Phenomenology: A Bird’s Eye View

Phenomenology, in simple words can be defined as a philosophy or method of enquiry based on the concept that reality consists of objects and events as they are perceived or understood in human consciousness and not of anything independent of human consciousness.

The term “Phenomenology” emerged in the 18th century in the writings of John Heinrich Lambert(1728-77) and Immanuel Kant. It was used as a “theory of appearances.”

The philosophical movement originated at about 1905 by Edmund Husserl(1859-1938), a German philosopher. He is known as the father of Phenomenology. He developed the phenomenological method to make possible “a descriptive account of the essential structures of the directly given”. But actually the term Phenomenology was popularised by Hegel’s title The Phenomenology of Spirit. It was later that Husserl took the term for explaining his philosophy.

Phenomenology became an international movement when it appeared in the “Annual for Philosophical and Phenomenological Research”(1913-30) under the editorship of Husserl. Phenomenology influenced existentialism, reception theory, hermeneutics, etc.

Phenomenology in Husserl’s conception, is primarily concerned with the systematic reflection on and analysis of the structures of consciousness and the phenomena which appear in the acts of consciousness. Such reflection was to take place from a highly modified first person view point, studying phenomena not as they appear to “my” consciousness, but to any consciousness what so ever. He believed that phenomenology could thus provide a firm basis for all human knowledge, including scientific knowledge and could establish philosophy as a “rigorous science.”