Encountering the Great Problems in the Street: Enacting Hermeneutic Philosophy as Research in Practice Disciplines

Abstract

In this paper, we speak to tenets of Gadamerian hermeneutic philosophy that “guide” our hermeneutic inquiry in research that seeks to understand the complexity of human experiences. In our conduct of hermeneutic research, we grapple with “great problems” and encounter the human difficulty of topics such as childhood cancer, grief, mental illness, education and schools, arts and humanities, and other topics that show up in practice professions of nursing, teaching, social work, or psychology.