Phenomenological approach in information science: reflections on the method used by Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Abstract

The objective is to present the phenomenological method and its applicability in Information Science through a qualitative and bibliographical research. In this article, we choose Philosophy as related science and phenomenology as a valid approach in studies carried out by information scientists. Philosophy has always been concerned with the widest possible knowledge in favor of humanity. Phenomenology, in turn, deals with the essences, the intentional character of the consciousness, the objects as both real and ideal, the perception each has of their experiences. In Husserl we find a philosophy that aims at the clarification of intuition for the attempt to understand the apprehension of meaning and transformation into absolute data to be used in the method. Perception needs the human senses, we seek Merleau-Ponty who understands the body as the means to conduct the effects of feelings and sensations perceived by experience. Through the phenomenological approach we describe the reality of the subjects studied; through the meanings given by them to what they live and perceive in the world and the world, a form of expression related to things is generated. We recall that the phenomenological method consists in the observation and description of the phenomenon in the field of experience and how it is offered to human consciousness. Such methodology has had an impact on the social sciences, since it accepts subjectivity as one of the possibilities of analysis, reflection and questioning.