Becoming a person: Hermeneutic phenomenology's contribution

被引:21
作者
Guignon, Charles
机构
关键词
Phenomenology; Hermeneutic phenomenology;
D O I
10.1016/j.newideapsych.2009.11.005
中图分类号
B84 [心理学];
学科分类号
04 ; 0402 ;
摘要
Hermeneutic phenomenology sets out to describe human beings as they show up in "average everydayness," prior to high-level theorizing and reflection. From this standpoint, human existence is found to be meaning- and value-laden, and so in need of interpretation in order to be properly understood. The description of everydayness leads to a critique of the "substance ontology" pre-supposed by many natural sciences, and instead characterizes a human being as an "event" or "life story" unfolding between birth and death. Working within this approach to understanding humans as events, the philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) gives an account of what he calls an "authentic" (literally, "proper" or "owned") individual. This account gives us a distinctive way of understanding what it is to be a "person" in the fullest sense of this word. A person, on this account, is an individual who can assess her primary desires in the light of "higher" or "second-order" motivations concerning what sort of person she wants to be. As a participant in a social context, she is indebted to the historical tradition of a community for her possibilities of self-interpretation and self-evaluation. In a social context, she can be a "respondent," answerable for what she does. And she is equipped to be an effective moral agent in facing situations demanding decisions. An authentic individual or "person" has a kind of freedom that makes meaningful choice possible. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
引用
收藏
页码:97 / 106
页数:10
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