Narrative and Hermeneutic Phenomenology

46 Eidetically reduction is the process of leaving individual phenomenon and reaching the universals essence. In eidetic reduction, Husserl recommends a technique called “the intuition of essence” Dreyfus Wrathall, 38. It is a technique to find „invariance‟ in a group of phenomena with „imaginary variation‟, the general in the individual Dreyfus Wrathall, 38. Transcendentally, reduction is the process of investigating how the essences are constructed; “through what mental a priori structures do things acquire their prope rties?” Dreyfus Wrathall, 38 7 Lived Experience According to van Manen, lived experience is “the starting point and end point of pheno menological research” 1990, 36. Dilthey 1985 defines it as “our immediate, pre-reflective consciousness of life: a reflexive or self-given awareness which is, as awareness, unaware of itself” van Manen, 1990, 35. This definition and an example from van Manen implies that lived experience is experiences which are impressive enough but cannot yet be defined when it first happens. This is probably why Merleau-Ponty 1968 call it as immediate awareness or sensibility van Manen. This experience will however be able to be defined “be grasped in its full richness and depth” through reflection after it happened van Manen, 1990, 36. It is understood by linking pieces of experiences to totality van Manen, 1990. According to Dilthey 1985, the totality of the experience is systematized as “motif in the andante of a symphony” van Manen, 37. It has what Dilthey called as “structural nexus” van Manen, 37. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 47 Researcher task is “to transform lived experience into a textual expression” thus the reader can identify him herself to the lived experience van Manen, 1990, 36. The textual expression shou ld be delivered “in such a way that the effect of the text is at once a reflexive re-living and a reflective appropriation of something meaningful: a notion by which a reader is powerfully animated in his or her own l ived experience” van Manen, 36. 8 Meaning Meaning or essence is the final destination of phenomenological study. It is defined by Husserl 1931, as paraphrased by Moustakas 1994, as a thing “which is common or universal, the condition or quality without which a thing would not be what is” 100. Similar to Moustakas, van Manen defined it as “the very nature of a phenomenon, for that which makes a some- “thing” what it is” 1990, 10. In other words, meaning can be defined as what a thing is universally. As quoted by Moustakas 1994, Sartre defines essence as “the „concatenation of appearances‟ xlvi” 100. It „is “radically severed from the individual appearance which manifests it, since on principle it is that which must be able to be manifested by an infinite series of individual manifes tations‟ xlviii” Moustakas, 100. If paraphrased, essence can thus be considered as a reference which is manifested through series of individual appearances. Moustakas 1994 also writes that “essences of any experience are never totally exhausted” 100. Further, he writes, “the fundamental textural-structural synthesis represents the essences at a particular time and place from vantage point of an individual researcher following an exhaustive imaginative and reflective PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI