Page "Phenomenology (philosophy)" Paragraph 3

Stephen Hicks writes that to understand phenomenology, one must identify its roots in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant ( 1724 – 1804 ).

In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant distinguished between " phenomena " ( objects as interpreted by human sensibility and understanding ), and " noumena " ( objects as things-in-themselves, which humans cannot directly experience ).

According to Hicks, 19th-century Kantianism operated in two broad camps: structural linguistics and phenomenology.

Hicks writes, " In effect, the Structuralists were seeking subjective noumenal categories, and the Phenomenologists were content with describing the phenomena without asking what connection to an external reality those experiences might have.