Page 253 - Encyclopedia of Nursing Research

220 n HerMeNeUTIcS

Right?, Henderson (Halloran, 1995, p. 199) grant a practical familiarity with phenom-
contradicted what had become the accepted ena. Heidegger called this sense of phenom-
H alternative to the use of the word “nursing” ena (familiarity) fore-having. Background
by arguing that the word “process” unnec- practices also form the perspective (foresight)
essarily constrained professional vision and from which we understand phenomena.
precluded experience, logic, expert opinion, Fore-conception describes our anticipated
and research as bases for practice. sense of what our interpreting will reveal.
This too is shaped and framed by our back-
Edward J. Halloran ground practices. Understanding is circu-
lar, and humans as self-interpreting beings
are always already within this interpretive
(hermeneutic) circle of understanding. Thus,
HerMeneutiCs “interpretation is never a presuppositionless
grasping of something previously given”
(Heidegger, 1927/1962, p. 141) but is an expli-
Historically, hermeneutics described the art cation of temporal understandings of the
or theory of interpretation (predominantly engaged, dynamic relating of beings and
that of texts) and was prevalent in disciplines world.
such as theology and law. German philoso- Hermeneutic researchers do not attempt
pher Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911) redefined to isolate or “bracket” their presuppositions
hermeneutics as a science of historical under- but rather to make them explicit. Hans-
standing and sought a method for deriving Georg Gadamer (1960/1989), a student of
objectively valid interpretations. Martin Heidegger’s, has extended hermeneutical
Heidegger (1889–1976) recast hermeneutics research in this area. The essence of herme-
from being based on the interpretation of his- neutics lies not in some kind of mystic rel-
torical consciousness to revealing the tempo- ativism but in an attitude of respect for the
rality of understandings (palmer, 1969). impossibility of bringing understanding of
Hermeneutics is an approach to schol- the engaged openness of being to some kind
arship that acknowledges the temporal situ- of final or ultimate closure. rather, the way
atedness of researchers, participants, and of hermeneutics is to be underway, to be
phenomena of study. Time as it advenes, or drawn into the “mediating immediacy (open-
time as lived, is central to the work of her- ness, between) of concerned involvements”
meneutics. The centrality of time is what (Diekelmann & Diekelmann, 2009, p. 155).
differentiates hermeneutic phenomenology The work of the hermeneutic phenom-
from traditional forms of Husserlian phe- enologist moves beyond the traditional
nomenology. The hermeneutic scholar works logical structures and presuppositions of
to uncover how humans are always already realisms and idealisms to reveal and expli-
given as time. Hermeneutics has no begin- cate otherwise hidden (taken-for-granted)
ning or end that can be concretely defined but understandings. calling attention to human
is an experience of persistently questioning practices, concerns, and experiences, her-
phenomena (matters of concern manifested meneutics is closely related to critical social
temporally and historically; Diekelmann & theory, feminisms, and postmodernism.
Diekelmann, 2009; Gadamer, 1960/1989). Unlike these, however, hermeneutics does
Interpretation presupposes a threefold not posit politically or psychologically deter-
structure of understanding, which Heidegger mined frameworks as the modus operandi
(1927/1962) called the fore-structure. The pre- of method, nor does the hermeneutic phe-
mise of the fore-structure is that all interpre- nomenologist attempt to posit, explain, or
tation is based on background practices that reconcile an underlying cause or essence