ALDERSGATE COLLEGE DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN

HIGH SCHOOL THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

MODULE 2.2
HISTORICAL-HERMENEUTIC APPROACHES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Teacher: Mrs. Marijule Suarez Manuel – Parungao

Level: Grade 11
Allotted Time: Five hours

OVERVIEW

This module discusses the psychoanalysis and the hermeneutic phenomenology which understands the
personality of an individual.
OBJECTIVES

Upon completion of this module, you should be able to:

1. explain the contribution of psychoanalysis and hermeneutic phenomenology to the study of human
behavior;
2. analyze the psychodynamics of the person’s personality in terms of Id, Ego, and Superego;
3. analyze the significance of data in hermeneutic phenomenology.
PRETEST
Directions: Do you know who is Sigmund Freud was? Identify as many as you can anything that you can
associate with Sigmund Freud.

Who is
Sigmund Freud?

LEARNING FOCUS

A. Psychoanalysis

Questions to ponder:
Is psychoanalysis scientific? What conditions or shapes human behavior? What is the
relationship between personality and behavior?
 It began with a young physician’s search for the treatment of his patients with emotional problems.
 He also developed a general theory of personality, aimed at explaining why people develop their unique
patterns of typical behavior.
 He also developed a general theory of personality, aimed at explaining why people develop their unique
patterns of typical behavior.

Sigmund Freud (Psychoanalytic Theory)

1|DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

ALDERSGATE COLLEGE DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN
HIGH SCHOOL THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Level of Consciousness Components of Personality Structure

Conscious Mind Id
 Important workings of the mind  Life instincts (libido) – sustain and
Preconscious Mind promote life (hunger, self-protection,
 Memories that are not presently conscious sexual desire)
but can easily be brought into  Death instincts
consciousness Ego
Unconscious Mind Operates according to the reality principle.
 Stores primitive instinctual motives plus  Its goal is to help the id fulfill its needs.
memories and emotions that are so Superego
threatening to the conscious mind that  Opposes the desires of the id by enforcing
they have been unconsciously pushed into moral restrictions and by striving to attain
the unconscious mind through the process a goal of “ideal” perfection.
of repression.

 The beginning of the 21st century witnessed the decline of psychoanalysis.

 Those who question psychoanalysis as a scientific make the following claims:

 Its subject is not reducible to its anatomy, physics, or chemistry;
 Its development cannot be understood or replicated independent of its founder’s personality;
 It does not meet up methodological specifications of the sciences that require public verification and
testing.
Moreover, the question of whether psychoanalysis is a science or not opened up the subjectivist-
objectivist dichotomy or debate in the Social Sciences.

B. Hermeneutic-phenomenology
Questions to ponder:
What is hermeneutics? What is the difference between descriptive phenomenology and
hermeneutic or interpretive phenomenology? Is hermeneutic phenomenology a method of
research or a theoretical viewpoint or orientation?
 Webster’s Dictionary:
 Hermeneutic – a method or principle of interpretation.
 Phenomenology – the study of the development of human consciousness and self-awareness as
a preface to or a part of philosophy.

 The interpretation of text or language by an observer, or the “art and science of interpretation”.
 It can be used as a methodology or as an enhancement of phenomenology (interpretive methodology).

2|DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

ALDERSGATE COLLEGE DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN
HIGH SCHOOL THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Two Camps

Descriptive/Transcendental Phenomenology Interpretive/Hermeneutic Phenomenology

 Edmund Husserl  Martin Heidegger
 Based on discovering the objective  Used to interpret the meaning of lived
universal essence of lived experiences and experiences and communicate the
communicating them through pure interpretation textually or symbolically.
description.

Both Husserl and Heidegger sought to uncover the life world or human experience as it is lived.
Both phenomenologists were convinced that the world is simply one life world among many worlds (Laverty, 2003).

Descriptive and interpretive methodologies share FOUR COMMON FEATURES

Description Reduction Essence Intentionality
 The aim of  A process that  The core meaning  It refers to
phenomenology is involves suspending of an individual’s consciousness
description of or bracketing the experience that since individuals are
phenomena. phenomena so that makes it what it is. always conscious to
the ‘things something.
themselves’ can be  Total meaning of
returned to. the object or the
idea which is
always more than
what is given in the
perception of a
single perspective.

In PRINCIPLE, phenomenology focuses on peoples’ perceptions of the world or the perception of the
‘things in their appearing’.
 Husserl believed that “the observer could transcend the phenomena and meanings being investigated to
take a global view of the essence discovered; an objectivization of the meanings of human experiences”.
 In contrast, Heidegger was of the view “that the observer could not remove him or herself from the
process essence-identification that he or she existed with the phenomena and the essences”.
 (use of language, interpretation of person’s ‘meaning-making’, attribution of meaning to phenomena)

As a METHODOLOGY, descriptive and hermeneutic phenomenology also vary significantly.

Descriptive/Transcendental Phenomenology Interpretive/Hermeneutic Phenomenology

 The technique of ‘bracketing-off’ influences  Interpret the meanings found in relation to
around a phenomenon to get to the phenomena.
essences.  Focus: understanding the meaning of
 Focus: correlation of the noema (what) of experience by searching for themes,
experience and the noesis (how it is engaging with the data interpretively, with
experienced) less emphasis on the essence.

Brought about by their difference in terms of their process of interpreting and describing human
experiences, descriptive phenomenology and hermeneutic phenomenology also differ in terms of the role of
REFLEXIVITY.
 REFLEXIVITY
 Is a person’s reflection or examination of a situation or experience
 It can help in interpreting the meanings discovered, or add value to those types of
interpretations.

 Reflexivity describes the process in which researchers are conscious of and reflective about the ways in
which their questions, methods, and subject position might impact on the data or the psychological

3|DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

ALDERSGATE COLLEGE DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN
HIGH SCHOOL THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

knowledge produced in a study.

 Reflexivity is often mentioned in hermeneutic phenomenology…this is where the researcher uses
empathy or relevant prior experience as an aid to data analysis and/or interpretation of meanings.
 Among the fields in the inquiry in the social sciences, it was the discipline of psychology that adopted
Husserl’s phenomenology.
 The influence of descriptive phenomenology and hermeneutic phenomenology is visible within the field of
qualitative investigative methods.
 However, hermeneutic is more prominent being listed as one of the various qualitative methodologies of
the social sciences.
 Tan et al. (2009) noted the application or use of hermeneutic phenomenology in recent years in various
applied disciplines such as nursing, social work, mental health, and in the study of the experiences of
hope and of grief.
 Nevertheless, hermeneutic phenomenology remains to be both a theoretical perspective and a
methodology and not a method of research, and therefore, the challenge to it is the clarity and
accountability of its method.
 Like psychoanalysis, HP faces the critiques posed by the positivists about claims to scientific knowledge,
one that is utterly objective and is the only type of evidence that is valid and certain.

REFERENCE
Dela Cruz, A. R. D., Fadrigon, C. C., and Mendoza, D. J. (2016). Disciplines and ideas in the social sciences .
Quezon City. Phoenix Publishing House. Pp.81-95.

MODULE 2.2
HISTORICAL-HERMENEUTIC APPROACHES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

4|DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

ALDERSGATE COLLEGE DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN
HIGH SCHOOL THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Name: ________________________________________________ Section: ________________________

POSTTEST
Essay
Instructions: Answer each set of questions in brief but succinct essay (30 points).
1. What are the three elements of personality structure according to Sigmund Freud? What are the key
features of each element? How does each explain human behavior? (15 points).
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________

2. In what ways does Edmund Husserl’s descriptive phenomenology vary from Martin Heidegger’s
hermeneutic phenomenology? What is the role of reflexivity in hermeneutic phenomenology? (15 points).

___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________

5|DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES