ABSTRACT

Philosophy has been presented as a critical inquiry into the deepest meaning of reality. This approach to reality has led to the adoption of diverse methods and tools of philosophical inquiry. Therefore, this paper critically examined why interviews constitute one of the above tools. Specifically, it examined the philosophical status of interviews as a data collection instrument, how philosophical methods serve as knowledge extractors, and what integrating interviews into contemporary philosophical research portends for philosophy. Drawing on the Socratic method, Hegelian dialectics, Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology, and Gadamer's hermeneutics, among others, this paper argues that interviews constitute a powerful tool of philosophical inquiry, especially in contemporary society, where empirical research is given much emphasis. So, leveraging the above methodological approaches and data from the extant literature, this paper found that interviews are not merely a data-collection instrument, but an access to lived experiences, necessary for understanding and interpreting reality. Hence, interviews offer a matrix for philosophical reflections. Therefore, this paper concluded that, for philosophy to address the criticism that it is conceived as an abstract discipline and the challenges posed by empirical sciences, it must integrate interviews as a rational inquiry tool, without compromising its methodological and disciplinary integrity.