Phenomenology was not founded; it grew. Its fountainhead was Husserl, who held professorships at Göttingen and Freiburg im Breisgau and who wrote Die Idee der Phänomenologie (The Idea of Phenomenology) in 1906.

Although elements of the twentieth century phenomenological movement can be found in earlier philosophers—such as David Hume, Immanuel Kant and Franz Brentano—phenomenology as a philosophical movement really began with the work of Edmund Husserl.

Yet, when considered as a movement in the history of philosophy, Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) is identified as the founder of phenomenology, and when considered as a method Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is identified as the progenitor of phenomenology.