phenomenology

noun

Etymology: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂-der. Proto-Hellenic *pʰáňňō Ancient Greek φαίνω (phaínō) Ancient Greek φαινόμενον (phainómenon)bor. Late Latin phaenomenonder. English phenomenon Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- Ancient Greek λόγος (lógos) Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-i-eh₂ Proto-Hellenic *-íā Ancient Greek -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā) Ancient Greek -λογῐ́ᾱ (-logĭ́ā)bor. Latin -logialbor. French -logiebor. English -logy English phenomenology From phenomenon + -logy, from Ancient Greek φαινόμενον (phainómenon, “thing appearing to view”), hence "the study of what shows itself (to consciousness)". According to Martin Heidegger's Introduction to Phenomenological Research, "the expression “phenomenology” first appears in the eighteenth century in Christian Wolff’s School, in Lambert’s Neues Organon, in connection with analogous developments popular at the time, like dianoiology and alethiology, and means a theory of illusion, a doctrine for avoiding illusion." (p.3)

1. The study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view.

   “Writing, individuation, and civilization are all parts of one larger cultural phenomenology.”

   “A similar and more influential use of the term can be found in William Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1847), where phenomenology occurs in the context of the "palaetiological sciences" (i.e., sciences which deal wih more ancient conditions of things), as that branch of these studies which is to be followed by aetiology and theory. Among such phenomenologies Whewell mentions particularly phenomenological uranology, phenomenological geography of plants and animals, and even a phenomenological glossology.”

2. A movement based on this, originated about 1905 by Edmund Husserl.

   “The process of questioning back displaces the emphasis in phenomenology from an inquiry into modes of givenness, which assumes that there can be a simple starting point, to an inquiry into modes of pregivenness.”

3. An approach to clinical practice which places undue reliance upon subjective criteria such as signs and symptoms, while ignoring objective etiologies in the formulation of diagnoses and in the compilation of a formal nosologies.
4. The use of theoretical models to make predictions that can be tested through experiments.

   “He hopes [students] will "do the necessary phenomenology experiments and produce the necessary theory extensions" that will "turn over the present physics."”

   “Particle phenomenology research includes perturbative QCD [quantum chromodynamics], physics beyond the Standard Model as well as heavy flavor physics.”