Phenomenology is the study of the study of experience.  Well, not really.  Let’s see, phenomenology is the study of the study of the essence of experience.  Phenomenology takes seriously not just what is being experienced (i.e., Dewey) but how one senses what they are experiencing.  Phenomenology is a philosophy of “being there” and to “be there” suggests that all knowing is synthesized through the previous experience of knower.

To think phenomenologically is to consider how experience, all experience, is the product of what is known as it interfaces with what is being experienced and changes or supports  that which is known.

Experience, without participation in the phenomena, is described as being without being there.  Martin Heidegger holds that the context and construction of experience identifies how it can be “lived” if it can convey meaning in itself.  Heidegger uses tools as an example of the critical nature of context.

A hammer outside its context is only an object and has no meaning as a tool; therefore, its meaning is directly dependent upon its context.  For any experience to have meaning it must have a discernable context in which it exists or can be “taken” to exist.

Neurophenomenology suggests that through brain states, contexts---that are the products of consciousness---can be elaborated.  These products can be introduced into experience to provide order and relationship.  These brain states may produce language for, memory of, or conditions about that which will define experience away from the experience itself.

Cognitive Neurophenomenology is thus the study of how one can learn from experiences that have to be brought into the context of the learner.  The learner, from this perspective, must be sensitive to how s/he “sees” the world, the quality of the language s/he has available and her/his facility with it.  S/he needs to possess a grasp of metaphorical and analogical insight that can be used to “know how to know”.  To leave knowledge of how we think out of any instructional program is to leave a leg off the table.