This suspension of all reference to the reality of the thing experienced left the philosopher with nothing but the experiencing itself, which Husserl divided into the "noesis" (act of consciousness) and the "noema" (object of consciousness). Here the line between idealism and phenomenology became blurred, although the suspension of belief in the reality of an object of consciousness is not the same thing as denying that it exists.There is considerable diversity in the use that Husserl's successors have made of his method. Max Scheler, an early assistant of Husserl, adapted it to religious and ethical experience, and Martin Heidegger, a student of Husserl, applied it to such experiences as dread and fear and thereby generated what is now known as existential phenomenology. The French philosophers Jean Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty also employed the methods of phenomenology for their existential programs, as has the German philosopher Karl Jaspers. Through these philosophers, especially Jaspers, the phenomenological method has influenced psychological thought, particularly that of certain European psychiatrists, such as Ludwig Binswanger. Phenomenology has also influenced neo-Thomist religious thought. Although obviously related, phenomenology should be distinguished from phenomenalism, the view that human knowledge is limited to phenomena. --by Thomas E. Wren
