Introduction

A Hundred Years of Phenomenology contributes to the occasion by reflecting not only on the original sources of phenomenology, but on various aspects of its later history. Although the term 'phenomenology' had been used by other philosophers – notably Hegel – it received its present meaning through the work of Edmund Husserl. Husserl found essential ideas of a close predecessor, Franz Brentano, who had set out to bring about a conceptual reform within psychology by appealing to the scholastic concept of intentionality as the defining character of psychical phenomena. Husserl emphasizes the contributions of the reform to the natural and human sciences. Phenomenology, he suggests, can support scientific knowledge by explicating concepts such as space, time and causality. It can explore the structure of society at both the individual and social level, throwing light on moral, aesthetic and cultural phenomena.