And the "So What Question"

Seminar Dr. Besmer, Paper #5

Donnell Harris

February 22, 2007

And So What?

(With attitude)

Ah Ha! I think that I got it. The “And so what” question is the question that the Dean of my doctoral program asked weekly to the presenter of the mandatory seminar. What is the benefit of this research? Does it have meaning for us?  Did you give us information that was not previously available? In many ways these were typological phenomenological questions.  Often, the presenter struggled to respond in spite of the fact that the audience felt that it was an excellent presentation. The magnificence of the term phenomenology and the Greek lexicon associated with it, is often mesmerizing. I was often waiting for some new information or realization to bang me in my head or place something at my door step. After re-reading chapter 4 in Sokolowski, the veil was lifted and it made sense with the realization that natural scientists often approach the phenomenological attitude and not really articulate it as such as they reflect upon their work to come to objectivity and purer disclosure. It is now apparent to me that the natural and phenomenological attitudes contain all of the same things in their presentations, but it is the “philosophical reflection” of the phenomenological attitude that distinguishes the two attitudes. This reflection discloses more of the object in its purer form, in objectivity. For example, transcendence and immanence occur in both attitudes, as well as sides, perceptions, memory, aspects and the entire host of concepts that are considered in phenomenology. In the behavioral sciences, concepts are at the core of the discipline. The inter-subjective articulation of the concept is often fraught with disagreement and a host of experiences, interpretations and meanings. Finally, the participants agree upon a meaning. This inter-subjectivity often discloses the concept (or the object) in a purer form. For behavioral scientists, the next step is construction of the concept in one of its representations. I would like to posit at this point that this inter-subjectivity that occurs in any articulation is the premise for diversity; and its value in bringing out a disclosure of an object or whatever is intentioned. So, it becomes quite apparent to me that many human beings are able to bracket an object that they intended through the various modes of consciousness and reflect upon it to disclose other aspects; and bring about a purer form. It is also apparent to me that no matter how academic, purposeful, and indulgent the inter-subjective articulation that takes place in the phenomenological attitude, the object is never fully disclosed to us in immanence nor transcendence.