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Abstract
This article is a response to Jonathan Smith's attempted rebuttal to the accusations I had made that Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis's (IPA's) methodical procedures did not meet generally accepted scientific criteria. Each of Smith's defenses was carefully examined and found to be lacking. IPA's claim to have roots in contemporary phenomenological philosophy was found to be seriously deficient and its claim that it has a basis in hermeneutics was superficial. IPA's hesitation to proclaim fixed methods makes the possibility of replication of IPA studies impossible and thus it makes the fulfillment of an important scientific criterion impossible. Its claim that its findings are subjective fails to meet the important scientific criterion of objectivity or even intersubjectivity. Consequently, the claims that I made in my original article were basically sustained and repeated.
Keywords
phenomenology, phenomenological psychological method, scientific criteria
Introduction
In an earlier article I (Giorgi, 2010) raised some critical questions about the relationship between certain practices labeled "phenomenological" performed by psychologists and the criteria of science. So-called Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was one of the practices I criticized and its originator, Jonathan Smith, attempted a rebuttal to my critique (Smith, 2010). I shall now give this one response to the issues he discussed in his attempted rebuttal.
First of all, I'm glad that Smith recognized the legitimacy of the possibility of a critique of his work based on scientific criteria even if he disagrees with the actual content of the criticism. I was not sure that Smith was concerned about scientific criteria but in his reply he (Smith, 2010, 186) states: "I think it is fine for people to critically evaluate my work. 1 recognize it as part of the scholarly and scientific enterprise". Thus, Smith acknowledges that it is fair to evaluate his work in terms of a scientific perspective. 1 mention this because in the two articles that I read that Smith co-authored (Smith & Osborn, 2008; Eatough & Smith, 2008) the mention of science was completely missing in one (Smith d? Osborn, 2008) and the term was mentioned only twice in the other (Eatough & Smith, 2008) but only in reference to the work of others or by quoting the viewpoint of others (Eatough & Smith, 2008, 182-183). However, a...