phenomenology (n.) Look up phenomenology at Dictionary.com
1797, from German Phänomenologie, used as the title of the fourth part of the "Neues Organon" of German physicist Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728-1777), coined from Greek phainomenon (see phenomenon) + -logia (see -logy). Psychological sense, especially in Gestalt theory, is from 1930. Related: Phenomenological.