Abstract
The article elucidates fundamental issues about phenomenological research on subjectivity and embodiment. Two main problems are discussed. The first deals with the relationship between empirical and philosophical knowledge inside phenomenological and qualitative research itself. The main argument that is outlined is that because phenomenology originally and mainly is a philosophy and not an empirical science or method, the empirical research that implements phenomenology should be research with a profound and explicit theoretical foundation. In the analyses of empirical and subjective phenomena like pain, the research should try to implement a dynamic and dialectic relationship between philosophy and empirical knowledge. This dialectic relationship ought to be reflected throughout the whole research process, and especially in the analyses and presentation of the research results.
The other and second issue raised in the article is on the relationship between phenomenology and other epistemologies. The article takes a pragmatic stand and argues that this relationship should be built on cooperation and that other epistemological traditions like the biomedical should be viewed as complementary and not opposite or contradictory to phenomenology. This is of crucial importance when it comes down to the question of understanding health science and implementing research on patient phenomena like pain and suffering etc.