fænomenologi

Fænomenologi (phenomenology) is a philosophical method and movement that investigates the structures of experience and the phenomena that appear in acts of consciousness. Founded by Edmund Husserl in the early 20th century, it seeks to describe how objects are given to us in experience, rather than making immediate claims about reality apart from experience.

Its central concepts include intentionality, the idea that consciousness is always about something; the phenomenological reduction (epoche) to suspend judgments about the external world; the analysis of noema and noesis, distinguishing act and content; the lifeworld (Lebenswelt) as the pre-scientific ground of experience; and eidetic variation to identify essential features of phenomena.

Development: Husserl's transcendental phenomenology influenced later thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, who reframed phenomenology as analysis of being-in-the-world; Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty extended phenomenology to existence, embodiment, and perception. The tradition also contributed to hermeneutics and existential philosophy, and influenced cognitive science and qualitative methods.

Fænomenologi remains a foundational approach in philosophy and adjacent disciplines for describing how experiences are structured, how meanings are constituted, and how knowledge is grounded in lived experience.