0046 Test four.

Is there a role for hermeneutics in research in the social sciences?

0047 One opportunity is suggested at the end of the prior blog.

Let me go through a simple example.

I start with a mind-independent noumenon, named “methyl-salicylic acid”.  This chemical, when ingested, produces certain phenomena_1a that may be observed and measured_2a according to a pharmacological science_2a.

0048 Here is a picture of the relevant hands-on natural science.

0049 This feature of modern living_1a may be situated by Husserl’s project_3b.

0050 The noumenon_1b is “aspirin”.

Aspirin_1b is a subjective being_1b that is objectified by its phenomena_1a.  The subjective becomes intersubjective, especially with the proper marketing.  This intersubjective being_1b commands consensus, to the extent that it_1b seems to be suprasubjective, that is, mind independent (in principle, rather than in instance).  Then, if the consensus permits, this noumenon_1b overlays the originating noumenon_1a, triggering the construction of a novel social science_2a, investigating phenomena_1a that objectify this noumenon_1a(1b).

0051 The hypothetical journal, Innovations in Aspirin, publishes research articles_2a examining a wide variety of topics concerning the uses (and abuses) of aspirin_1a(1b).  Each article reports_2a and models_2a phenomena_1a that objectify a novel social noumenon_1a(1b).

0052 Perez Vargas, Nieto Bravo and Santamaria Rodriguez argue that hermeneutics_3b must play a role in the social sciences_3a.  The authors provide three implicit forms_2b that increase the potential for interpretation_1b.  These forms constitute a hermeneutical reduction_2b for novel social empirical sciences_3a, such as the hypothetical discipline of aspirin studies_2a.

0053 Here is a diagram.

0054 The authors propose three implicit forms_2b that increase the potential for interpretation_1b of a content-level social science.  They present the forms according to their Latin names.

0055 One, subtilitas intelligendi is the form of understanding attributed to aspirin studies.

May I translate into English with the term, “subtle intelligence”?

Does aspirin_1a relieve headaches_1a?  Or is headache relief_1a a phenomenon_1a of the intersubjective being, aspirin_1a(1b)?  Does intelligibility flow from the phenomena_1a into the noumenon_1a(1b) or the other way around?

0056 Two, subtilitas explancandi asks, “What models_2a can be built by observations and measurements_2a of the phenomena_1a of aspirin_1a(1b)?

The more convincing the models_2a are and the more that the noumenon_1a(1b) is objectified by its phenomena_1a, the more suprasubjective (mind-independent from a God’s eye view) the intersubjective (consensus commanded from a human point of view) being appears.

0057 Three, subtilitas applicandi asks, “What type of results may accrue by applying_2b or challenging_2b the models_2b?”

Of course, the simplest challenge for this example is the placebo.  What are effects of the ingestion of a pill flavored with citric acid and labeled as aspirin?  The placebo effect is the phenomenon of an internalized social mediation.

A more sophisticated challenge questions the meaning, presence and message that attends to the experience of a headache and its pharmacological… er… apparently magical… resolution by taking an aspirin.

0058 Subtle intelligence, explanation and application_2b virtually situate the content-level of hands-on social science_3a.

These three forms, which may be labeled, “hermeneutical reduction_2b“, acknowledge the conviction_3a that the phenomenologically elucidated noumenon_1a(1b) is objectified by its phenomena_1a.

The problem is the word, “subtle”.

Hermeneutical reduction_2b offends the attitude of the positivist intellect_3a.  It_2b offends the social science positivist intellect_3a even more, because it highlights the initial metaphysical… or shall I say… alchemic substitution of a mind-dependent being for a mind-independent entity.  The noumenon_1a(1b) of a social science is intersubjective.  Situation-level intersubjective beings_1b appeal to both the perspective_c and content_a levels of a three-level interscope.

0059 Ah, alchemy is already in play in the social sciences.

Even before the articulation of phenomenology_3b by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938 AD), phenomenological reduction_2b is practiced by the nascent social sciences_3a of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.  Even after Husserl_3b proposes the methods of phenomenological reduction_2b, most social scientists do not recognize it as foundational.

Why?

Husserl’s project_3b disappears as soon as a social science_2a is recognized as viable.  By the time a particular consensusregisters among social scientists in general, the particular noumenon_1a(1b) already has a specialized community_3a devoted to an empirio-schematic inquiry_2a of its phenomena_1a.  The originating phenomenological reduction_2b has completed its task and no longer occupies the situation level.

0060 What does this imply?

Phenomenology_3b situates the natural empirical sciences_2a, where the noumenon_1a is a mind-independent being.

Phenomenology_3b elucidates noumena_1a(b), whose phenomena_1a are studied by novel and social sciences_3a.  These noumena_1b are intersubjective beings_1b that are treated as if they are mind-independent beings_1a.  As such, these noumena_1a(1b) [can be objectified as] their phenomena_1a.

0061 How can phenomenology_3b be applied again to these second-order content-level hands-on sciences?

Can phenomenology_3b virtually situate its own creation_3a?

0062 Can a situation-level hermeneutics_3b apply to the social sciences_3a in the same way that phenomenology_3b virtually situates the natural sciences_3a?

If John Jiaro Perez Vargas, Johan Andres Nieto Bravo and Juan Esteban Santamaria Rodriguez are correct, then hermeneutical methods_2b may situate these social empirio-schematic judgments_2a.

0063 Yet, it is unlikely that these social sciences_2a will acquiesce to the potential of interpretation_1b.

First, the rule of the positivist intellect_3a remains, even though compromised by an originating phenomenological intervention.

Second, hermeneutical reduction_2b interrogates the noumenon_1a(1b), the intersubjective being_1b that conditions the consensus_3a that performs empirio-schematic inquiry_2a, threatening to reveal the phenomenologically generated nature of what is taken to be mind independent_1a(1b).

0064 So concludes this examination of an article published by three enterprising faculty at the Universidad Santo Tomas, Columbia.  The full title of their article is, “Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in Human and Social Sciences Research”.  The article is found in Civilizar: Cienceas Sociales y Humanas (volume 20(38), 2020, 137 to 146, DOI: https//doi.org/10.22518/jour.ccsh./2020.1a10).  Again, I thank the authors for presenting in English.

0065 This article serves as a testing ground for arguments raised in prior reveries and commentaries on articles concerning phenomenology.

0066 The e-works, available at smashwords and other electronic e-book vendors, belong to the series, Phenomenology and the Positivist Intellect.  They are here listed, along with this examination, which appears in April 2022 in the blog at www.raziemah.com.

Reverie on Mark Spencer’s Essay (2021) “The Many Phenomenological Reductions”

Comments on Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean-Luc Marion and … First Philosophy”

Comments on Richard Colledge’s Essay (2021) “Thomism and Contemporary Phenomenology”

Comments on Jack Reynolds’ Book (2018) “Phenomenology, Naturalism and Science”

Looking at John Perez Vargas, Johan Nieto Bravo and Juan Santamaria Rodriguez’s Essay (2020) “Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in… Social Sciences Research” (www.raziemah.com, April 2022 blog)

0067 Testing ground?

These commentaries contain particular category-based nested forms, interscopes and judgments, constructed from (or in reverie to) the essay and book under consideration.  These synthetic structures are abductions, constructed on Peircean frames.

So, what to do with a guess?

Test it.

0068 A full list of e-articles and blogs concerning the series, Phenomenology and the Positivist Intellect, is available on this blog for the date: May 3, 2022.