The Reduction

1
The Reduction

• Norm Friesen
• March 2006

2
Overview

• Wonder - Heuristic Reduction
• Openness - Hermeneutic Reduction
• Concreteness - Phenomenological Reduction
• Invariables - Eidetic Reduction
• Flexible Rationality - Methodological Reduction
• (from Max van Manen, www.phenomenologyonline.com)

3
The Reduction

• Epoche bracketing
• achieve contact with the world that is as direct
  as possible by suspending prejudgements,
  bracketing assumptions, deconstructing claims,
  and restoring openness.
• A type of attentiveness
• (from Max van Manen, www.phenomenologyonline.com)

4
The Reduction

• the method of the reduction is meant to bring the
  aspects of meaning that belong to the phenomena
  of our lifeworld into nearness
• aims to bring into focus the uniqueness of the
  particular phenomenon to which we are oriented
• (from Max van Manen, www.phenomenologyonline.com)

5
Heuristic Reduction Wonder

• Bracket the natural attitude
• Husserl on the natural attitude
• Awaken wonder about the phenomenon
• Wonder occurs when explanation is suspended
• Examples of Wonder?
• (from Max van Manen, www.phenomenologyonline.com)
  

6
Hermeneutic Reduction Openness

• "natural standpoint - that objects materially
  exist and exhibit properties that we see as
  emanating from them
• Resist explanation (objective)
• Scientific
• Psychological
• Logical, intellectual
• E.g. of delusions in phenomenology
• (from Max van Manen, www.phenomenologyonline.com)

7
Hermeneutic Reduction Openness, cont

• Resist subjective or private feelings,
  preferences, inclinations, or expectations that
  may seduce or tempt one to come to premature,
  wishful, or one-sided understandings of an
  experience
• E.g. of online education research
• (from Max van Manen, www.phenomenologyonline.com)

8
Hermeneutic Reduction

• It may be necessary to explicate assumptions and
  interests to exorcise them, in an attempt to
  let speak that what wishes to speak.
• (from Max van Manen, www.phenomenologyonline.com)
  

9
Hermeneutic Reduction

• I found that overall the interaction was pretty
  entertaining and comical. Usually with a chat
  bot its just a textbased interaction, and
  theres not a lot of room to move beyond the
  limits of what the system can do. But here, I
  felt like I could ask her all sorts of questions,
  and that even if she didnt respond in a w that
  you could call normal

10
Phenom. Reduction Concreteness

• Theories need to be reviewed for how they inform
  experience, by ultimately fail to capture it in
  its inexhaustible richness.
• examine how theories gloss or hide the
  experiential reality
• (from Max van Manen, www.phenomenologyonline.com)

11
Concreteness, example

• It is finally my turn to step up to the machine.
  As I step up to what feels like a stage with an
  audience in the background, I notice that I have
  to go through a scripted set of steps there is
  no opportunity for variation. Time feels like it
  is speeding up. I reach into my wallet, and pull
  out my bankcard from its protective outer casing.
  I slide my card into the machine, and for a
  moment wonder if it will correctly read my card's
  information. I wonder at what angle the camera
  embedded in the machine is monitoring me

12
Concreteness, example

• The space around me during my transaction seems
  constrained and regulated. There is a high
  sensitivity to the space. As I type in my
  information, I hover around the screen to conceal
  the type of transaction that I am making. When
  it comes time to typing in my personal
  identification number, I then cover the numbered
  keypad to not let any trace of that information
  leak out to anyone in line.
• (http//learningspaces.org/n/papers/ExperiencingS
  urveillance.doc)

13
Eidetic Reduction

• Eidos an immutable universal or generalization
  about human nature or human life.
• What is see past or through the particularity
  concreteness of lived experience
• Concerned with "possible" human experiences-not
  with experiences that are presumed to be
  universal or shared by all humans irrespective of
  time, culture, gender, or other
  circumstance(from Max van Manen,
  www.phenomenologyonline.com)

14
Eidetic Reduction

• The phenomenological determination of meaning is
  itself always indeterminate, always tentative,
  always incomplete, always inclined to question
  assumptions by returning again and again to lived
  experience itself
• Bracketing of incidental meaning(from Max van
  Manen, www.phenomenologyonline.com)

15
Eidetic variation

• Vary one aspect of the experience to make it a
  (slightly) different experience. Through that,
  discover what is essential to it.
• Patterns of meaning or themes belonging to a
  particular phenomenon can begin to emerge themes
  are working material for phenomenological writing
• (from Max van Manen, www.phenomenologyonline.com)

16
Eidetic Variation Example

• Imagine a situation in which two mothers are
  speaking to one another by telephone. Their
  respective children are playing together in an
  area between their two houses. As neighbors, both
  mothers can watch the children through their own
  open windows. The subject of the telephone
  conversation is the behavior of the children at
  play and the behaviors of the children in
  general.

17
Eidetic Variation Example

• Imagine an altered situation in which the two
  mothers have opened the windows and are calling
  back and forth. In reference with the objective
  aspect of space, this structure of social praxis
  is labelled, face-to-face-communication-
  from-a-distance.
• Calling across to one another through the open
  window obviously includes the acoustical space in
  between. (See http//learningspaces.org/articles)

18
Methodological Reduction

• Bracket all established investigative methods or
  techniques and seek or invent an approach that
  seems to fit most appropriately the
  phenomenological topic under study.
• Flexible narrative rationality
• E.g. Gagnon, Rochelle (2003). Understanding
  Depression.