Phenomenology facts for kids

Phenomenology is a way of thinking about how we experience the world. Instead of wondering what things are really like, it focuses on phenomena. These are the experiences we get from our senses. This includes what we see, taste, smell, touch, hear, and even what we feel.

Phenomenology doesn't ask if what we see is truly there. For example, it doesn't matter if you see something in real life, a dream, or a hallucination. What matters to a phenomenologist is the meaning or importance of that object to you. It also doesn't ask if we are missing information. Instead, people who study phenomenology believe we should look at the world just as it appears to us.

Famous Thinkers in Phenomenology

Some very famous thinkers have explored phenomenology. They looked at how we live our everyday lives.

Martin Heidegger's Ideas

Martin Heidegger was a well-known phenomenologist. He believed that philosophers should study how we live in our "average everydayness." In his book, Being and Time, he gives many examples of how people live their normal lives. He wanted to understand the basic ways humans exist in the world.

Jean-Paul Sartre's View

Jean-Paul Sartre also used phenomenology in his book, Being and Nothingness. He wrote about meeting a friend named Pierre at a cafe. However, Pierre never arrived. Sartre described feeling the absence of Pierre in the cafe. Because he could feel this absence, he said that "non-Pierre" (the lack of Pierre) was something that existed for him. It existed because he experienced it.

See also

In Spanish: Fenomenología para niños