Phenomenological Perspectives in Social Science Research

S. Lourdunathan* The purpose of this paper is to reflect the possibility of applying Phenomenology as foundational method of social science research. To this task, I believe we need to be clarified (i) of what is meant by Phenomenology as discussed in the writings of Husserl and Heidegger and (ii) phenomenological the insights as to govern or guide social science research. Phenomenology as a Method of Social Science Research The contribution of the two German philosophers namely Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger (Transcendental and Existential Phenomenology) in the beginning of the 20th century is central to the discussion of phenomenology as a methodology of research. These two seminal thinkers spearheaded rather prominent in the philosophical investigation endeavour, known as phenomenological Movement, which progressively in-sighted towards a significant social science research method. Properly speaking, it was Edmund Husserl, departing from factualism/positivism/verficationsim as a method of philosophical or social inquiry evolves Phenomenology as a method of conceptualising or cognising the given phenomena and Heidegger evolved phenomenology as a system of philosophy ascribing phenomenology as a world view. The Philosophical realm of Phenomenology both as a method and as a worldview soon influenced social sciences in the 20th century. Against Positivistic Objectivity To begin with phenomenology does not claim any universal truth-claims. Phenomenology itself as a method of thinking the very thinking and in its existential form is primarily a kind of discontent to the positivistic orientations to the understanding of reality. Both Husserl and Heidegger were in a way antithetical towards the totalising claims of technocratic culture that sway the social life of the 20th century. Moreover phenomenology, as they conceive is a sort of rejection of the existential situation of wars and a reaction-in-thinking-against- world wars. The difficulty in scientific paradigm as scientific The later part of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century is engulfed with a thought that reality is observable, calculate-able, quantifiable, experiment-able, provable, convertible, explainable, provable, repeatable, discoverable as atomic facts and its molecular combinations which is known as the scientific method of inquiry par excellence. In other words, scientific community holds the belief that the reality of the world (be it the human, or the social or the natural world) is objective and it can be given to scientific-technocratic scrutiny. That is to say, the inquiring mind and inquired object stand in separation, that is to say the subject and object are two separate entities that remain in a dualistic platform by which scientific-subject produces any objective-result or object. Such a position has come to be deemed as the scientific and the natural way (attitude) propagated by scientific community (positive Sciences), the principle of which came to be hailed as the verification principle adduced with the principle and practice of pragmatic utility. Husserl
*

Associate Professor & Head, Department of Philosophy, Arul Anandar College, Karumathur, Madurai 625 514 e-mail: nathanlourdu1960@gmail.com

contested against this claim of objectivity of the positivist sciences. From this position of phenomenology we could infer that phenomenology both as a methodology and as a world view propels the idea that (a) what is called objectivity by positivism is but doubtable thesis of its objectivity. Husserl contesting against the positivistic attitude towards inquiry, places the subject of inquiry namely human consciousness, or the inquiring mind as a primary object of inquiry for any research inquires. He holds that the inquiring mind, namely the human consciousness is the centre-stage, the apriori position that calls for serious attention in research. This is where he introduces the idea of intersubjectivity. The inquiring subject or human consciousness is in intrinsic relation with the world (the so-called objective world) of inquiry. In the field of inquiry there cannot be a Subject vs. Object oppositional relation rather the inquiring mind is in intersubjective relation with the inquiring reality. Both the inquiring mind and inquiring world form a circle of inquiry. This inquiring field according to Husserl, is foundation (letzte Begrndung) of any knowledge. This is where we may grasp the heart of Husserls method of philosophical (research) inquiry. In so doing, Husserl, we may infer that (b) redeems the human subject from its tall claim that it is objective in its inquiry and thus the understanding of the intersubjectivity is ground of our inquiry. By this contention, Husserl, keeps aside or pushes away the dominant scientific claim that there research inquiry is objective rather we need to bear in mind, that research inquiries are inter-subjective in nature. The scientific paradigm of research do always considered rather fails to accept this foundational truth that there is an inter-subjective relation between the researcher and the researched and unfortunately nails down an oppositional and value-dualistic gap between the inquirer and the inquired constructs a myth that as if what is research result is objective and the inquirer is therefore scientifically objective. This is the paradox of positivistic scientific research positions and hence Husserl implores the question, where does knowledge come from? Is knowledge come from the so-called objective world or does it come from the inquiring subject or it is a configuration of both in terms of inter-subjectivity? Acts of Consciousness as the foreground of research inquiry For Husserl, We as humans are always in a primordial condition which is prior to any inquiry. We are always in relation to the world; we are in thrown into a pre-reflective experience of the world. We are fore grounded before we ground ourselves in any new inquiry. This foreground of experience, the realm of pre-reflective experience belongs to the realm of the givenness of our existence as conscious human beings. We are not inquiring subjects but we are part of the things themselves (Dinge an sich) in their flesh and blood presence (gegenwrtig in Fleisch und Blut), not as a matter of fact, material or ideal, categorized and structured, as positive sciences claim to explain. As inquiring mind, we are in the pre-given realm of intentionality or acts of consciousness. Thus we must take into account the fact that (c) any research inquiry has to begin from or involve itself into the analysis of this pre-reflective-status, the fore-ground, the givenness. Scientific inquiry to be properly scientific has to start from this most basic human intuition in relating and understanding the world, in intentional acts of consciousness. It is only in these intentional acts of our consciousness that meaning, life-world, is constituted.

From the foregoing discussion we may summarise the following accounts for engaging phenomenological research methodology: Phenomenology establishes a profound doubt regarding the claim that our research is objective and scientific because what is called objectivity by (positivistic sciences) is not necessarily objective. There is always a pre-conditioned human phenomena involved in to research paradigms. In making this phenomenological discovery, phenomenology as a method of inquiry redeems the human subject from its tall-claim that it is objective in its inquiry is objective and alternatively conceives the inquiring mind and the inquired subject in an intersubjective realm of inquiry. Thus, phenomenology emphasis the notion of intersubjectivity as the ground of any inquiry and moreover the inquiring human subject is in an already engaged acts of consciousness as part of the things-in-themselves. In other words, the origins of scientific knowledge do not objectively exist but can be derived at only in a relationship of consciousness which is intuitively or pre-objectively intending a thing, not as object, but in its givenness. In an important sense, working phenomenologically would then mean exposing the myth of objectivity; what is called objectivity is then a scientifically constructed notion. We do not discover facts but what we do in our social science research is an inquiry into realms of Meaning. From the myth of facticity phenomenology invites us to enter into realm of an hermeneutics of meaning by analysing the intentionality or acts of consciousness of the inquirer himself first. I think, this is a vital point of departure that phenomenology has contributed in social science research. In social science research we may not claim that we discovering facts but we are engaging in an intersubjective field of meaning layers. Clarifying and Applying Phenomenological Position Phenomenological thesis against scientific objectivity in social science research asserts the claim that science is not-sufficiently scientific and its claim to objectivity is part of the positivistic myth produced by technological culture. Further what is called scientific/objective is a matter of specific cultural reproduction. This position needs further clarifications here: The truth conditions for such a claim should address the queries such as -In what sense science as body of knowledge, be conceived as cultural and a form of cultural reproduction. If science can be viewed as cultural it would as well mean science is not necessarily scientific hence comparable to that of religious/caste cultures; if so, can we still speak of progress of science and by extension progress of human society if and when what is cultural can only be identified as static and repetitive in nature. In order to respond to these queries, I believe we need to re-look into the epistemic paradigms through which scientific knowledge constructed itself over the past. Hence the vital question is, what are the epistemic frames (philosophical) in and through which science is characterized as scientific and what are the legitimate justifications by which I would claim that science is no-science but cultural reproduction, need to be pondered here. The argument here is situated both at the context of modernity and late modernity discussions on philosophy of science. The domain of logical positivism, a predominant school of thought (philosophy of science) is the classical position to characterize the nature of science in the 20th century. Phenomenological and the late modern moorings, I believe, is the recent domain that the

de-characterize science from its attribution called objective in nature. Taking stock of the developments within the 20th century of that of phenomenology and late-modernity, picking up the thread of what constructs science, I would like to argue that scientific society as technocratic society, as warned by the phenomenologists like Husserl and Heidegger, increasingly transformed into a culture and a way of cultural reproduction, and in so doing it gradually loses its characteristic of being considered science or scientific. Science by its becoming of being non-natural hence cultural, propel towards converting life-worlds into non-natural ways and thereby projects as cultural mode similar to any traditional cultural (religious) form of life, losing its sense of being scientific. Couple of years of back a research scholar by name Helena, from USA was under my guidance for a project on culture shaping minds. She conducted a series of interviews with scholars, students and various workers in order to study to what extent Indian minds are shaped by culture. In one of her meeting with a professor of chemistry working at a research centre (she was accompanying him to a State Bank, ATM counter); she saw the chemistry professor before inserting the ATM card into the computerized machine, worshiped the machine-box, then taking the required money he again devotionally worshiped the ATM machine box. Having brought up from European Secular and Scientific background she was surprised of this gesture and behavior of a renounced chemistry professor, she asked him: Professor, why do you worship the ATM box, after all it is a computerized machine controlled by a series of computers and managed by human hands. Professor replied, Helena, you are a European girl, you will not understand us the Indians. We consider this ATM box as Goddess Laxmi who bestows wealth and money. Therefore I worship before and after the money transactions. Helena could not resist her scientific-secular-European mind, came to me with full of surprises and told me, though the chemistry professor is renowned scholar in science yet the scientific attitude do not influence him while handling the ATM counter, and his attitude to life seems to be culturally superstitious. I had no response except to ponder on her observation. The point is that though some one could be scientific by occupation, his professionalism in no way influences his/her approach/perspective/world-outlook. Traditional cultural religious ethos and its allied practices remain distinct and different from occupational practices. There seems to be a sort of demarcating line between being a scientist and religionist/cultural person in India. Perhaps the inference could be that science given to objectivity of knowledge does not influence being a subjectivist embedded in traditional cultural and religious ethos. The former is merely occupational and the latter is sort of a way of life of specifically being Indian. This means that the demarcation between science and tradition/religion/culture is be rather too thin to the extent that perceptions of life is not necessarily scientific in spite of being a scholar/educated and even a scientist. Science and culture, remain distinct from each other without influencing each other as to shape human perceptions. It seems in India, for most educated lots, being educated-scientific is different from being traditional-cultural-bound. Being rational seems to be different from being traditionally cultural. Being secular is different from being religious. Being a modernist is different from being a traditionalist. Modernist world-outlook (the spirit of rationalism and science and secular and democratic) is stands separated when comes to the real life situations. Hence it is possible to argue/infer that (i) science is no science but a distinct culture of its own, a totality by itself and a language game 1 for most educated men and women. Yet another inference may also be made here.
1

Refer Wittgensteins work on Philosophical Investigations

De facto, the traditional cultural ethos seems to remain strong enough as an affective-cognitiveendowment that systematically appropriates the sense of being scientific. Predominance of cultural ethos makes science submissive to traditional bindings. In other words, science is made subservient to serve the interest of the traditional cultural/religious ethos. In so doing, science is defeated from its nature of being scientific; it is increasing absorbed into tradition as to transform itself towards non-scientific realms; Science within the clutches of traditional-cultural as not-sufficiently-scientific engages towards the interests of the traditional culture/religion and social practices/ethos. The case of the chemistry professor is one such instance that goes to elucidate the symbiosis of science and traditional culture; the ATM box is no more scientific but the Goddess Laxmi, the deity of wealth, who bestows the grace of money. The ATM Box is becoming of a deity; it is transformed into traditional cultural mould. Science remains no more scientific but be-comes a subservient to preserve traditional cultural ethos. What is scientific seems to take recourse to the realm of the non-scientific, the superstitious; superstition and science seems to merge into each other transgressing their strict political borders. Science becomes superstitious and superstition becomes science here (in India). It seems that one could travel both in bullock cart and a computerized car at the same time (however paradoxical it may be) without knowing that a car (modernism) nullifies the bullock cart (traditionalism). Tradition and modernity does not seem to be paradoxical here. What the European modernity sees as science the Indian modernity sees it as part and parcel of their traditional superstitious systems of knowledge. If there is anything science, it is seen as already-possessed/revealed by the traditional (Vedic) science. It is to see the new in the past. It is to walk in the historical past digesting the present in to the past. In fact scientific technological inventions are subservient to the perpetuate the-old and distribute it as old wine in the new bottle. Hence the position that science is scientific can be suspended for-a-while and re-position science as no-science (as subservient to traditional-cultural) can be retained to augment further.. Three Types of Epistemic Paradigms in the 20th Century: The Verifiable cum the Falsifiable, the Linguistic Game and the Reproducible: Over the last six decades, (comprising of modern period) one could situate three types of epistemic patterns (paradigms) through which science patterned itself as a specific type of culture and cultural reproduction. The characteristic features of these epistemic paradigms might include (i) the notion of verifiability of the logical positivists cum the corrected version of verifiability as falsifiability (Karl Popper), (ii) the idea of Language Game (Wittgenstein) (iii) and the idea of cultural Reproduction by self-legitimization (Lyotard). Science when perceived through these epistemic stages (optical) would lead us to establish the position that science in the late modern times, has become a culture, steadily losing its originality of being scientific, and not its is almost at the peak of reproductive-culture through technology. Logical Positivism: Science as Verifiability Beginning from the Vienna Circle (1922), Moritz Schlick Rudolf Carnap, Otto Neurath, Viktor Kraft, Hans Hahn and Herbert Feigl, Frege, A.J. Ayer (19101989), Russell, Early Wittgenstein et all argued that science as a body of knowledge is to be solely accounted by the principle of verifiability. They held that a statement/knowledge is scientific in so far as it is liable for verification and as such statement/knowledge that does not fall under the purview of verifiability is considered as non-scientific. In so doing, logical positivists clearly demarcated science (as

knowledge) and those body of knowledge that falls outside verification domain as pseudoscience, and hence as fiction. What make meaning meaningful or what is the meaning of meaning is the basic inquiring scale with which logical positivists explored the body of philosophy in order to reconstruct it on the basis of scientific criterion/truth condition to be considered meaningful. The tradition of logical positivists leans heavily on the shoulders on the writings of David Hume, who held that true knowledge (meaningful statement) ought to be characterized by either (i) matters of fact or (ii) relations of ideas.2 A.J. Ayer further elaborated this position and he claimed that a statement is meaningful/scientific if and only if it is either verifiable in practice or in principle.3 The empiricists and the logical positivists broadly identified scientific knowledge in terms of the principles of empirical possibilities, testability, verifiability, provability, publically observeability and generalizability based on scientific-explanandum4 model. These principles or rules demarcated science from pseudo science and what is called scientific knowledge came to be constructed solely on the basis of these constitutive principles. Those claims/statements which cannot be tested, verified, proved, observed and generalized on the basis of explanandum-model came began to fall outside the politics (borders) of science. Logical Positivism: Science as Falsifiable Popper became increasingly critical of the main tenets of logical positivism, especially of what he considered to be its misplaced focus on the theory of meaning in philosophy and upon verification in scientific methodology, and revealed in the title the official opposition which was bestowed upon him by Neurath. He articulated his own view of science, and his criticisms of the positivists, in his first work, published under the title Logik der Forschung in 1934. The bookwhich he was later to claim rang the death knell for positivismattracted more attention than Popper had anticipated, and he was invited to lecture in England in 1935. He spent the next few years working productively on science and philosophy, but storm clouds were gathering the growth of Nazism in Germany and Austria compelled him, like many other intellectuals who shared his Jewish origins, to leave his native country. Popper takes falsifiability as his criterion for demarcating science from non-science: if a theory is incompatible with possible empirical observations it is scientific; conversely, a theory which is compatible with all such observations, either because, as in the case of Marxism, it has been modified solely to accommodate such observations, or because, as in the case of psychoanalytic theories, it is consistent with all possible observations, is unscientific. For Popper, however, to
2 3

Refer Humes theory of meaning. A.J.Ayer: Central Questions of Philosophy. 4 Laktos Hampel According to the Deductive-Nomological Model, a scientific explanation consists of two major constituents: an explanandum, a sentence describing the phenomenon to be explained and an explanans, the class of those sentences which are adduced to account for the phenomenon (Hempel and Oppenheim, 1948, reprinted in Hempel, 1965, p. 247). For the explanans to successfully explain the explanandum several conditions must be met. First, the explanandum must be a logical consequence of the explanans and the sentences constituting the explanans must be true. (Hempel, 1965, p. 248). That is, the explanation should take the for m of a sound deductive argument in which the explanandum follows as a conclusion from the premises in the explanans. This is the deductive component of the model. Second, the explanans must contain at least one law of nature and this must be anessential premise in the derivation in the sense that the derivation of the explanandum would not be valid if this premise were removed. This is the nomological component of the modelnomological being a philosophical term of art which, suppressing some niceties, means (roughly) lawful.

assert that a theory is unscientific, is not necessarily to hold that it is unenlightening, still less that it is meaningless, for it sometimes happens that a theory which is unscientific (because it is unfalsifiable) at a given time may become falsifiable, and thus scientific, with the development of technology, or with the further articulation and refinement of the theory. Further, even purely mythogenic explanations have performed a valuable function in the past in expediting our understanding of the nature of reality. Phenomenology as a Method Having quickly traced the epistemic shifts in research paradigms we could again take note of the phenomenological accounts as a method of inquiry. According to phenomenology, the origin of meaning is located in our lived-experience. The exposition of such lived-experience calls for a method of analysis that is phenomenological. As a method of analysis, it holds that the researcher can re-acquire the method of research starting afresh; re-learn what positivism has failed to teach us. This is sort of direct experience divorced from the prejudices and valueorientation of the scientific culture. In fact, Husserl wanted to start philosophy inquiry anew, all over again, so that we might relearn to see the world as it really is to the originally lived experience. This is direct, immediate experience before any conceptualizing and theory-building. It is to see the world, the world of things in themselves as they are. It is to re-learn away from subject-object duality, divorced of the primacy of inquirer to see things as they are in themselves. The other is the re-discovery of human consciousness: consciousness and objects are most intensely interconnected for the meaning of the objective world. The objective world is not the world out-there; it is the subjectivity of our experience that needs primary attentions in social science research. In other words, Husserl argued the other way round: the meaning of our human, subjective consciousness is the mode in which it opens up towards the world. I participate in my own creation of meaning, my life-world. I do so with my subjectivity, yes, unlike positivistic science that reduces the world to objects under investigation and the human consciousness as something separated from the body together with which it forms a subject. The object of inquiry and the subject that inquires together constitutes the acts of our consciousness; this is the fact about inter-subjective consciousness that is the proper field of inquiry. As humans we are intentional and the intentionality is the pre-condition for phenomenological analysis. According to phenomenology, (radical conviction) meaning is neither in the mind alone nor in the world alone, but in the intentional relationship between the two. It is in this intentional relationship between consciousness and the world that we are provided with immediate evidences of our lived experiences. Hence according to Husserl, we need to re-discover hidden intentionalities, thereby reaching out to an understanding of the meaning of the things-inthemselves and, in the process, examine the essential structures of our intentional consciousness, in a presuppositionless manner. Husserls Phenomenological method involves the following five phases of research inquiry: (i) Suspension of any pre/afore judgement; it is to prohibit any presupposition be it empirical or metaphysical. This step of inquiry, Husserl would call it, the Epoche. The researcher is invited to focus on the diverse ways in which meanings occur irrespective of whether objects exist outside of our consciousness or not. (ii) The second step is called the Phenomenological reduction. This

is supposed to help the researcher to return to the point where intentional experiences generate, to the point that we may name intuition, that is before the onslaught of objectifying constructs of the natural attitude. (iii) The third step is to reaching the level of the eidos: Epoche and phenomenological reduction open the way to a free access and play of pure possibilities of meaning. Free variation is possible because we have reached the level of pure essence or eidos of the intended thing. (iv) The fourth step is called Intuition of essence. This is the central happening, the core of the method is something that emerges while the researcher passes through multiple acts of freely varying intentionality. I reunite all the possibilities in one single immediate grasp. This is what is to be achieved: to repeat, in a reflective way, the pre-reflective acts of our intentional experience. Husserl calls it transcendental intuition, and what is meant is or what it achieves is to make consciousness become reflective.Thus, the content of empirical and phenomenological experience may be the same; the attitude towards this content is radically different. The world is not self-evident anymore, not just given, but a gift of a meaning, towards the immense possibilities of meanings. (v). The fifth step is called the description of meaning. This is the only appropriate way to make available the essential structures of both the intended thing (noema) and the intending consciousness (noesis). Besides noema and noesis the term horizon is relevant, especially in hermeneutics. Horizon stands for what is actually intended plus its potential background. This background is only what Husserl calls consciousness-background but can be actualized at any moment. Horizon is not to be mistaken as life-world. Life-world is founded in the transcendental efforts, the constitutions of myself. Phenomenological Hermeneutics: From Consciousness to Being (Martin Heidegger) Martin Heidegger was born 30 years after his teacher Husserl, in 1889, Husserl in 1859. He studied philosophy and theology and became an assistant professor first, under Husserl, and then a professor in philosophy. Husserl had studied physics, astronomy and mathematics and more accidentally philosophy. His work Time and Being deals with the meaning of Being. What does it mean to be? We might say that, in bringing the approach of his teacher Husserl a step further or rather, moving it into another direction: Heidegger opened Husserls epoche brackets and let existence back in. Enquiring into the origin of knowledge and reformulating it as intentional experiences of our consciousness Husserl worked at the level of epistemology how do I know what I know? Being as an ontological premise had to be suspended in order not to do what positivist sciences do, that is objectifying the phenomena of the world. His aim was rather to fully and freely focus on the acts of consciousness. Heidegger shifts this focus on the meaning of consciousness to the meaning of Being. With Husserl he sees the necessity to move beyond a subject-object dichotomy to our originary experience of the world, to the things themselves. But Heideggers being-in-the-world with the question: What does it mean to be? is a clear move to an ontological question whereas Husserls consciousness-of-the-world covered in the question: What does it mean to know? asks an epistemological question. While Husserl offers a method of investigating our levels of consciousness, Heidegger steps further and proposes to to investigate ourselves in the world, as Being-in-the-world in terms of historically, socio-culturally situated. This yet another broader dimension of phenomenology as a method of research investigation which needs further exploration. Heidegger posits the method of critique ideologies in and thorough which we might be habituated which point towards the possibility of a mode of liberation from. This position of Heidegger influenced the critical theorist tradition (Frankfort school) in social science research applications. The direction of this phenomenological method

of research produced seminal works authored by Herbert Marcuse, Horkheimer, Adorno and others. Research inquiry for Heidegger says, involves REFLECTION of pre-given and in so doing, research inquiry it sets itself free to reflect on its own reality by way of distancing itself from what already is, from its own world, from its own system from its own space. If it does not set itself free from its own system, its own pre-conceived method of investigation, then it is endangered to the level of a dogma, a system that limits any reflection. It falls back to itself. It is self-enclosure within its own world. It is a refusal to think critically. It is a refusal to mediation, relation, and proximity of the-other. The problem is Self-enclosure constraining of reflex-action. It is promotes a habitual adherence to the centrality and totality of Memory; it is a militant refusal from the old positivistic paradigms of research but to think afresh. Heidegger points out that the pre-Socratic thought appeared from a political, economic and geopolitical periphery and not exclusively from Greece. In the modern times, existentialism emerged as a response to the dehumanizing war-center. Marxian thought emerged as a response to economic social reality. The philosophies that have emerged as a reaction to and as a response to social problems purported to the affirmation of the existence of the Non-Being as Being, which is otherwise treated as the exterior other in self-enclosing systems. Nevertheless, we should also take note that the philosophies, which emerged from the periphery, unconscious of its need of reflection, have also fallen back to the center-stage. Philosophy as critical thinking that originates from periphery is unfortunately ends by directing itself to the center. Truth here is assumed to be singular, ONE and that too the truth of the center. Truth as the truth center reduced to a monolithic all pervasive dimensions is its death as critical philosophy. Ontology and ideology is an end to critical thinking. In grounding in and ending upon as an ontology (a selfclosed thought) philosophy losses its social and critical significance. The history of philosophy is filled with the facets of such ontological reductionism to the center-stage. Critical thinking when it shelters to the center, (however safe it may be) it turns out to be memory, a sheer matter of repetition of the tradition. Where critical thinking ends, ontology begins. Ontology ends up by thinking itself as the only reality. It defines itself as Being. By defining itself as a privileged being, thought (ontology) separates \ distances itself from the presence of the being of the other. By distancing, it defines itself as the Being as against the idea of Being-in-the-world in relation with the other. For the Greeks, Being is and Non Being is not (Parmenides). Being is that which is Greek, the lumen, or the light of Greek culture. And this Being extends as the frontiers of Hellenism. Over the other borders of Grecian Hellenism, there exist non-being. It is this idea of Being (according to the Greeks) provided the very foundation (that which encompassed) or the totality or the social and political space for defining existence;. Being is like the light that illumines an area but not itself seen. Being is not given to see-ability or sense perception. And what it illuminates or takes hold of, or enslaves is the things, the objects, and the slaves, the nonGreeks, the non-being. The non-being therefore is an is not entity. This is why Heidegger calls for the thinking of being afresh. The tension between Being and Non Being, Permanence and Transitory, Eternal and the temporary; Spirit or Matter; One and Many; Dual and Non-Dual; Soul\Mind or Body\matter; Divine or human; the male Vs the female, human or animal; nature or culture; Science or Pseudo Science, civilized Vs the uncivilized, the ruler Vs the ruled, the powerful Vs the powerless, the capitalists Vs the poor etc. provide rich ground for philosophical

analysis on the question of Being. Each camp tries to affirm (provides epistemic or ontological justifications) its own claims of meaningfulness from its own stand point or school of thought. These are the philosophies that turned themselves towards the center-space, ignoring or by passing the-other. Heidegger points out that by employing the method of deduction and the method of doubting the-other, Descartes cleverly establishes such center of the rational being whose nature (derived logically) is sui-generis, that which exists in itself. There by Descartes establishes the supremacy of the thinking ego, and the subordination of the Other beings (the spatial) as secondary. It is not far from truth that before we claim ego cogito there was already the phenomena, the appearance and political practice of ego conquiro. ego co nquiro; is the practical foundation of ego cogito. Ontology emerges from the practical context of the tension between the conqueror and the conquered in human history. The ontologism is the thinking of the center; it refers to the Being of the political center-space. It is the thinking manifests and expresses as Being. It is an encompassing totality. The history of European colonialism projected a story of philosophy that explained and justified political and cultural domination of the Other Beings with in the life world. The technocratic European male represents the ego-conquiro and the ego cogito. The ability to be a perceiver and the vulnerability to be treated as an object of perception (perceived ones) again (subjective idealism) veils the above-mentioned sense of ontologism of the being of the center. History of philosophy as well, is largely a story of the supremacy of the ontology of the center. It is the manifestation of the Being of the center over/against the non-being or lesser beings in the world. Such a manifestation is purposive, interest bound. The Heideggarian question of Being has to be situated in this context of the tension between Being and Being-in-the-world. It is radical question in the sense that it purports to unveil the ontology and the orthodoxy of the center or the technocracy of being of the center and alternatively it is a vocation for Being-in-theworld. (a call to fundamental ontology). The form of manifestation (according to Heidegger) is either comprehension or appropriation or both. This is also known as mediation. Treating theOther as the enemy, the Being of the center distances itself or else, treating the-Other as vulnerable; the Being of the center appropriates the-Other in continuous subordination. The cumulative effect of such mediation (comprehension or appropriation) is the politics of reducing beings to the realm of non-being. The presence or reduction of such non being historical as well as philosophical. In defense of such ontologism, Neitzhe argues in favour of the supremacy of the superman racism. If one attempts to draw a war-map in the face of the earth one could easily see how power is monopolized in the hands of the Being of the center. Should not one proclaim the death of the center and is such proclamation not ethical? The attempt to erode the autonomy of the center is an attempt to restore the space of the periphery. This is what Heidegger intends in his critique of western theoretical frames. Heideggers criticism on all stages of western history (Greek-Roman, Medieval, Renaissance Enlightenment, Romanticism, existentialism, Humanism, Positivism, and Scientism) is but an attempt to question the being of the Center stage. The ontology of the center according to Heidegger, is peculiar dictatorship of the public realm namely the realm of the non-center, that which is considered as non-being. Heidegger says, Every determination of the essence of man that already presupposes an interpretation of being without asking about the truth of Being,

whether knowingly or not, is metaphysical (ontological) Jaques Derrida criticism of modern frame of thought as logo centric, whose central concepts are eidos, arche, telos, needs to be viewed from this angle. The danger of such ontological center whether it is that it projects itself as the only correct model of explanation of reality. Such a projection in the social life tend to monopolize, envelop, neo-colonize the realities of the world in its own and only way. Its morality is instrumental, and profit designed. Thus, there is the inhuman side of ontologism. The being of the center-self is exterior to being of the-other; and therefore vulnerable to exploitation and discrimination. Its relation is not Praxis but a practice of domestication for domination. It culminates into a technological productive culture that sets itself against Nature (non-people). It is denial of the rights of the Other as the Other. It negates the intrinsic worth of the Other. Existence here is referred as the existence of the dominant human alone and the Other and the Other is unfortunately is treated as hell. To understand the phenomenological inquiry one needs to exercise a paradigm shift. It calls for a newer way of understanding the understanding. It involves a shift from the perspective of the dominant or the classical or the modern, towards the perspective of oppressed or the suffering. Primarily it is a shift from ones mind set, an openness towards the understanding the Other; it is to allow oneself to participate in the struggle for freedom of the socially deprived. Understanding according to Heidegger, is the way towards the clarification for mediation; it is mode of Beingin-the-world. It is not an intellectual compre-hension, not an achievement; it is the letting be seen a new sense of logos; it is an interpretation of the Being of Dasein the analysis of the existentiality of existence as a whole. It is an analysis of the possibilities of Being without reducing into Oneness. Understanding for Heidegger (later) is the capacity of Dasein to disclose itself, its Being with in the world of entities. In the Greek definition of Being as is, and the Non-being as is not, is trespassed as to pave way for the disclosure of what is deemed non-being. Such a disclosure, for Heidegger, is historically situated. It presupposes, a (i) fore-understanding (namely the phenomenology of suffering within the ontology of center) and a (ii)as-structure as something; (as an entity with in entities with dignity); Together (i) and (ii) constitutes the hermeneutical situation that projects any authenticity of meaning. The condition for an alternative is those limit-situations or the failed-ontology that projected an unjust social reality. It is a transcendence of mere inter-subjectivity, of subject-object dichotomy. According to Heidegger, it is that which ethicicizes our human ex -sistence, the entire phenomenon of the self-actualizton of our Being-together-with-others-in-the-world. It is an attempt to restore to the fullness of Being. From the point of view of Heidegger, it is both self-consciousness and Other-consciousness of Dasein. It is an attempt to trespass the dichotomy of subject-object, knower-known, perceiver-perceived dualism. The dominant man (whether it European or Asian) as the measure of all things needs to be suspended. Beyond Phenomenology: Liberation Discourse in Social Science Research Within the Postmodern Condition: A report on (Scientific) Knowledge, Lyotard argues that for the past few decades science has increasingly investigated language, linguistic theories, communications, cybernetics, informatics, computer information language systems,

information/data storages and translations/transfer of computerized knowledge from one system to another. These technological changes, Lyotard holds that have a greater impact on the status of what is called scientific knowledge. While in 1920s, due to the influence of Logical Positivism, (Vienna Circle) scientific knowledge was characterized by testability, verifiability, empirical provability, based on the principle of causation and inductive generalization, but in 1970, the nature of scientific knowledge took a different epistemic turn altogether. It came to be characterized by the principles of convertibility, storability, (data banking) transferability and repeatability. Scientific Knowledge in 1920s remained as a matter of scientific discoverability, explain-ability and predictability whereas in post 1960s, it came to be conceived as storability and transferability of information, repeatability and re-product-ability and consumer-ability for social pragmatic interests. No knowledge held Lyotard, will survive if it cannot be translated into computer stored-language into quantifiable terms; Scientific education is no longer a task of researching the-new, no longer training the minds (education-formation of minds) but ought to be in the form of technological transmission of information. The scholar, the teacher, the scientist fade away in the past-realms of early 20th century and turned into technical administrators of sophisticated computers. Knowledge no longer depends upon the discoverer or the author (like telling so and so invented this or that) but merely a sort of intell ectual property right owner, sort of commodity ownership; knowledge is no longer depends upon the individual of early modernity but depend upon the technical facilitation of computers. Knowledge is computerized and what is computerized is transferred as commodity-forconsumption. (Recent higher education scenario unfortunately consumes this concept of education, research and development). Science no longer remains a matter of testability, provability and even fallibility but a matter of produce-ability in multiple numbers for consumable interests. A new type of culture that is tagged as scientific has emerged in the late 20th century. Science cum technology has turned into a culture of its own; a totality by itself; a culture that produces and reproduces itself; a new-market has to me sway human society; the producer of information, the owner of information, the seller and buyer of information, the stakeholder of information all that makes the body of late 20th centurys scientificality; science as body of knowledge, reduced into a body of systemic-information-transformation travels around the world as files zips folders at the speed of electricity; the speed of which is beyond ones imaginations. According to him, the technological-information-knowledge cuts across the boundaries of geo-political nations. A sense of transcending or infringing into the national territories operates and the so-called sovereignty of nations does not know how to handle the situations. The role and function of nation-state is decreasing and jeopardized and new kind of citizenship, which may be termed trans-national-citizenship without territorially crossing the national boundaries (just remain at four walls and communicate at communication network) seems to be emerging. The role of the State as individual-protector, law maintainer and peoples government is no longer true except by militant political means. The legal governance is becoming weaker and State grows only as a major-contractor to multinational marketinvasions. In other words huge multinational companies takes the role of governance that of enacting laws for company management, deciding legal actions, controlling human behaviors. Liberation discourse as a fresh paradigm in social science research, propelled and ignited from phenomenological tradition is but a process of unmasking the ontology of the center. It is a denial of the denials in the system. It is to leave the prism-prison. It is a perspective not of the center but of the periphery based on an ethics of justice. It tries to formulate an alternate

metaphysics reflecting on the reality of suffering and the need for negating such suffering, by way of affirming the dignity or freedom of the-other as the other. it is to place oneself in commiseration with the-Other because the ego (being) is necessarily plural in relationality. Praxis of liberation is the act of restoring the whole with in whole. The praxis of liberation deprives Being of its alleged eternal, divine or monolithic foundations; it is a negation of fetishism. It exposes the ontology of the Center, as oppressive, dominating, and therefore unethical. It celebrates the end of oppression as resurrection.. The wounded totality of the Other within the dominant paradigm of existence is radically questioned by exposing its selfenclosure. It points towards the recognition of the Other, of alterity, in the multi-diversity of cultural and intellectual discourses. It accepts the Otherness of an-Other without assimilation or conquest or colonization. It is committed to the discovery of the ways of making relatedness or connection without losing sight of the differences. It exposes (western) metaphysics as the white mythology and its claim of universalization of truth. It as well exposes the eastern metaphysics if and when any particular metaphysics claims superiority over any other. It is an affirmation of the metaphysical and the actual identity-in-difference of the social-many. It attempts to promote a multilogue as against any form of mono or dialogue. An authentic revelation of such praxis of liberation is fully revealed only by the broken-particular (the women violated by masculine ideology, the poor exploited by economism, the dalits subjugated by casteism) through its struggle for affirmation. Such a revelation is not just an appearance, or a phenomenon for philosophical scrutiny but a transcendence of the conditioning vertical system. References: 1. Dussell, Enrique, Philosophy of Liberation, Orbis Books, New York, 1990 2. Richard Kearney., Modern Movements in European Philosophy, Manchester University press, New York, 1994. 3. Paul Vadakeoram, Heidegger Vision of Human Existence in the Expression and the Appropriation of Being, (dissertation submitted to Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, Rome 1995. 4. Johnson J. Pouthenpurackal, Heidegger Through Authentic Totality to Total Authenticity, Leuven University Press, 1987. 5. Martin Heidegger, On Time and Being, Harper & Row publishers, New York, 1972.

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