Munich phenomenology

Munich Phenomenology, refers to the group of philosophers, psychologists and phenomenologists that studied and worked in Munich at the beginning of the twentieth century, when Edmund Husserl published his masterwork, the Logical Investigations and began the phenomenological movement. Their views are grouped under the name "Phenomenology of essences".

At that time some of the students of Theodor Lipps, who were organised in the Psychologische Verein ("Psychological Association"), notably Adolf Reinach, Johannes Daubert and Alexander Pfänder, were inspired by Husserl's work and took it as a guideline for doing philosophy. Around 1905 many students of Lipps (captained by Daubert) decided to abandon Munich and to head for Göttingen, to study with Husserl (this is also referred to as the Munich invasion of Göttingen).

Notably, in 1912 the Munich phenomenologists Reinach, Pfänder, Max Scheler and Moritz Geiger founded the famous Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, with Husserl as main editor.

After Husserl's publication of the Ideen (Ideas) in 1913, many phenomenologists took a critical stance towards his new theories. Many members of the Munich group distanced itself from his transcendental phenomenology and preferred the earlier realist phenomenology of the first edition of the Logical Investigations.

The Munich Phenomenologists

• Adolf Reinach
• Johannes Daubert
• Alexander Pfänder
• Moritz Geiger

Other members of the Munich Circle

• August Gallinger
• Aloys Fisher
• Theodor Conrad (husband of Hedwig Conrad-Martius)
• Dietrich von Hildebrand
• Wilhelm Schapp

Sources

• Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement (The Hague/Boston/London 1982)
• H. Kuhn, E. Avé-Lallemant, R. Gladiator (Eds.), Die Münchener Phänomenologie Phaenomenologica 65, 1976

External links

• Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology