Studies in Philosophy

Heidegger’s seminal lecture, The Question Concerning Technology , has greatly influenced the contemporary philosophy of technology. However, scholars have different views regarding whether Heidegger’s concept of technology is essentialist. On the one hand, Andrew Feenberg and Don Ihde have argued for this description, while on the other, Iain Thomson has claimed that, though Heidegger appears to be a technological essentialist, but does little to discredit his profound ontological understanding of the historical impact of technology. In this essay, I will focus on Ihde’s critique and argue that his charge of essentialism is itself a misinterpretation of Heidegger’s understanding of technology. I conclude that the meaning of essence in Heidegger’s technology should be interpreted as that of “enduring,” and in that way, describing Heidegger’s concept of technology as essentialism is a metaphysical misinterpretation. Abstract It is difficult to be a philosopher in this postmodern era. This is so because philosophers, who heretofore have been the archetype of persons eager to engage in reasoned discourse, regardless of their differences, suddenly seem unable to talk to each other, primarily due to claim by postmoderns that non-postmoderns are naïve in their blindness to the fact that truth the claims cannot be true in any objective sense, and that claims to objectivity have been used maliciously throughout the ages to wield oppression. After exploring some of the seductive arguments of the post-modern position, and suggesting a re-working of the non-post-modern position, this paper will conclude that philosophical educators carry a heavy responsibility for limiting the real-life damage that has been produced by this philosophical truth-storm by siding firmly with its less contentious opposite by becoming guardians of the possibility that claims can be false. Abstract This article shows how and why hermeneutic phenomenological research can promote knowledge and understanding in research practices in education. The main focus of the article is aimed to provide rich textual descriptions of the experiencing of selected phenomena in the life world of individuals that are able to connect with the experience of all. It gives a brief overview of hermeneutic phenomenology and discuss its use in research work in education. The paper also presents on the diverse field of application, recent developments and the essence of hermeneutic phenomenological in education research. The article further examines the philosophical standpoint and establishes its linkages with various other methodologies. Finally, paper concludes with Clark Moustakas phenomenological data analysis for the analysis of the gathered data consisting three main components: phenomenological reduction, imaginative variation, and synthesis to come to the conclusion. This article demonstrates and explores the value of hermeneutics as a credible, rigorous, and creative way to address the different aspects of professional practices and how hermeneutic phenomenology is useful in studying the personal and social facets of making psychological knowledge and searching for philosophical truth as a research methods in educational research.