Ideas, by Edmund Husserl

In an effort to adopt a more scientific attitude toward the investigation of human experience, Edmund Husserl, the founding academician of the field of phenomenology, contends that things themselves are not merely illusions but of very real and primary importance. It is a scientific method that demands researchers to put aside all assumptions (which Husserl refers to as the “bracketing out” of assumptions) such as the deeply held conviction in the existence of an external world beyond one’s mind or consciousness. By doing this, researchers can engage in philosophy free from assumptions and therefore from a clean slate.