Edmund Husserl: Transcendental Phenomenological Approach

Phenomenology consist of both philosophy and research approach. As a philosophical discipline, it focuses on the consciousness and essence of phenomena (Kafle, 2011) whereas as a research approach, phenomenology deals with the several individuals’ meanings of the lived experiences on a single phenomenon (Creswell, 1998: 51). The history of phenomenology can be traced back to German mathematician and philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) who addressed the phenomenological philosophy in twentieth century (p.52). Initially, Husserl’s ideas were considered abstract and later his student Heidegger and other theorists like Sartre, Merleau-Ponty extended on his views (Creswell, 2007 :58). Later, Heidegger (1889-1976) reshaped phenomenology by moving

Core idea of this type is to discover and describe 'lived world' through reduction which attempts to achieve true essence by bracketing out personal biases and prejudices (Kafle, 2011). Transcendental phenomenology stresses the concept of epoche – the Greek word means ‘bracketing’ which encourages to eliminate all the preconceived ideas and personal experience in order to achieve fresh perspective towards the phenomenon under study (Creswell, 2007: 59). Therefore, transcendental means “in which everything is perceived freshly, as it for the first time” (Moustakas, 1994). For Husserl, it was essential to limit the individual biases, judgments and beliefs in order to observe the phenomenon clearly and achieve its essences (Laverty, 2003). Husserl-inspired phenomenology also called descriptive phenomenology as it focuses to describe the experience of the participants rather than explain or interpret them. Transcendental phenomenologists stick to the richness and complexity of the phenomenon and restrict themselves to “making assertions which are supported by appropriate intuitive validations” (Mohanty, 1983, as cited in Finlay,