Page 249 - Contribution To Phenomenology

242 STANFORD M. LYMAN & LESTER EMBREE

for analyzing phenomena. Is this part of the ''in and of" Ethnic Studies you
referred to?
It is difficult not to start getting into that. But to sort things out,
phenomenological approaches are taken in cultural sciences when there
is reflection on the positing and the posited and on, so to speak, the
"awaring'* and the object as "awared" in cultural encounters, but they can
also be taken when cultural scientists reflect on their own disciplines, for
example when historians discuss what history is about. (And, getting
ahead of myself again, let me mention that participants in a
multi-discipline would seem especially prone to reflecting on similarities
and differences among their disciplinary perspectives, which includes
philosophy and thus questions about how it is different from and possibly
hindering as well as helping cultural scientific research.) Thus there can
be Phenomenology in a cultural science with respect to how it approaches
its subject matter and also with respect to how it is concerned with itself.
"Phenomenology of," by contrast, pertains to phenomenological philosophy
and divides into how philosophy can relate to a non-philosophical
discipline or, now, multi-discipline, and into how it can benefit from doing
so.
My description illustrated by the Protestants and CathoUcs in Northern
Ireland, vague as it is, might be a case where inquiry can be considered
phenomenological, whether or not the inquirer knew it, if there was
distinguishing and describing of the positive and negative values that the
groups have for themselves and for one another in relation to the
valuings of various types and modalities. I easily recognize that there are
individuals, who are abstractions, and groups, which are made up of
concretely interrelated individuals. Fascinating methodological questions
arise, but let us assume that one can observe and describe groups and
how they relate to their worlds and, correlatively, their worlds as they
present themselves to groups.
It is also easy for me to accept that there are socially visible
determinations of various sorts that support cultural characteristics. What
one is originally aware of I would call "naturalistic determinations." These
include psychic as well as somatic determinations and does not preclude
many of both sorts from being artifactual in the signification of being
affected by human efforts. There is mind building as well as body
building. "Determination," incidentally, includes relations as well as
properties. Among naturalistic properties relevant for Ethnic Studies,
which we can perceive, remember, and expect, there is indeed skin and
hair color and texture, eye shape, and so on, which are biologically
inheritable. There are also biological relations between mates and
between parents and offspring. How biological rather than artifactual
social relations are otherwise is not clear to me, e.g., whether it is