Eli5: what exactly is phenomenology
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Put simply phenomenology is an approach to understanding reality that focuses on simply directly investigating things as they occur (phenomena), as free as possible from any preconceptions or explanatory theories. So for example I was introduced to phenomenology through an approach to religious studies. A phenomenological approach to understanding a religious ritual would involve simply observing it and noting what is happening and what is being experienced. Not what the things mean, what they represent, what they relate to, or why they are happening, but simply what is happening and what it is like to experience them.
Of course it gets much more complicated than that but this is the core idea which defined the movement in the 20th century: forget about what stuff means for now, just try to understand what stuff is like
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