Objectivity, Communication, and the Foundation of Understanding

This phenomenological investigation of lived experience suggests that human understanding inevitably relies on objectivist comprehensions due to ethical imperatives that are necessitated by communal existence. The analysis also indicates that human understanding and human communication can be considered commensurate processes that are oriented toward maintaining these objectivist comprehensions through the integration of meanings and the reconciliation of disparate meanings. Contents: Acknowledgments; INTRODUCTION; The Beginning of a Sojourn; The Intellectual Context; Dominant Themes; An Overarching Theme; Human Understanding; Statement of the Problem; Phenomenological Methodology; Researching the Lifeworld; Evidence Collection and Analysis; A MATERIAL DOMAIN; Specific Dimensional Concepts; Univocality; Narration and Description; Discussion; A SOCIAL DOMAIN; Fairness; Honesty; Trust; Responsibility; The Use of 'Right': A Special Case in Realist Discourse; Discussion; ANTINOMIES; Combining Realist and Hermeneutic Views; 'Rights' as Relative Entities; Discussion; SYNTHETIC DISCOURSE; Realist Parables and Formational Rationality; Transformational Rationality and Epiphanous Experiences; Discussion; JUSTIFICATION; Justifying; Exemplars of Justificatory Discourse; Discussion; INTEGRATION; Summary of Interpretative Effort; Consistency and Coherence; Human Understanding; Integrity and the Integration of Understanding; CONCLUSION; Objectivity and Cosmographical Necessity; The Critical and Ethnographic Studies; Future Research; Wider Implication and a Personal Transformation; Appendix A: Initial Contact Letter; Appendix B: Aide Memoir; Appendix C: Synthetic Discourse Examples; References; Index.