- Lived:
- 1859–1938 · Moravia, Halle, Göttingen, Freiburg
- Tradition:
- German; founder of phenomenology — the twentieth century's great science of experience
- The Big Idea:
- Before you build theories about the world, go back and describe, with absolute care, how the world actually shows up in your experience — because that is where every theory secretly begins.
- In their words:
- "To the things themselves!"
- If you remember one thing:
- Consciousness is never an empty container. It is always consciousness of something — and describing exactly how things appear to us turned out to be a whole new continent of philosophy.