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A phenomenologically based psychology seeks to investigate the phenomena of human experience as manifested in concrete situations. One of the specific interests of phenomenological psychology is how consciousness is involved in structuring the world of everyday life: What is going on such that there is ¹ this or that experience? How is experience given to us, both as lived and as known? The "givenness" of experience refers to both the active and the passive ways in which the experiencing person becomes aware of something. Such an interest is characteristic of the phenomenologist's focus upon the "constitution" of experience. Previous philosophical investigations of constitution (Husserl, 1973, 1982, 1989) have given us the concept of "intentionality," which refers to the structural (i.e., dynamic, dialectical, and irreducible) relationship between the perceiver and the perceived. An intentional analysis of experience is an examination of the ways in which the perceiver is present to an object such that there is a thematic grasp of the object as having a particular quality or meaning. Phenomenological philosophy raises the question of givenness or constitution at the transcendental² level, that is, within the realm of "pure" subjectivity. In contrast, an existential-phenomenological psychology at the empirical level takes as its domain the intentionality of human subjects in specific situations.

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4899-0125-5_8

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