‘The enigma of subjectivity’

Abstract

This article explores the issue of how action researchers might fully account for their subjectivity while simultaneously seeking to more fully understand ‘the other’ as they engage in inquiry processes. Ideas from the 20th-century philosophical tradition of phenomenology, including that of the ‘Lifeworld’, ‘presence and readiness-to-hand’, ‘bracketing’, and ‘objectivity for subjectivity’ are considered for the insights they bring to this paradox. The article considers the nature of truth generated through epistemologies based in subjectivity, and examines the role objectivity plays in establishing valid claims to truth. It concludes that subjectivity and objectivity are necessarily intertwined in the creation of valid truths with the consequence of this being the interdependence of meaning with truth as well.

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