Husserl, Edmund Gustav Albrecht (1859-1938)

German philosopher, regarded as the founder of phenomenology, the study of mental states as consciously experienced. His early phenomenology resembles linguistic philosophy because he examined the meaning and our understanding of words.

He hoped phenomenology would become the science of all sciences. He influenced Martin Heidegger and affected sociology through the work of Alfred Schütz (1899-1959). Husserl's main works are Logical Investigations 1900, Phenomenological Philosophy 1913, and The Crisis of the European Sciences 1936.