Phenomenological description is a method of approaching phenomena within the area of phenomenology that attempts to understand the structure of lived experience rather than explain it. The approach was theorized by Edmund Husserl

Edmund Husserl

Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...

 [1936] and Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...

 [1927], but has seen wide application, e.g., in Jean-Paul Sartre's

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...

's Le Nausée

Nausea

Nausea , is a sensation of unease and discomfort in the upper stomach with an involuntary urge to vomit. It often, but not always, precedes vomiting...

 [1938] and later in qualitative research traditions.

Edmund Husserl

In the section of The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology entitled "Beginnings of a concrete exposition of what is given in a sense intuition purely as such" (§45), Edmund Husserl gives an account of the different ways of perceiving objects through the different senses. He is interested in the ways that the different senses intentionally

Intentionality

The term intentionality was introduced by Jeremy Bentham as a principle of utility in his doctrine of consciousness for the purpose of distinguishing acts that are intentional and acts that are not...

 unify the qualities of different perceptions into a unified object. His argument is that perceptions never just exhibit themselves: in lived experience, they are always exhibitions of something.

Martin Heidegger

Heidegger's explication of phenomenological description is sketched out in the Introduction to Being and Time

Being and Time

Being and Time is a book by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. Although written quickly, and despite the fact that Heidegger never completed the project outlined in the introduction, it remains his most important work and has profoundly influenced 20th-century philosophy, particularly...

. There he argues that the way to best approach the question of the meaning of Being is to examine the concrete ways in which phenomena show themselves in themselves - as they seem in consciousness. By examining the way phenomena immediately present themselves, we can get insight in to how revealing as such occurs. For Heidegger, truth is always revealing - aletheia. Important to note is that Heidegger's method of phenomenology is that it represents a new tradition of "hermeneutic phenomenology" as opposed to merely descriptive, as in the Husserlian tradition.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Sartre's Nausea gives immediate first-person accounts of the main character Antoine Roquentin's lived experience. He describes the way objects lose their meaning and nausea disturbingly creeps up on him unexpectedly. His worst encounter is in a park with a tree root, where he realizes the gift (and burden) of human freedom as compared to other non-conscious beings. Sartre vividly characterizes what appears in the foreground of Antoine's awareness, including all of the ambiguity and confusion that is usually abstracted away in traditional or realist

Realism (arts)

Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...

 novels.

Later Research

Phenomenology has widespread use as a qualitative interview method in the social sciences, as well as in the health sciences. According to Finlay (2009),

Phenomenological research characteristically starts with concrete descriptions of lived
situations, often first-person accounts, set down in everyday language and avoiding
abstract intellectual generalizations. The researcher proceeds by reflectively analyzing
these descriptions, perhaps idiographically first, then by offering a synthesized account,
for example, identifying general themes about the essence of the phenomenon.
Importantly, the phenomenological researcher aims to go beyond surface expressions or
explicit meanings to read between the lines so as to access implicit dimensions and
intuitions.

Schmicking (2010) itemizes the aspects involved in approaching any particular phenomenon:

• Detecting and grasping (Nachgewahren
  Nachgewahren
  A Husserlian term referring to the way a lived experience is grasped and retained immediately after it occurs. It is a key component of phenomenological description and analysis since it involves memory and intentionality....
  
  ).
• Analyzing.
• Describing (including everyday, technical, and symbolic languages).