Edmund Husserl was born on April 8, 1859 in Prossnitz, Moravia.  He studied philosophy, math, and physics at Leipzig, Berlin, and Vienna and received his doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1882 in mathematics.  The next year, he moved to Vienna to study under Franz Brentano.

Husserl, born into a Jewish family, converted to Lutheranism in 1886, and married Malvine Steinschneider in 1887, also a convert.  They had three children.  In these same years, he went to study with Carl Stumpf at the University of Halle and became a lecturer there.  They became good friends and exchanged ideas.

While at Halle, he agonized over the connection between mathematics and the nature of the mind.  He recognized that his original ideas, which involved mathematics as coming out of psychology, were misguided.  So he began the development of his brand of phenomenology as a way of investigating the nature of experience itself.  This led to the publication of Logical Investigations in 1900.

He was invited to a professorship at the University of Göttingen in 1901, where students began to form a circle around him and his work.  He also developed a friendship with Wilhelm Dilthey, and was influenced by Dilthey’s ideas concerning the historical context of science.

In 1916, he went to the University of Freiburg.  Here he wrote First Philosophy (1923-4), which outlines his belief that phenomenology offered a means towards moral development and a better world.  He received many honors and gave guest lectures at the University of London, the University of Amsterdam, and the Sorbonne, making his ideas available to a new, wider audience.

He retired in 1928.  Martin Heidegger, with Husserl’s strong approval, was appointed his successor.  As Heidegger’s work developed into the basis of existentialism, Husserl distanced himself from the new movement.

When the Nazis took over in 1933, Husserl, born a Jew, was banned from the university.  He nevertheless continued providing support to friends in the resistance.  He spoke on the European crisis in Vienna in 1935 despite being under a rule of silence.  He also spoke at the University of Prague that year, where his unpublished manuscripts were being collected and cataloged.

His last work, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (1936), introduced the concept of Lebenswelt.  The next year, he became ill and, on April  27, 1938, he died.