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I hope you enjoy the program. Hello, quote, back to the things themselves

unquote. This might not sound like much of a battle cry, but it's a rallying call of

a movement that challenged a long philosophical tradition and changed forever the way some people

think about what is meant, what it means to be human. We'll be talking about phenomenology,

developed by the German philosopher Edmund Husserl at the start of the 20th century.

Phenomenology began as a response to a feeling of crisis in the natural sciences,

but it soon developed into a powerful method in its own right, used to expose and challenge

the presumptions of Western intellectual life since Descartes, 1596 to 1650.

Also its proponents thought, phenomenology has had a profound influence on the course of European

philosophy. It shaped the works of writers like Martin Hedger, Jean Paul Sartre,

Cimord de Beauvoir, and it's been extremely versatile. Phenomenologists have written

on many subjects from the foundations of mathematics to the difference between fear and anxiety.

With me to discuss phenomenology, Sarmann Grandinning, professor of European philosophy in the

European Institute at the London School of Economics, Joanna Hodge, professor of philosophy

and Manchester Metropolitan University, and Stephen Mulhall, professor of philosophy and tutor

New College at the University of Oxford. Stephen Mulhall, can you give us a brief sketch of

the charity? What is phenomenology and what sets it apart from other styles of philosophy?

Okay, well I think what unifies the tradition of phenomenology is not so much agreement on

doctrines or theories, but on a shared preoccupation and a shared conception of method.

And one way of thinking about the preoccupation is that phenomenologists are fascinated and

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