Page 245 - Contribution To Phenomenology

238 STANFORD M LYMAN & LESTER EMBREE

where, when, and why. Phenomenologists can and do make factual claims,
e.g., about whether the world exists, but the emphasis is on establishing
eidetic claims, e.g., an answer to the question "What is a mul-
ti-discipline?"
FundamentaUy, Phenomenology not only emphasizes description but
also reflective observation or reflection. This means that it alternatively
considers how objects present themselves to subjects and how subjects
relate to (or are "intentive to*') objects. I know this is an abstract
formulation. It may become somewhat concrete if we begin to ask how
Protestants relate to Catholics and Catholics relate to Protestants in
Northern Ireland. Religion and other matters, such as family size and
structure, attitudes toward abortion and divorce, taste in food, clothing,
Uterature and music, and perhaps even typical racial features obvious to
both (but difficult to discern by members of third groups), are all valued
such that each group considers its own better than those of the other.
There is then to be recognized in-group self-valuation and out-group
other-valuation. And in this case, it is not a matter of "better" like
"apples are better than oranges" but rather of right and wrong with all
the depth of love and hate that is possible in religion. Outsiders to both
groups may find it easier to recognize the different values that the two
groups have for themselves and for the other groups and also the
different valuing processes involved than insiders of the groups do.
This example also shows that subjects can be collective as well as
individual and that one can reflect upon other's as well as upon one's
own individual or collective life, on *you aU' as well as *thou' and on *us'
as well as *me', to paraphrase Schutz, who accepts the in-group/out-group
distinction from Sumner" as a powerful distinction. Such reflecting can
occur on the common-sense level within and between ethnic groups in
everyday life and it can also occur on a scientific level when done by
sociologists, historians, political scientists, economists, etc. either "uni-
disciplinarily," so to speak, or multi-disciplinarily. In the latter case, the
scientific one, the reflecting is for theoretical purposes, while common
sense is for practical purposes.
/ am beginning to see how you can consider research that relates values
to the group doing the valuing as well as to the group that is valued

^ William Graham Sumner, Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance
of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1940
[1906]), 12-15, 493-508.