Heidegger and meaning: implications for phenomenological research

Heidegger and meaning: implications forphenomenological research

Mary E. Johnson PhD, RNAssistant Professor, Rush University College of Nursing, Armour Academic Center 1042D, 600 S. Paulina St., Chicago, Illinois 60612-3832, USA

Abstract Recently the relevance of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger has beencritiqued in nursing literature. However, this critique is based primarilyupon an appropriation of Heidegger that does not reflect an under-standing of meaning as grounded in temporality. Therefore, this paperaims to (1) explicate Heidegger’s grounding of meaning, (2) briefly con-trast Heidegger’s and Husserl’s notions of the origin of meaning, (3)describe how Heidegger was first introduced to nursing, and (4) illus-trate through examples from a research study how the philosophy ofHeidegger might inform the phenomenological researcher.

Keywords: Heidegger, phenomenology, interviewing, quantativeresearch.

Correspondence: Tel.: 312-942-2766; fax: 312-942-2549; e-mail:

[email protected]

Introduction

Although there is not a consistent definition of phe-nomenology, phenomenological research can be dis-tinguished from other qualitative methods in that thephenomenological researcher aims to describe and/orunderstand the meaning of the participants’ livedexperiences (Omery, 1983; Cresswell, 1998). Tradi-tionally, phenomenological research in nursing hasbeen grounded in Edmund Husserl’s philosophy(Beck, 1994; Cohen, 1987; Oiler, 1981; Omery, 1983;Pallikkathayil & Morgan, 1991). However, recentresearchers have introduced the philosophy of MartinHeidegger into nursing as grounding for phenome-

nological research (Benner, 1984; Benner & Wrubel,1989; Benner et al. 1996; Chesla, 1995; Diekelmann,1992, 1993; Kellett, 1997; Kondora, 1993; Rather,1992). Of late, some nursing authors have critiquedthe appropriation of Heidegger’s philosophy intonursing – specifically, the accuracy of interpretation ofHeidegger. Consequently, these critiques call intoquestion the usefulness of Heidegger’s philosophy fornursing research (Crotty, 1997; Holmes, 1996; Paley,1998).

The purposes of this paper are: (1) to show thatthere is a place for Heidegger’s philosophy withinphenomenological research in nursing. Whereas thecritics of appropriating Heidegger’s philosophy arecorrect in inferring that Heidegger never intended todevelop a method as such, it is possible to elucidate amethodology from his philosophy that will underpin

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134 © Blackwell Science Ltd 2000 Nursing Philosophy, 1, pp. 134–146

Heidegger and Meaning 135

© Blackwell Science Ltd 2000 Nursing Philosophy, 1, pp. 134–146

the specific methods the researcher uses in phenome-nological research. (2) To show that there are impor-tant differences between Husserl and Heidegger’sphilosophies that renderHeidegger’s philosophy moreapposite grounding for phenomenological research innursing. Since Heidegger was greatly influenced byHusserl, there are aspects of their philosophies thatare inevitably shared. However, because Heideggerdeviated from Husserl on several important points,there are aspects of their philosophies that are distinct in important ways (Sheehan, 1998). One such disagreement is the origin of meaning as such.Briefly, Heidegger reminds the researcher first thatmeaning as such is always in the context of some-thing – one’s humanity, one’s culture, one’s personalsituation or the practices adopted by a particulargroup (Rescher, 1996, p. 114) and second meaningarises not from consciousness, but from the essentialfinitude of being human. Therefore, if one assumesthat the methods the researcher uses are driven by themethodology,1 the stance the researcher takes in rela-tion to the interview (i.e. the kinds of questions the researcher asks the participants and what theresearcher listens for in the interview) and how theresearcher interprets the text of the interview willvary depending on the philosophical underpinnings.

Background to meaning

Traditionally, there have been two dichotomous posi-tions regarding the origin of meaning as such.The firstposition places meaning within an entity and thusassumes that the properties of that entity (what constitutes that entity) are contained within it. If onewishes to articulate the meaning of something, oneneeds to explicate the essence of that entity (Rodgers,1993). The second position places meaning within theperceiving subject and assumes that meaning is pro-jected upon the entity from the perceiving subject.Those who assume that meaning resides within anobject presume that objects are ‘out there’ waiting to

be discovered in their essence. However, these indi-viduals are challenged to explain how it is that one canbecome free of one’s conceptual taking-as in order tohave access to and knowledge about this conceiver-independent reality (Harvey, 1989; Moser, 1993).Those (such as Descartes) who doubt whether we canever free ourselves of our conceptual taking-as havelooked to the subject as the source of meaning andcertitude. The important point here is not to resolvethe long-standing disagreement regarding the sourceof an Archimedean point of certainty. The importantpoint is to understand that both positions presumethat objects are separated from the knower. Thedebate between these two schools of thought pre-sumes a distinction between the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’world – between the subject and the object – that willthen commit one to an understanding of meaning that is either objective or subjective (Bernstein, 1983;Hacking, 1988; Moser, 1993; Rodgers, 1993). This dis-tinction has committed philosophers to either searchfor a certainty that can never be attained or accept akind of relativism that makes some uncomfortable(Bernstein, 1983; Hacking, 1988; Moser, 1993). Hence,the objectivist believes that there must be someanchor to which we can appeal as a foundation forknowledge and the relativist believes that the onlyanchors that exist are those we create and accept.

Husserl and meaning

Edmund Husserl follows in the Cartesian tradition byprivileging the knower and taking a subjectivist viewof meaning and certitude (Bernstein, 1983; Follesdøl,1998; Harvey, 1989; Moustakas, 1994; Sheehan, 1998).Yet, Husserl is not a relativist. Husserl saw pure subjectivity as the foundation for both scientificknowledge and the lifeworld of everyday experiences(Bernstein, 1983, p. 11). According to Husserl, one’sconsciousness structures what is experienced (Folles-døl, 1998; Howarth, 1998). So, experiences are struc-tured the way they are because the transcendental egois structured the way it is. Thus, ‘our concrete experi-ences of self, others, and world, as well as our reflec-tive judgements and linguistic articulation of them,are constituted through the activity of an absolutesubject (the transcendental ego)’ (Compton, 1997, p.

1 For the purposes of this paper, methodology is the theory (or

theories) that underpin what one does as a researcher and

methods are the particular techniques the researcher uses to

collect and analyse the data (Harding, 1989).

136 Mary E. Johnson


205). In order to reach this absolute subject, Husserldirects the phenomenologist to: (1) put aside any the-oretical assumptions about the existence of the world,(2) distance oneself from the practical activities ofeveryday life, and (3) return to the self – to a descrip-tion of pure consciousness through intuition (Paley,1997). This allows one to be free of the encumbrancesof the world in order to describe the essential featuresof concepts or experiences. Thus, Husserl postulatesthat only a pure description of consciousness canovercome the naïve naturalism of science and providea point of departure for solving philosophical prob-lems (Buckley, 1997, p. 328).

Heidegger and meaning

Heidegger2 (1927/1962), on the other hand, rejects the possibility of and necessity for a transcendentalstandpoint that grounds knowledge and experience(Howarth, 1998). Consequently, the notion of inter-pretation – where all interpretations have both a fore-structure (presuppositions) and an as-structure(meaning) – replaces the Husserlian themes of con-sciousness and perception (Nicholson, 1997; p. 305).For Heidegger, the standpoint of humans is to alwaysbe involved in the practical world of experience.Therefore, the world of human beings can never be apresuppositionless world wherein one’s consciousnessconfers meaning on the objects one encounters. Theworld of human beings is always one of practicalinvolvement where things take on meaning in relationto one’s purposes (Nenon, 1997). More specifically,meaning emerges because of the unitary relationbetween human beings and other things/people that is

possible only because of the unique structure of beinghuman (Dasein). Heidegger calls this structure,temporality, and the way humans have of relating toothers in the world, being-in-the-world (Heidegger1927/1962, 1957/1998). Thus, being-in is not a spatialrelation, but rather indicates the way that humanbeings relate to other entities (both human and non-human) in a familiar world of involvement – a ‘pro-found intimacy of [one] with the world’ (Richardson,1963, p. 52).Therefore, the things humans encounter inthe world do not simply exist ‘out there’ in a detachedmanner, waiting to be investigated.They are all part ofan interconnected world of human investment and interest.

Practical world

To begin to uncover the structure of being (i.e. howentities come to be meaningfully present to humanbeings), Heidegger begins his analysis with everyday,practical activity – human being’s practical taking-as(Heidegger, 1927/1962). In this analysis, Heideggerdescribes the way human beings encounter certainkinds of entities (i.e. tools or implements) in the world.In one’s everyday activity one does not come uponthese entities in a flat and detached manner. One doesnot first-off weigh the hammer or identify the proper-ties of the hammer. In one’s everyday activity,one usesa tool for some purpose. In other words, human beings‘look ahead’ and know that there is a purpose forwhich they need a tool and understand that this objectwould be useful for that purpose. Hence, humans non-reflectively pick up that implement and use it in theireveryday practical taking-as. Furthermore, in the non-reflective activity of using the tool, the tool implicitlyrefers to something beyond itself. The hammer willrefer to hammering, hammering to nailing and nailingto the building of a house, which ultimately is beingbuilt for someone for some purpose (Richardson,1963; p. 55). Thus, ‘behind’ one’s everyday use of the tool are the related purposes (‘in-order-tos’) andgoals (‘for-whichs’). Although explicitly absent, theserelated purposes and goals are very much ‘present’. Inother words, the context that renders the implementmeaningful to a person recedes, yet remains implicitlyin the background.

2 Heideggerian scholars have not come to universal consensus

about the translation of and meaning of key Heideggerian

words. This paper reflects an understanding of Heidegger that

has been gained primarily through the work of and guidance by

Thomas Sheehan (1977, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1988, 1995a, 1995b,

1998) and therefore may be different than some of the inter-

pretations put forth in the nursing literature (for example,

Leonard, 1994; Taylor, 1995; Walters, 1995). It is not the purpose

of this article to argue for or against the accuracy of these inter-

pretations, but to put forth an interpretation that may further

phenomenological research.



Waking up to world

Nevertheless, there are certain circumstances that will bring this background to the foreground. If, forinstance, one is unfamiliar with one’s surroundings,one might have to think about one’s purposes in rela-tion to the entities one encounters.At other times, theimplement that one needs may be unavailable. Or the implement may be broken or missing. One is thencaught up short and suddenly misses the item oneneeds. The person wakes up to the realization that animplement is needed for a particular purpose. Thepreviously implicit purposes and goals now come intothe foreground and we wake up to world.

World

For Heidegger, world is not a ‘thing.’ It is not the total-ity of entities that exist in our environment. World isthe interconnected context of involvements that givemeaning to everything one encounters within one’sindividual world. In other words, world is a ‘matrix ofrelationships’ (Richardson, 1963, p. 291) from whichentities are meaningful. As such, the entities we areinvolved with in our everyday life are not presented tous as isolated entities but are part of this contextualwhole.The entities we encounter are not mere objects,but are interconnected and disclosed as meaningful(Heidegger, 1927/1962, 1983, 1995, 1957, 1998).

Heidegger and nursing

Interpretive phenomenology3 was introduced tonursing via Patricia Benner’s work (1984, 1985, 1994).Methodologically, this work and her subsequent workhas been based upon Dreyfus’ interpretation of Heidegger’s three modes of involvement in theworld – ready-to-hand, unready-to-hand and present-at-hand (Benner & Wrubel, 1989). As Benner &Wrubel articulate it, in the ready-to-hand mode all is running smoothly. The person who is engagedand involved in an activity does not deliberate or think about what he or she is doing. The piece of

equipment one uses becomes an extension of thebody and remains unnoticed. Benner extrapolatesthis notion of the ready-to-hand to also include thebody. Therefore, when the body is working smoothly,its functioning remains unnoticed and thereforetaken for granted. It is only during times of break-down – the unready-to-hand mode – that the equip-ment one uses (or the body) become noticed. In thismode of involvement, smooth functioning is inter-rupted and one no longer takes the activity forgranted.

Benner contrasts the ready-to-hand mode with thethird mode of involvement – the present-at-hand.In this mode of involvement, the equipment one uses is viewed, not from an engaged stance, but from an objective, detached stance. This is the usual stance of scientific involvement. Therefore, in thepresent-at-hand mode, both the activity itself and itscontext are absent. The piece of equipment one hadbeen using is now described in terms of objectiveproperties that omit the lived situation one is involvedin. From Heidegger’s perspective, the present-at-handmode always implies a ‘prior’ stance and understand-ing of engagement in the world. In other words, oureveryday way of being-in-the-world is not one ofdetachment, but one of engagement.

Benner’s research with nurses has been based uponthe assumption that expert nursing practice is anengaged activity. Because expert nurses are skilledpractitioners, they no longer deliberately think abouteverything that they do. The skilled practitioner’spractice is one of skilled involvement and smoothfunctioning. Thus, these practices may remain unno-ticed by the practitioners and taken for granted byothers. The goal of her research has been to identifyand describe nursing knowledge that is embeddedwithin nursing practice and articulate the ‘everydayskills, habits, and practices of nurses (Benner et al.

1996, p. 351). Her contribution to nursing has been toarticulate and make explicit some of these taken-for-granted practices. Because Benner, as well as otherresearchers doing interpretive phenomenology (suchas Diekelmann & Ironside, 1998), are interested inwhat people do in the ready-to-hand mode, practicalactivity has been the starting point for their research.Thus, the researchers access practical activity by: (1)

3 Also known as Heideggerian hermeneutics, hermeneutic phe-

nomenology and hermeneutical phenomenology.

138 Mary E. Johnson


observing others who are involved in an activity, (2)talking to others about what they do in this activity,or (3) eliciting narrative stories from others about thesituations they are involved in (Benner, 1994; Chesla,1995).

Methodologically, Benner’s research is grounded ina particular way of interpreting Heidegger that hasrecently been criticized by Crotty (1997) and Paley(1998). More directly, Crotty and Paley are criticizingDreyfus’s (1994) interpretation of Heidegger’s phi-losophy. Yet, rather than regard Dreyfus’ interpreta-tion of Heidegger as wrong, it might be more accurateto say that because Dreyfus’ interpretation of Hei-degger focuses on the first Division of Being and Time

his interpretation lacks the richness that would begained from an understanding of the second Division.Therefore, instead of negating the usefulness of Heidegger’s philosophy for nursing research, agreater depth of understanding of Heidegger has thepotential to expand the utility of hermeneutical phenomenology and provide a framework for inves-tigating the meaning of individuals’ experienceswithin the context of their lives.

The key to deepening the understanding of Hei-degger lies in understanding temporality. Heideggerbegan his project with the aim of explicating thegrounding for all meaning. Heidegger wondered howit is that things in the world come to be meaningfulfor human beings (Heidegger, 1984/1994, p. 100;1953/1959, p. 1). Although he spent a lifetime tryingto answer that question, Heidegger begins his projectin the first Division of Being and Time by explicatingthe structure of human being’s practical taking-as andends his project in second the Division by describingthe structure of the entity for whom things havemeaning (1927/1962). Thus, in the second Division ofBeing and Time, Heidegger concludes that temporal-ity is the condition for the possibility that things willbe meaningful to human beings (i.e. the meaning ofbeing is time) (Heidegger, 1927/1962, p. 38). That is,Heidegger concludes that human being’s finite struc-ture of living into possibility (temporality) is the con-dition for the possibility that humans not only can be,but must be involved in meaningful relationships andactivities (Carr, 1987; Sheehan, 1977, 1981, 1983, 1984,1988, 1995a, 1995b, 1998).

Temporality

For Heidegger, time is not a distinct series of nows.Nor is time a separate past, present and future.Time – as a much more unified and fundamental phe-nomenon – is the horizon from which an entity isunderstandable in its meaning. According to Heideg-ger, the answer to his main question (i.e. the meaningof being) is the dynamic structure of being humanitself. Heidegger names this structure temporality, notin the sense of ‘living-in-time’ but as a kind of onto-logical or essence-structuring movement. Because theessence of time is futural, humans are always becom-ing, not in the specific sense that one becomes a nurse,but in a general sense that humans are always consti-tuted by their movement into the varied possibilitiesof what they could become (Carr, 1987). Althoughhumans are ineluctably involved in various worlds ofpurposes, concerns and interests, all of these worldsultimately point to the final horizon of concern forand interest in oneself. Therefore, things acquire significance insofar as they are directly or indirectlyrelated to this final horizon of concern and it is thatfinal relation that ‘gives meaning’ to the things andpeople one encounters.

Although there are many possibilities that maygive particular meaning to our lives, Heideggerasserts that death is the ultimate and most funda-mental meaning-giving possibility – thus, his funda-mental ontology. Human beings know andunderstand that they are always, already at the possi-bility of their own death.And yet, humans can choose

from among the myriad possibilities how they wantto live their lives. In other words, one might live inau-

thentically by taking one’s possibilities and definingoneself as everyone or anyone might. Or one mightbecome what one already is and choose to live one’slife with the explicit awareness that one’s life islimited. Heidegger calls this act of explicitly choosingone’s existence in accordance with one’s limited pos-sibilities, authenticity.

Thus, this basic human structure of living-into-possibility – what philosophy traditionally has definedas ‘movement’ – is the core of everything Heideggerhas to say about both meaning and being human. Hei-degger concludes: (1) that prior to and apart from any



awareness of this fact or any choice in this fact,humans ultimately are ‘already’ what they essentiallyare; (2) that because the essence of human being isfinite, it is never complete, finished, or done. It isalways in a process of ‘becoming’; and (3) that inorder to consciously and personally be oneself onemust affirm one’s essence. In other words, one mustchoose it or ratify it. One must become it. Heideggerargues that it is an absence-from-one’s-full-self that pulls humans ahead unto themselves and opensup – makes possible and necessary – the everydaypossibilities and meaningful involvements wherebywhatever it is that humans meet has significance.

Moreover, because human becoming is never com-plete in the sense that building a house might befinally completed or a Supreme Being is already com-plete, humans are always living in relative absence,lack or need. So, it is out of this relative lack or needthat human beings choose their possibilities. It is outof this relative absence that humans are compelled tomeaningfully and purposefully live with and amongothers. Insofar as this absence-from-one’s-full-self is an absence – even if a relative rather than an abso-lute absence – it remains in some sense ‘concealed’and consequently easily overlooked and forgotten.According to Heidegger, overlooking this relativeabsence (finitude) as the source of all meaning hashad consequences throughout modern time. Amongthe consequences of this forgetfulness are: first thatrather than choosing and affirming one’s life as one’sown, human beings go along with and follow what theaverage person is doing; second, that rather thanacknowledge temporality as the original source of allmeaning, humans take themselves to be the centre ofall meaning and significance; third that rather thanfocus on what gives meaning humans focus on thegiven (the beings themselves); and fourth that ratherthan acknowledge the finite nature of all disclosure,humans have assumed that beings can be known and understood in their entirety – that there can becertitude. Thus, it is with his antisubjectivism and an emphasis on finitude that Heidegger attacksHusserlian phenomenology.

Though Husserl’s criticisms of Descartes are many and very

important . . . [Husserlian] phenomenology is still at bottom

a form of Cartesianism. This characterization of phenome-

nology centres on two closely related doctrinal emphases:

one is a certain elevated, even pretencious [sic] conception

of the capacity of human knowledge, expressed in the notion

of philosophy as rigorous science; the other is its focus on

subjectivity as the beginning and end point of all knowledge.

Against this view, hermeneutics stresses above all the fini-

tude of the human condition and the resultant finitude of

human knowledge, even self-knowledge. (Carr, 1987,

p. 180)

Implications for phenomenologicalresearch

Although Heidegger proffers a foundational struc-ture of what constitutes a human being, it is possibleto infer several methodological implications that arerelevant to hermeneutical research. To illustrate theconnection between Heidegger and phenomenologi-cal research, I would like to employ examples from aphenomenological study of 10 psychiatric patientswho had been restrained in leather restraints on apsychiatric unit (Johnson, 1997, 1998a, 1998b). Thepurpose of the study was to articulate what beingrestrained in leather restraints meant to these partic-ipants.These 10 individuals were interviewed using anunstructured format that began with the statement:‘Tell me a time that stands out in your mind becauseit shows what it was like to have been restrained inleather restraints’. The interviews were tape recordedand transcribed verbatim. The texts of the interviewswere analysed using a modification of the methoddescribed by Diekelmann & Allen (1989).

Being-in-the-world – as temporality – reminds usthat our lives are unified and connected within thewhole of our significances and involvements. Becausehuman involvement is the clearing that makes allmeaning possible, the participants’ experiences andthe meaning of these experiences cannot be separatedfrom the whole of that person’s world. Therefore, asingle experience is inseparable from its context ofinvolvements. Moreover, the meaning of any experi-ence is not presented to the researcher as a decontex-ualized entity that can be investigated and understoodas an isolated object. Rather, both the experience and

140 Mary E. Johnson


the meaning of that experience are embedded withina contextual whole. In that sense, hermeneutical phe-nomenology as a research methodology is interpre-tive. It is a way of uncovering and bringing out into theopen an understanding which has been presented tothe researcher, not as a kind of cognitive or theoreticalunderstanding but rather in the structure of somethingas something (Carr, 1987).

For that reason, eliciting stories or narratives of anexperience is one way to preserve the context and toenable the significance and meaning of that experi-ence to be revealed (Benner & Wrubel, 1989; Carr,1986; Polkinghorne, 1988; Sandelowski, 1991). In theactual living of our own stories individual eventsacquire significance within the whole to which theybelong. Thus, the stories that are told to others revealmeaning, as well as a sense of organization and coher-ence, i.e. how an experience fits within the context ofone’s life. Moreover, this coherence and sense of sig-nificance entails that the meanings of experiences arecontext dependent.

In the study of being restrained, the experience ofbeing restrained was not considered to be an isolatedexperience that had meaning in and of itself, nor wasit thought of as a singular experience within a seriesof separate events in the participant’s life. The partic-ipant’s experience of being restrained was regardedas part of a temporally unified whole that continuedto shape and be shaped by the participant’s concernsand interests. As such, I was interested in beingrestrained, not as simply a description of somethingthat had happened, but as a description of how theexperience continued to be present to the participant.I was interested in the participant’s understanding ofthe experience and the meaning of this event withinthe context of the participant’s world.

Since each person had a unique way of bringing meinto this world, the stories often did not always beginwhere I expected them to begin. In addition, it wasnot always clear to me in the beginning of the storywhat the story actually was. Hence, I learned to becautious about refocusing the participant if the con-versation seemed to wander. For example, one par-ticipant began her story of being restrained by talkingabout a childhood experience of being sexuallyabused. She began the interview with:

I’ll tell you about the latest incident [of being restrained].

My parents always lived with my grandparents. A story and

a half, a two-flat. And [my grandmother’s] first husband was

an abusive alcoholic. The second one was a pedophile.

Everybody else worked during the day. . . . He worked

nights for the railroad. He was home during the day. Before

I even started kindergarten, he would, you know, sexually

molest me.

As she talked about the many years she was sexu-ally abused by her grandfather, I wondered how shewould connect the story to being restrained. And yet,I resisted the temptation to refocus her to what I

thought was the story. At the point that I began tothink that she would not connect the two stories atall, she brought it back to the present.Apparently, oneof the objects she saw in the occupational therapyroom triggered a memory of her past experienceswith her grandfather. Over the course of that day, sheemotionally and physically withdrew from staff andeventually, as things escalated and out of staff concernthat this participant might injure herself, the staffrestrained her. She continued her story:

He [her grandfather] always wore this ring. A Mason ring.

The Masons. I knew that it was a Mason ring, but I didn’t

know what the Masons stood for. And Saturday, we had

O.T.[occupational therapy] open. And I was making a

leather key chain. I was going to the box and they had

these things that stamp leather. And they had the usual

things – cats, dogs, frogs and mushrooms. All of a sudden I

saw this Mason ring. And I just shoved it in my pocket. And

it started eating away at me all day. . . . It brought back so

many bad memories. I just closed down. I wouldn’t talk. I

was laying [there in the room], in the dark. I wouldn’t talk

to anybody . . .

For this participant, the story of the ring and thememories the ring evoked were closely connected towhy she was restrained. Therefore, the story of beingrestrained could not have been told without tellingthe story of her experiences as a child. On the onehand, this makes logical sense. If one assumes that the events in one’s life are meaningful only within thecontext of one’s entire life, it would follow that anevent like being restrained could not be detachedfrom the participant’s other experiences. Yet, as



researchers we are often tempted to think that we willonly get a single story. Furthermore, we are temptedto think that we know what that story will look like,not necessarily in content but in structure.

Thus, the interview – as well as the analysis of theinterview – may be viewed as an engaged conversa-tion between two people. The researcher placeshimself or herself in the other person’s situation in order to try and understand the other person’s perspective (Gadamer, 1960/1989, pp. 292, 303). Thisentails that the researcher listen to and remain opento what the participants are saying, continually won-dering what the words mean and how it has come tobe that this person has formed his or her particularpoint of view. Therefore, during the interview, I askedfor more examples, for more details, for clarificationand finally, I asked what they were thinking aboutwhile they were being restrained. Clearly, interview-ing another person is not simply ‘collecting data’.Interviewing another person is a conversation thatconnects the researcher and the participant in such away that the distance between the two diminishes.Likewise, the analysis of the text is a conversationbetween the researcher and the text of the interviewthat further diminishes the distance between the two.In both situations, the stance of the researcher needsto be one of openness, curiosity and wonder thatallows the researcher to be drawn into the partici-pant’s world (Gadamer, 1960/1989, p. 268).

Yet, meaning is not directly given like sense data is given. Meaning needs to be ‘wrested’ from its hiddenness (Gadamer, 1960/1989). Since meaning isembedded in the stories one tells, it becomes the task of the researcher to uncover and make thesemeanings explicit. Questions open up possibilities ofmeaning and keep these possibilities open (Gadamer,1960/1989, p. 299). Questions provide not only a senseof direction, but place that which is questioned withina particular perspective. Therefore, once the initialstory was told, I asked the participants more specificquestions in order to move further into the partici-pants’ world and to obtain a clearer, deeper, richerdescription of what happened and how it happened.Likewise, during the analysis of the text, I asked questions of the text in order to move further into the meaning of the participant’s world (Gadamer,

1960/1989, p. 303). By asking questions and beingopen to what is emerging there is a movement fromunintelligibility to intelligibility. In that sense, themeaning of anything is not like an object that is outthere ready to be observed and examined from allangles. An understanding of what something meanswill unfold and come out into the open. That which isof interest to the researcher will move from hidden-ness to unhiddenness. Likewise, in the analysis of thetext of the interview, as the researcher reads and asksquestions of the text and moves between the parts ofthe text and the whole of the text, an understandingof the text will deepen and the meanings and under-standings will become visible. This is the interpretiveprocess that others have articulated (Benner, 1994;Diekelmann & Allen, 1989; Diekelmann & Ironside,1998).

Being-in-the-world – as temporality – reminds usthat all of our experiences and understandings arerelated to a larger context of involvement. Althoughthe culture and traditions we have inherited mayremain inexplicit, we are embedded in and formed bythese cultures and traditions. Thus, an understandingof the participant’s experiences and/or practicescannot be separated from that person’s culture,history and tradition. Similarly, the researcher does not enter into the research process with a blankslate.All interpretations and understandings – includ-ing the research question, the interview and theanalysis of the text of the interview – are grounded in fore-having, fore-sight and fore-conception(Gadamer, 1960/1989, pp. 267–269; Heidegger, 1927/1962, pp. 199–200). Thus, the researcher cannot com-pletely separate from or set aside (bracket) his or herculture, tradition or point of view. There can be nopresuppositionless state from which we can approachthe research process. Moreover, to think that there issuch a presuppositionless state ‘ignores the contextu-alized nature of human understanding’ (Pollio et al.,1997, p. 47). At the most, these researchers will expli-cate their viewpoint and guard against imposing thatviewpoint onto the participants and/or the text of the interview (Diekelmann & Ironside, 1998; Pollioet al., 1997).

Being-in-the-world – as temporality – reminds usthat all meaning and discovery are fraught with fini-

142 Mary E. Johnson


tude. Although questions open up possibilities ofmeaning, questions also limit the boundaries of whatis going to be talked about (Gadamer, 1960/1989, p.363). In other words, by virtue of asking one questionone does not ask another question. Likewise, ques-tions take the researcher in a particular direction.Therefore, the risk during both the interview and theanalysis of the text is that the researcher will ask ques-tions that are too leading or too narrow in focus, thuslimiting the boundaries of what is being exploredand/or that the researcher will impose his or her per-spective, theoretical or otherwise, into the interviewand onto the text. Thus, Heideggerian hermeneuticalphenomenology reminds the researcher that hidden-

ness is intrinsic to this disclosive process (Nenon,1997). In all aspects of the research, there is inevitablehiddenness and incompleteness. Therefore, althoughthe participant’s meanings are coming out into theopen, these meanings will never be completelyrevealed and the participants will never be com-pletely understood. There will always be a part of the participant’s world that remains hidden and con-cealed. Although the distance between the partici-pants and the researcher narrows, that distance willnever completely close. Neither the participants nor their experiences can be understood in theirentirety. Therefore, being-in-the-world (as temporal-ity) reminds the researcher that in addition to noticing what is coming out into the open, he or shemust notice what is not spoken, what is not revealed.The researcher must listen to the silences in the interview.

Caputo (1987, pp. 273–274) cites the face as anexample of the interplay between what is revealedand what is concealed. The face as the setting for lan-guage enables one to conceal what shall remainhidden and reveal what one wishes would remain

hidden. Moreover, the face as a place of opening isnot always neat and unambiguous. One cannot alwaysbe sure of the messages that are both given andreceived. The signals are often uncertain and con-fused. During the interview, I was often uncertainabout what the participants meant by what they weresaying. I often looked to the face to reveal more aboutthe participants. At some points, I wondered tomyself, ‘Why is she smiling here? or I wondered, ‘Why

does he look away?’. At times I wanted more to berevealed and yet the face revealed little. For example,I looked into one participant’s eyes when she told me that she ‘cut’ her throat before the EmergencyMedical Service arrived. I looked at her, trying togently encourage her to go on, but thinking at thesame time, ‘You did that? Why?’. I looked to her faceto reveal more, yet after she spoke the followingwords, she looked away as if it was all nothing. I wouldnever get a deeper sense of how she felt about thewhole experience, because her face did not reveal thefeelings that her words covered over. She said verymatter-of-factly:

My friends called the EMS. And the EMS showed up. And

I was here, split from here to here. I said [to the emergency

medical technicians], ‘It’s a sharp knife. I was just playing

around.’ . . . And, here they are. Now, what are you going to

tell ’em? Here I am, bleeding down the neck. [And I said,]

‘It’s okay, really’. They go to all these houses and everybody

has split necks. I tried to convince them that I was fine.

Which we had a long discussion over.

Another participant told me that he had jumped infront of a subway train 6 years previously. I lookedfor his face to reveal more feeling. And yet, there wasno expression on his face and no change in his toneof voice. This participant recounted this story as if itwas nothing:

I took a bunch of medicine and drank about a six-pack of

beer and then stood in front, on the [train tracks]. This was

about 6/7 years ago. . . . The train goes on top of me. And

I’m saying, ‘Oh, it didn’t work again’. It went over the top

and he [the train] scrapes the shoulder.And, then, what hap-

pened was that I’m laying there and I’m telling myself it

didn’t work again.This was about the seventh or eighth time

I tried to kill myself. And then, what happened was that I

put my foot forward and I hit the electrical line and then I

woke up in the hospital . . .

And yet, there were times when I looked into the par-ticipants’ faces that I could see more. I could, forexample, see a sadness in the eye or an expression inthe face that augmented the words the participantspoke. It was for example, how one participant lookedwhen I asked her if she remembered what shethought about while in restraints. She answered, ‘A lot



of times I’d think about my mother. She passed awaya few years ago.And I’m just thinking,“Sorry, Mom”’.We both paused in silence as she held back the tearsand looked away.

Thus, being-in-the-world – as temporality –reminds the researcher to pay attention not only towhat is given and revealed but to the not given andthe unrevealed. According to Caputo, whatevershows itself to another human being comes from thedeepest depths of that person. Yet what emerges isnot a thing that we can touch or hold. What emergescomes out and then hides away. As I sat with the participants, who these individuals were would comeout and then hide away. In the interview, the early tentativeness would give way to more openness butthen the tentativeness would return. At times I wouldunderstand what the participants were saying and atother times I would lose that understanding. And so,it was the mystery and unknown that first pulled meinto wanting to understand what the participants’experiences are like. It was the unknown that firstdrew me in and prompted me to ask about themeaning of being restrained. It was the mystery andunknown that pulled me further into the otherperson’s world as the participant’s answers to myquestions prompted me to ask more questions andthus, go deeper into the unknown.

For Heidegger, human understanding and ourinvolvement in a world of significance is not a barrierthat stands between the knower and the known. Noris ‘the process of interpretive understanding . . . aprocess in which the thing is hidden from us’ (Carr,1987, p. 182). Rather, interpretive understanding ishow the thing is revealed (Carr, 1987). According toHeidegger, there is an intimate relationship betweenthe process of disclosing and the structure that underlies all disclosure. Thus, interpretive phenome-nology is not an action taken only in relation to thetext of an interview. Because being-in-the-worldreminds us that we are always already interpreting our experiences, each step of the research process isinterpretive.

Phenomenology became hermeneutical when it argued that

every form of human awareness is interpretive, when it was

not content to regard interpretation as just one specific form

of awareness directed to one particular range of objects – for

instance, texts. If all the intentions of our perception and

imagination are already marked through and through by

language, and moreover, if the phenomenologist him- or

herself can no longer claim an intuitive access to mental life,

but is always interpreting it, then we are in Hermeneutics.

(Nicholson, 1997, p. 308).

Conclusion

Heidegger gives the phenomenological researcher adifferent understanding of how a human being isstructured and the origin of meaning than that pro-vided by Husserl’s philosophy. More specifically, Hei-degger asserts that present things get their meaningout of future purpose. That is, because humans arealways living into and out of their possibilities, theyhave an investment in themselves, other things andother people. Humans are concerned and have con-cerns. Therefore, they are always interpreting theirexperiences in light of these investments and con-cerns. Moreover, because humans are first and fore-most temporal beings, they are also embedded inhistorical–cultural contexts and traditions that areshared with others in the community. Charles Taylor(1995) calls this historical understanding background

and credits both Heidegger (1927/1962) and Wittgen-stein (1953/1968) with attempting to return to anunderstanding of the person as engaged in a culturalworld of involvements and concerns (p. 62). Thus, thehermeneutical circle – the movement of understand-ing between the parts and the whole – refers to allhuman understanding, not merely texts or actions(Gadamer, 1960/1989, pp. 293–294; Palmer, 1969, pp.188–120; Rouse, 1998, p. 326).

Thus, a basic thesis of hermeneneutical phenome-nology is that all understanding – phenomenologicaland natural science – is interpretive (Kockelmans,1997, p. 477). In other words, ‘our large-scale researchprograms and theories are all very sophisticatedinterpretations of natural phenomena that rest on alimited number of assumptions, the validity of whichcannot be justified on the basis of empirical groundsalone’ (Kockelmans, 1997, p. 477). One of Heidegger’sobjectives was to show how any theoretical under-standing of the world is in fact grounded in a ‘practi-

144 Mary E. Johnson


cal preoccupation with things’ (p. 478). This is not tonegate a more distant and objectifying stance, but toremind us that our theorizing begins with an involve-ment in a world where we concernfully deal withthings. Phenomenology can bring us back to thatworld.

Hermeneneutical phenomenology can remind usthat both the problems we are trying to solve and our understanding of these problems are grounded in situational, cultural and historical contexts that canbe brought to the fore. Although this background can never be made completely explicit, an increasedunderstanding of these situational, cultural and his-torical contexts could potentially lend new insightinto the solution of problems that plague nursing.

Acknowledgement

The author wishes to thank Thomas Sheehan PhD,Department of Religious Studies, Stanford Universityfor his generous support and assistance with earlierdrafts of this paper.

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Heidegger and meaning: implications for phenomenological research