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Research tool record. This page documents the tool and its method. The interactive application is not embedded, and this page does not accept material for analysis.

Summary ↓ · Procedure ↓ · Worked example ↓ · Citation ↓

Record at a glance

• Purpose: Inspect the relation between description, presupposition, agency, and revision in critical writing.
• Responsibility: Dorian Vale; maintained by Museum of One.
• Tool version: v.1, as named in the published title.
• Method reference: Canonical Rule Set v2.0, as identified in this record. The tool title and rule-set version refer to different things.
• Research status: Experimental instrument; proposed phenomenological indices.
• Documentation revised: 17 October 2026. This dates the record, not a new tool release.

Evidence status: This record describes a design, not a validation study. Coding agreement and the interpretation of thresholds require separate evidence.

Phenomenological Indices Analysis is a Museum of One research instrument for examining how a critical text approaches an artwork. Its object is the conduct of the account: what the critic describes, what the critic assumes, and how the writing responds to the work. It is not a test of artistic quality or a measurement of aesthetic experience itself.

What it does

The documented design uses the Canonical Rule Set v2.0 to organize a reading around five proposed indices. Each draws attention to a particular relation within the text:

• Epoché Fidelity (EFI): examines the balance between descriptive statements and presuppositional assumptions. The question is whether a claim remains close to what can be encountered or depends on an unexamined premise.
• Phase Alignment (PPAS): examines the distribution and sequence of attention across phenomenological phases. It asks when a text moves from encounter into explanation and whether that movement is supported.
• Residue Engagement (RERR): examines how the account handles what remains unsettled. A mention of uncertainty is not, by itself, evidence that the text has resisted closure.
• Agency Recognition (QSARI): examines whether the work is described only as an object acted upon or also as a presence that affects and redirects the encounter.
• Dialectical Circulation (DCI): examines movement and return within the account, including whether an initial claim is reconsidered rather than simply repeated.

How the method works

The original tool design combines assisted text analysis with rule-based calculations. These are different operations. Identifying or coding a passage can involve judgment; a fixed calculation can be repeatable without making the coding infallible. A responsible reading must therefore keep the text, coding decisions, exclusions, and calculation rules available for examination.

Procedure at a glance

Worked example

Illustration only. This constructed example is not a software run, validation result, or report of participant findings.

A dark square occupies the upper edge. It is a memorial to collective grief. I return to the uneven boundary, which does not settle that reading.

• Observation: The first sentence identifies a position and a visible feature. It supplies a descriptive starting point, not a complete account of the work.
• Presupposition: The memorial claim requires evidence beyond the visible square. Without a source or qualification, it is an unsupported meaning-assignment.
• Return and residue: The final sentence revisits a feature and leaves the memorial claim unsettled. Whether this counts under a particular index depends on the coding unit and the published rule.

What this establishes: The audit locates a shift from description to meaning-assignment and a later return. It does not justify a score from three sentences, certify phenomenological fidelity, or establish what an actual artwork means.

Why it belongs to Post-Interpretive Criticism

PIC asks what critical language does to the relation between work, critic, and viewer. This instrument brings that question into the detail of a text. It looks for the point at which description becomes an assertion of authority, or an encounter becomes a settled account that leaves no room for resistance. The purpose is to make those decisions discussable, not to issue a certificate of ethical criticism.

Scope and limits

The indices are research proposals. Their thresholds, coding reliability, and sensitivity to genre require scrutiny. A numerical profile cannot establish fidelity to an artwork, diagnose a viewer, or replace close reading. Computational consistency is not the same as phenomenological validity.

Methodological context

Extending Post-Interpretive Criticism develops the additional indices. Diagnostics Without Possession provides the operational reference for coding and reliability work.

Citation and revision

Suggested citation. Select and copy the following text:

Vale, Dorian. Phenomenological Indices Analysis v.1. Museum of One, 2026. Research tool record; documentation revised 17 October 2026. https://www.museumofone.art/phenomenological-indices-analysis/

Methodological reference: Diagnostics Without Possession. Coding rules and reliability procedures are not themselves a completed validation study.

Revision note · 17 October 2026. Added the record summary, procedure diagram, constructed example, evidence-status distinction, and suggested citation. This is a documentation revision. No new software release, participant findings, or validation result is announced.

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