01 / Passage
Stay with the wording
Identify what a passage observes, infers and claims. Keep its source available for inspection.
Website capture / web-6acec48a39586a000105a966
Phenomenological Methods and Diagnostic Reading
How can observation, inference, and critical decisions be made available for comparison and revision?
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Credited website creators
Dorian Vale (Credited website author)
Rights and access
This is a stored copy of a public website publication, captured under the website owner’s archive instruction. Original source rights, image credits, citations and third-party exclusions remain applicable. Public access does not grant a new licence. External embeds and unpreserved files are explicitly identified below. Interactive source is retained as an inert HTML download; a live software environment is not guaranteed.
Published content
Research model / Conceptual overview
Compare readings of the same passage.
The programme examines how critical writing can be described precisely enough for comparison, disagreement and revision.
02 / Procedure
Make the rules explicit
Use stated coding units, definitions and exclusions. Record uncertainty and the reasons for a reading.
03 / Comparison
Keep disagreement visible
Compare accounts and examine reliability. A proposed index does not establish aesthetic truth.
Conceptual guide to the programme, not a validated measurement model or a report of completed research.
Research and experimental methods · Museum of One
Research question
This programme examines whether the conduct of critical writing can be described with sufficient precision to support comparison, disagreement, and revision. It connects phenomenological aesthetics with practical questions about what a text observes, what it infers, how forcefully it interprets, and what evidence supports its claims.
Programme record
- Programme topic: Phenomenological methods
- Research form: Research and experimental methods
- Responsibility: Museum of One
- PIRR project ID:
pir-prj-pyp5yx3w
Available public record: Diagnostics Without Possession · Research and diagnostic tools.
Status reviewed: 14 October 2026.
Current work
Measuring Proximity, From Husserl's Mathematics to Dufrenne's Aesthetics, and Quantifying Critical Posture develop the published methodological sequence. Diagnostics Without Possession provides an operational reference for coding and inter-rater reliability work. The reading tools show how the proposed distinctions can be applied to critical language.
Outputs and developments
The published methodological sequence and operational reference are linked below. Their proposed indices and coding rules remain open to scrutiny; publication does not establish a validated measure of artworks or aesthetic truth.
Measuring Proximity: A Post-Interpretive Diagnostic Experiment in Art Criticism (Post-Hermeneutic Phenomenology) v.2
Status: Published methodological essay
Dorian Vale · Site publication date: 9 January 2026
From Husserl’s Mathematics to Dufrenne’s Aesthetics: Toward a Formalization of Phenomenological Aesthetics v.2
Status: Published methodological essay
Dorian Vale · Site publication date: 10 January 2026
Quantifying Critical Posture: A Diagnostic Analysis of Art Writing, 1980–2025 (v.2)
Status: Published diagnostic study
Dorian Vale · Site publication date: 5 February 2026
Diagnostics Without Possession: An Operational Manual for Post-Interpretive Criticism (Operational reference for inter-rater reliability)
Status: Published operational manual
Dorian Vale · Site publication date: 9 May 2026
Read the operational reference ↗
Continuing developments
Coding, inter-rater reliability work, and comparative reading require examination of the assumptions, exclusions, and limits of the proposed methods. The research and diagnostic tools provide associated resources for inspecting those proposals.
Dates above are the site’s publication dates, not claims about when a later version was released. Version labels follow the linked records.
Preparatory curatorial micro-study
Preparations for a small comparative study concern a curatorial framing decision, alternative texts, documentation and comparative reading. This is preparatory research, not completed findings or a published output. No case or participant activity is announced here. Public attribution will be added only after it is agreed.
Related development in Witness, Material Presence, and Cultural Memory ↗
Research context
The diagnostic indices are proposals for critical inquiry. Their coding rules, assumptions, exclusions, and limits require scrutiny; they do not establish a measurement of aesthetic truth or replace judgment. A useful method must make disagreement more specific and its own decisions easier to examine.
Research material
Development of the inquiry
Foundational essays and doctrine supply the vocabulary of restraint, proximity, and critical responsibility. The methodological essays investigate how those concerns can be described through explicit coding rules and diagnostic profiles.
The published corpus study is a single-coder pilot with approximate counts and descriptive comparisons. Independent coding, reliability testing, genre sensitivity, and the limits of quantification remain questions for continuing research.
22 October 2026 / Next investigation: independent comparative reading
Study plan: identify a small public corpus, state its genres and exclusions, and prepare a comparison of independent readings under the published coding rules. Preserve the initial judgments, reasons for disagreement, any changes to the rules and the reliability statistics appropriate to the resulting data. Selection of material and agreement on a protocol precede any coding.
The intended output is a bounded methods report and a shareable record of the source passages, coding decisions, disagreements and limits, subject to the sources’ rights. Responsibility for preparing the study rests with Dorian Vale. Recruitment and completed reliability results are not reported in this plan.
The existing preparatory curatorial micro-study retains its own scope. Historical answerability and lasting correction offer documentary questions to examine alongside the methods; their published case studies do not validate the diagnostic indices.
Doctrine, Foundational Essays & Investigations → Research Programmes → Outputs and developments → Publications.
Public record
Explore research and diagnostic tools
Files, images and media
- Radar profile comparing five critical-writing samples across rhetorical density, interpretive load, viewer displacement, ethical proximity and institutional alignment.external link only · not_checkedThird-party or unreviewed reuse rights; no local preservation claim.
Source-declared metadata
Transcribed declarations retain their source scope. Identifiers are not promoted to independently verified edition assignments.
Source content SHA-256: 1de50d6896bf685c7b506680fa242779d6a4767989ae4c44f8b47a33a589a054
Fields requiring qualification
- Language not explicitly supplied for this web record