Edmund Husserl(1859-1938)
After finishing school, he studied natural sciences, mathematics and philosophy at the universities of Leipzig, Berlin and Vienna. He was a student of Carl Stumpf and Franz Brentano, among others. Husserl wrote his doctoral thesis on the calculus of variations. He then became a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Halle. During this time he turned to the psychological foundations of mathematics. In "Philosophy of Arithmetic" (1891) he argued that the validity of mathematical truths is independent of the way in which people arrived at them. In the "Logical Investigations" (1900/01) Husserl rejected his philosophy of arithmetic as psychologism. Now he held that the task of the philosopher was to consider the nature of things. Husserl shows that consciousness is always directed towards something.
He calls this directedness intentionality and claims that consciousness contains ideal, unchanging structures and meanings that determine what the mind is directed toward at any given time. During his tenure at the University of Göttingen between 1901 and 1916, Husserl's philosophy attracted numerous students; a separate phenomenological school emerged. His probably most influential work, Ideas for a pure phenomenology and phenomenological philosophy, appeared in 1913 as the opening article in the first volume of the "Yearbook for Philosophy and Phenomenological Research" that he edited. In it he introduced the concept of phenomenological reduction for his method of reflecting on the meanings that the mind attaches to a thing when it looks at it. This method refers to meanings that are present in the mind regardless of whether the thing present to consciousness actually exists. The question of the real existence of the thing under consideration is of no interest here.
This was followed by detailed analyzes of the mental structures involved in the perception of particular types of objects. For example, Husserl gave a detailed description of his perception of the apple tree in his garden. This is how phenomenology proceeds descriptively, even if it does not assume the existence of things. According to Husserl, it is not the development of theories that is the concern of phenomenology, but rather the description of things themselves. "To the things themselves!" was his call to the philosophy of his time. In his late writings, such as the 1936 work "The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology" (complete edition by W. Biemel 1954), Husserl's theme is the "lifeworld" in its predetermined self-evidence.
Here, Husserl describes the connection of science to world life as the therapeutic task of phenomenology.
One of Husserl's students was Martin Heidegger, who, following his teacher, advocated an existential phenomenology and whose existential philosophy itself marked a similar new beginning in philosophy as his teacher's phenomenology. Husserl's and Heidegger's philosophies had an equal impact on Jean-Paul Sartre and French existentialism.
He calls this directedness intentionality and claims that consciousness contains ideal, unchanging structures and meanings that determine what the mind is directed toward at any given time. During his tenure at the University of Göttingen between 1901 and 1916, Husserl's philosophy attracted numerous students; a separate phenomenological school emerged. His probably most influential work, Ideas for a pure phenomenology and phenomenological philosophy, appeared in 1913 as the opening article in the first volume of the "Yearbook for Philosophy and Phenomenological Research" that he edited. In it he introduced the concept of phenomenological reduction for his method of reflecting on the meanings that the mind attaches to a thing when it looks at it. This method refers to meanings that are present in the mind regardless of whether the thing present to consciousness actually exists. The question of the real existence of the thing under consideration is of no interest here.
This was followed by detailed analyzes of the mental structures involved in the perception of particular types of objects. For example, Husserl gave a detailed description of his perception of the apple tree in his garden. This is how phenomenology proceeds descriptively, even if it does not assume the existence of things. According to Husserl, it is not the development of theories that is the concern of phenomenology, but rather the description of things themselves. "To the things themselves!" was his call to the philosophy of his time. In his late writings, such as the 1936 work "The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology" (complete edition by W. Biemel 1954), Husserl's theme is the "lifeworld" in its predetermined self-evidence.
Here, Husserl describes the connection of science to world life as the therapeutic task of phenomenology.
One of Husserl's students was Martin Heidegger, who, following his teacher, advocated an existential phenomenology and whose existential philosophy itself marked a similar new beginning in philosophy as his teacher's phenomenology. Husserl's and Heidegger's philosophies had an equal impact on Jean-Paul Sartre and French existentialism.