Edmund Husserl

Edmund Husserl was a philosopher who founded phenomenology, a method for describing the structures of consciousness as they are experienced, setting aside assumptions about the external world. Trained first in mathematics and astronomy, he studied under Karl Weierstrass and Leopold Kronecker in Berlin and took a doctorate in mathematics at Vienna before turning to philosophy under Franz Brentano, from whom he took the idea of intentionality (that consciousness is always directed at something). His major works include the "Logical Investigations" (1900–1901), which criticized psychologism—the reduction of logic to mental processes—and "Ideas" (1913). Teaching at Halle, Göttingen, and Freiburg, he shaped a generation of thinkers. His later years were constrained by Nazi racial legislation.