Phenomenology

:This article treats the philosophical movement of phenomenology. For other meanings see Phenomenology (Disambiguation).

Historical overview of the use of the term

While the term "phenomenology" was used several times in the history of philosophy before Husserl, modern use ties it more explicitly to his particular method.

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• Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (German pietist) for the study of the "divine system of relations"
• Johann Heinrich Lambert (mathematician, physician and philosopher) for the theory of appearances underlying empirical knowledge.
• Immanuel Kant used it in a similar vein.
• Hegel used it in his Phänomenologie des Geistes.
• Brentano seems to have used it in some of his lectures at Vienna.
• Edmund Husserl redefined it at first as a kind of descriptive psychology and later as an epistemological, foundational eidetic discipline to study essences. He is known as a "father" of phenomenology.
• Carl Stumpf used to refer to an ontology of sensory contents.
• Max Scheler developed further the phenomenological method of Edmund Husserl and extended it to include also a reduction of the scientific method. As a curiosity, he influenced the thinking of Pope John Paul II and Edith Stein.

Later usage is mostly based on or (critically) related to Husserl's introduction and use of the term. This branch of philosophy differs from others in that it tends to be more "descriptive" than "prescriptive".

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