Max Van Manen's Husserl: Phenomenological Grounding and Rhetorical Authority
Thomas Byrne
Forum: Qualitative Social Research May 30, 2026 DOI: 10.17169/fqs-27.2.4541 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Qualitative Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Keywords | Edmund husserl Quality of research Intentionality Research strategy |
| Key points | Argues that Max van Manen's phenomenological methodology misrepresents Husserl's concepts of the epoché, transcendental reduction, and intentionality, and therefore cannot claim Husserlian grounding or serve as a basis for researchers seeking such grounding. |
Abstract
In recent debates in qualitative research, it has been emphasized that methods are not merely collections of techniques, but socially stabilized ways of making knowledge claims intelligible. In this paper, I intervene at this meta-methodological level by examining what it means for a qualitative method to claim philosophical grounding. Rather than evaluating empirical results, I ask under what conditions an appeal to a philosophical source can function as a genuine grounding relation. Specifically, the case examined is Max VAN MANEN's phenomenological methodology, who presented Edmund HUSSERL as a point of departure. Through textual analysis of how VAN MANEN portrays HUSSERL's accounts of the epoché, transcendental reduction, and intentionality, I show that VAN MANEN misrepresented HUSSERL's own concepts. Because the figure named "HUSSERL" no longer corresponded to HUSSERL's own project, VAN MANEN could not claim Husserlian grounding and could not serve as a basis for researchers who seek such grounding themselves.
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