1932/1967), Giorgi special education argue that the positivistic scientific view (1970), Merleau-Ponty (1942/1967), and James (1890/ that has been incorporated into special education theory 1983). Hermeneutics, a closely related philosophical move- and practice is not appropriate for advancing the field ment concerned with the development of a philosophical today. The explicit reduction of human life to attributes of theory of understanding, originated from Hegelian/ the natural world has created a view of the individual with Marxist sources (Howard, 1982). Dilthey (1923/1988), disabilities that is mechanistic and psychological in the Heidegger (1931/1962), Gadamar (1960/1975), and Ricoeur narrow sense, rather than holistic and psychological in (1963/1992) are among the leading figures in that move- the broad sense of being culturally sensitive. As a result ment (Howard, 1982; Polkinghorne, 1983). of the adoption of the positivistic model, these critics In order to develop a conceptual framework for phe- argue, the desires and beliefs that shape the activities of nomenology, Husserl drew on the Kantian distinction individuals with disabilities in specific cultural contexts are between noumenon and phenomenon. Husserl argued that not well understood. Recent work, however, has begun to there are two kinds of reality: (1) noumenon—being in redress this problem via the adoption of a sociocultural reality itself and (2) phenomenon—appearance of reality in orientation to the study of learning handicaps (e.g., Cousin, consciousness. According to the phenomenologists, expla- Aragon, & Rojas, 1993; Klenk, 1993; Palincsar & Klenk, nation of the mechanisms of noumena seemed the appro- 1992; Stone & Reid, 1993; Stone & Wertsch, 1984) and a priate subject for the natural sciences, and the description phenomenological hybrid perspective (McPhail, 1993). of phenomena should be the focus of study in the human Before launching into an elaboration of the philoso- sciences. phy and methods of phenomenology, I will discuss briefly Husserl (1913/1962, 1936/1965) argued that the posi- some of the central tenets of positivism. Because the posi- tivistic paradigm was inappropriate for studying phenom- tivist science movement spawned phenomenology and now ena because it could not describe the essential phenomena is seen by many in special education as the conceptual of the human world. Among these essential phenomena basis of the field, it is important to position a discussion of were values, meanings, intentions, morals, feelings, and phenomenology and special education within the root para- the life experiences and creations of human beings. In digm. A description of the assumptions of the positivist order to study these phenomena, human consciousness should science frame of reference will clarify and highlight the be the primary unit of analysis in the study of human life. similarities to and differences from the phenomenological The domain of phenomenology was defined as conscious- philosophical view. ness, not in its materiality (i.e., the faculties associated with The worldview inherent in positivism that appeared to consciousness, such as neurological mechanisms), but rather capture the imagination of Renaissance scientists like Galileo the act of consciousness in its intentionality toward some- and Newton was that the discoverable, regular patterns of thing or someone (i.e., how something or someone is expe- natural phenomena could be explained in mathematical/ rienced by me) (Polkinghorne, 1983). Husserl and his logical formulas. This view created the possibility of human followers, while sometimes disagreeing on particular beings establishing a world through their scientific investi- conceptualizations of consciousness, all agreed on the cen- gations that was not ruled by superstition, chance, and tral point of phenomenology. They viewed the positivistic local knowledge, but rather, by a universal system of knowl- scientific paradigm as flawed for studying human beings edge based on rationality containing unprecedented oppor- and their lives because it could not consider human con- tunities for prediction and control. sciousness in its meaning-making capacity. When this way of seeing the world was extended to Special education has been mostly exempt from philo- the study of human beings through the writings of Hobbes, sophic scrutiny during the field's short history, but recently Comte, and Mill, the phenomena associated with being a group of scholars both inside (e.g., Heshusius, 1982; human, such as thinking and behaving, were also assumed Poplin, 1987; Skrtic, 1993) and outside (e.g., Coles, 1987) to function with the regularities of natural phenomena the field of special education have begun to examine the (Polkinghorne, 1983). This view necessarily regarded internal knowledge base in special education. These philosophi- experiences, such as sensation, perception, and the emo- cally oriented scholars have argued that the foundational tions, as well as the external behaviors of human beings knowledge in special education is rooted in the positivistic and the nonhuman material, natural world as material things that could be studied and analyzed in order to nomenologists (e.g., in specific ways of conceptualizing unlock the regular patterns. In this worldview, the most consciousness), in the following section I highlight noble task of human scientists was to discover the
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