Repository | Book | Chapter

Phenomenology is commonly understood, by those standing both within and outside of its tradition, as a philosophical movement rooted in the thought of Edmund Husserl, and phenomenologists are often all considered to be either directly or indirectly disciples of Husserl. Although it was Husserl who did the most to lay the groundwork for phenomenology as a movement, the above notions are hardly accurate, for at the time of Husserl's Logical Investigations (1901), several thinkers were developing phenomenologies quite independently of him. One such thinker was Max Scheler.¹ Contrary to the claims of much secondary literature,² Scheler was in no way a "student" of Husserl but had already worked out the foundations of his own phenomenology before reading any text of Husserl. ³ He suggested a notion of phenomenology not entirely inconsistent with that of Husserl but, in the opinion of this writer, much broader and containing vastly richer possibilities for human self-understanding.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-010-9612-6_8

Full citation: