phenomenology

phe·nom·e·nol·o·gy

noun \fi-ˌnä-mə-ˈnä-lə-jē\

plural phe·nom·e·nol·o·gies

Definition of PHENOMENOLOGY

1

: the study of the development of human consciousness and self-awareness as a preface to or a part of philosophy

2

a (1) : a philosophical movement that describes the formal structure of the objects of awareness and of awareness itself in abstraction from any claims concerning existence (2) : the typological classification of a class of phenomena <the phenomenology of religion>

b : an analysis produced by phenomenological investigation

— phe·nom·e·nol·o·gist \-jist\ noun

Origin of PHENOMENOLOGY

German Phänomenologie, from Phänomenon phenomenon + -logie -logy

First Known Use: circa 1797

Other Philosophy Terms

dialectic, dualism, epistemology, existentialism, metaphysics, ontology, sequitur, solipsism, transcendentalism

Rhymes with PHENOMENOLOGY

bacteriology, endocrinology, epistemology, Gestalt psychology, kinesiology, metapsychology, microbiology, nanotechnology, neurobiology, neuropsychology, paleontology, parasitology

phe·nom·e·nol·o·gy

noun \fi-ˌnäm-ə-ˈnäl-ə-jē\   (Medical Dictionary)

plural ; phe·nom·e·nol·o·gies

Medical Definition of PHENOMENOLOGY

: the way in which one perceives and interprets events and one's relationship to them in contrast both to one's objective responses to stimuli and to any inferred unconscious motivation for one's behavior; also : a psychology based on the theory that phenomenology determines behavior

—phe·nom·e·no·log·i·cal \fi-ˌnäm-ən-^əl-ˈäj-i-kəl\ (audio pronunciation) adjective

phenomenology

noun    (Concise Encyclopedia)

Philosophical discipline originated by Edmund Husserl. Husserl developed the phenomenological method to make possible “a descriptive account of the essential structures of the directly given.” Phenomenology emphasizes the immediacy of experience, the attempt to isolate it and set it off from all assumptions of existence or causal influence and lay bare its essential structure. Phenomenology restricts the philosopher's attention to the pure data of consciousness, uncontaminated by metaphysical theories or scientific assumptions. Husserl's concept of the life-world—as the individual's personal world as directly experienced—expressed this same idea of immediacy. With the appearance of the Annual for Philosophical and Phenomenological Research (1913–30), under Husserl's editorship, his personal philosophizing flowered into an international movement. Its most notable adherents were Max Scheler and Martin Heidegger.