A Milestone - first chapter draft complete!

Since my last post, I've spent two weeks working in Africa. However, before I left the USA, I finally finished a reasonable draft of the first chapter of my dissertation. It got a good review from my dissertation chair. It's nice to have something about this dissertation that I can call somewhat finished.

In order to graduate in May, I really must finish my proposal by the end of December. That means two chapters must be finished in the next 20 days.

Hermenutic Phenomenology and The Revelation to John

I spent today primary reading Ricoeur's essay Phenomenology and Hermeneutics. One of the main ideas Ricoeur advances in this essay is the interdependency of these distinct disciplines. You can find the essay in John Thompson's collection of Ricoeur's writings titled: Hermeneutics & the Human Sciences .

From this reading I attempted to construct a hermeneutic phenomenological philosophic foundation for The Revelation to John as the data source for my study.

Here's what I wrote:

Hermeneutic phenomenology provides the philosophic framework for this study. The goal of hermeneutic phenomenology is to describe and interpret lived experience. Hermeneutic phenomenology always asks questions concerning the meaning or nature of being in the world (Van Manen, 1990).

Ricoeur (1981) underscores the parallel nature of hermeneutics and phenomenology in the following definitions:

Phenomenology begins when, not content to ¨live¨ or ¨relive¨, we interrupt lived experience in order to signify it. . . . Hermeneutics similarly begins when, not content to belong to transmitted tradition, we interrupt the relation of belonging in order to signify it. (pp. 116, 117)

Hermeneutic phenomenology is concerned with interpretation of lived experience. However, what is open to philosophical reflection is lived experience within the “lingual condition of all experience” (p. 115).

Lived experience ultimately finds lingual expression (oral or written). However, there is a mediating stage, the “epoché”. The epoché is that moment of interruption with lived in experience in which the subject signifies the experience linguistically. Ricoeur (1981) remarks that “hermeneutic philosophy begins with the experience of art” (p. 117). By an “experience of art”, Ricoeur refers to the epoché as a creative process that is “the virtual event, the imaginary act . . . by which we exchange signs for things and signs for other signs” (p. 116). This creative event – art – precedes and supports the linguistic expression of life experience. In the epoché, the subject distances self from experience in order to interpret the experience and present it symbolically for self and others.

Likewise, Ricoeur (1981) proposes that the hermeneutic counterpart of lived experience is “consciousness exposed to historical efficacy” (p. 117). The hermeneutic counterpart of epoché is “distanciation”. In distanciation, the subject find “empty space” between self and his or her participation in a historic tradition in which to construct the signification of the historical tradition, to which he or she belongs, for self and others. In the same sense that the creative epoché precedes and supports language, it is “the interplay of distance and proximity, constitutive of the historical connections, is what comes to language rather than what language produces” (p. 118).

Ricoeur (1981) identifies the common source of meaning in phenomenology and hermeneutics when he writes, “The reference of the linguistic order back to the structure of experience (which comes to language in the assertion) constitutes, in my view, the most important phenomenological presupposition of hermeneutics” (p. 118). The hermeneutic phenomenologist is concerned with describing and understanding the background structure of experience through the foreground representation of the linguistic expression of experience. Consequently, the philosophical reflection of hermeneutic philosophy revives this “empty space” where the creative epoché and distanciation occur “to render thematic what was only operative, and thereby makes meaning appear as meaning” (p. 116).

Language as the mediator of lived experience opens up the possibility that the interpretation of any linguistic of expression of the nature of human being within chaotic, nihilistic, or apocalyptic realties could be informative for a hermeneutic phenomenological exploration of the research question at hand. Likewise, language as a mediator of historical connection makes it possible to “render present the historical past.” This hermeneutic phenomenology philosophy undergirds the choice of The Revelation to John as an appropriate data source for this study.

References

Ricoeur, P. (1981). Hermenutics and phenomeology (J. B. Thompson, Trans.). In J. B. Thompson (Ed.), Paul Ricoeur hermeneutics and the human sci-ences: Essays on language, action, and interpretation. New York: Cam-bridge University Press.

Van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Yes, I cleaned up the introduction

Tonight I cleaned up the text to the introduction to the research problem statement. I also cleaned up the research problem section. Here's the introduction to the problem statement which is the opening text of Chapter 1.

Chapter 1 – Introduction

Unexpected phenomena continually pierce the fabric of the 21st century organizational context. Change processes initiated by events, both internal and external to organizations, are continuous. Leaders are fearful that they cannot keep up with the pace of change in their organizational environment. Yet, they know survival of their organization depends on its ability to adapt its equivocal environment. With response times shorter and the stakes for failure ever raising, knowing and implementing what must be done is increasingly difficult (Conner, 1998, pp. vi-vii).

Traditional models of organizing seem ineffective in a world of constant flux and unpredictability (Wheatley, 2006). Bennis (2006) notes the traditional leadership ideal of the triumphant individual directing downward from the pinnacle of a bureaucratic hierarchy “is dysfunctional in today’s world of blurring, spastic, hyperturbulent change and will get us into unspeakable trouble” (p. 131).

Appearing to make the traditional forms of organizing and leading obsolete, the chaotic times of the 21st century introduce a crisis of organizational form and leadership behavior. A postmodern analysis of contemporary organizational reality assumes the underlying positivistic assumptions of traditional organizational forms and leadership behaviors are undermined (Johnson & Duberley, 2000). Consequently, one can postulate that the fundamental problem for 21st century organizations and their leaders is the rediscovery of meaning. What does it mean to organize and to lead in chaotic – even apocalyptic - times?

References

Bennis, W. (2006). The end of leadership: Exemplary leadership is impossible without full inclusion, initiatives, and cooperation of followers. In W. E. Rosenbach & R. L. Taylor (Eds.), Contemporary issues in leadership. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Conner, D. R. (1998). Leading at the edge of chaos: How to create the nimble organization. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Johnson, P., & Duberley, J. (2000). Understanding management research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Wheatley, M., J. (2006). Leadership and the new science: Discovering order in a chaotic world (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

Goal for today writing the Research Problem

My goal for today is to work on my research problem (i.e.) define it. The major issue is getting at what do I mean when I assert that the current organizational leadership crises is loss of meaning. I've looked at the literature on meaning in leadership and meaning in organization. However, it appears that the crisis goes much deeper than what is happening in contemporary organizations. Indeed, what is happening in organizations today is merely symptomatic of the world catching up to (in an experiential) way to Nietzche's understanding that the logical outcome of Kant's work to unify transcendental idealism and empirical realism. In the end, Kant regulates God, freedom, and immortality to the realm of cognitive meaninglessness. Thus producing two important philosopical assumptions:

(1) the radical finitude of the human subject i.e. there is no-God-like point of reference that humans can know and that could otherwise serve to evaluate human experience and (2) human experience is completely contingent and created. Human experience is made and remade by humans embedded in contingent circumstances(Critchley, 2001).

If human experience is a contingent creation, then it can be recreated in other ways. This is the demand for transformative practice of philosophy, art, poetry, or thinking that would be capable of addressing, criticizing, and ultimately redeeming the present. The demand, then, that runs through much Continental thought . . . is that human beingsemancipate themselves from their current conditions. (p. 64)

Nietzsche clearly identifies nihilism as the unforeseen crises in Kant’s criticism of metaphysics (Critchley, 2001). “For Nietzsche, nihilism as a psychological is attained when we realize that the categories by means of which we had tried to give meaning to the universe are meaningless” (p. 84).

It is clear then, that by the end of the 19th century, Nietzche had correctly foreseen the trajectory for humanity intent of pursuing empirical realistic knowledge through a positivist epistemological paradigm.

Yet it is the positivist epistemology that has dominated the practice and scholarly understanding of organizational leadership through the 20th century. Johnson and Duberley point out, "the dominance of this perspective is such that it is ingrained into commonsense assumptions about how to do research . . . . . Even some of those who clam to reject positivism have not necessarily eschewed all the elements of the positivist approach" (p. 38). Much of the criticism directed at positivist research and practice in organizational leadership in the later half of the 20th century centered on its disconnect self-induced disconnect of theory and practice. "In searching to identify causal relationships, the focus has become narrower and narrower, to the extent that propositions being tested do not reflect the complex situations in which managers actually find themselves" (p. 43).

Consequently, the contemporary loss of meaning in organizational leadership is the logical out working that Continental philosophers identified in the late 19th century as the double failure of the Enlightenment (Critchley, 2001):
(1) The values of modernity or Enlightenment do not connect with the fabric of moral and social relations, with the stuff of everday life . . . . Enlightenment values lack any effectiveness, and connection to social praxis.
(2) However, not only do the moral values of Enlightenment fail to connect with the fabric of morel and social relations, but - worse still - they lead instead to the progressive degradation of those relations. (p. 86)

Consequently, 21st century leaders and organizations are left with a meaningless universe. In the face of nihilism how do leaders and organizations emancipate themselves from a situation that in which Dostoevsky identifies as suicide as the only solution (Critchley, 2001). The crisis is how do leaders and organizations construct meaning in their nihlistic world .

Outline for Chapter 1

Tonight I constructed the outline below for Chapter 1 and sent it to Dr. Bekker, my dissertation committee chairperson, for review. This took more time than I anticipated. The structure of an introductory chapter for a phenomenological study is somewhat different form an experimental study. Typically, a phenomenological study will not have hypotheses. In consulting Dr. Bekker’s guide, Creswell (1998), Van Manen (1990), and Moustakas (1994) , I arrived at the chapter structure below. The outline reflects what I anticipate the actual headings to be within the chapter. In parentheses, following the headings, I placed my estimated number of pages for each section.

Chapter 1 – Introduction
(1 page introductory text)

Research Problem (5)

Purpose of this Study

Research Question

Study Overview (28)

Relevant Theories

Chaos theory.

Spirituality.

Methodology

Philosophic framework.

Research procedures and analysis.

Scope, presuppositions, and limitations.

Significance of This Study (6)

Identifying its Place in the Scholarly Dialog

Anticipated Outcomes for the Practice of Organizational Leadership

Personally Engaging the Quest for Meaning

Timeline and Budget (1 paragraph)

References

Creswell, J. W. (1998). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five traditions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.