ABSTRACT
Born in Moravia, educated in Vienna and Berlin, first in mathematics and later in philosophy, Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) taught and wrote philosophy at a succession of German universities. He is best known as the founder of phenomenology, defined as the study of the essence of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view. Husserl’s phenomenology launched a philosophical program that changed the course of European thought. Not only the preeminent phenomenologist, Husserl was also one of the great systematic philosophers, akin to Aristotle and Kant. It is time for Husserl to take his rightful place in this pantheon. Accordingly, this study of Husserl will focus on his overall system of philosophy, in which phenomenology plays its special role.
