Phenomenology and Descriptive Psychology

Abstract

This chapter is about Husserl’s early phenomenology. It is divided into five parts. The first part is about the young Husserl’s years of study and his encounter with Brentano in Vienna and with Carl Stumpf in Halle. The second and third parts are meant to succinctly describe Husserl’s original contribution to Brentano’s philosophical program prior to the publication of his Logical Investigations in 1900–1. In the fourth part, the chapter examines Husserl’s criticism of Brentano’s criteria in his Psychology for delineating the two classes of phenomena and Husserl’s arguments for the delineation of his phenomenology in the first edition of his Hauptwerk. It concludes on a Stumpfian note about Husserl’s reasons, shortly after the publication of his Logical Investigations, to sharply dissociate phenomenology from descriptive psychology.