What is phenomenology? This is definitely a phenomenological question. sooner or later every phenomenologist has dealt with this question. The exigency to suggest a possible response to this key question has been clear since husserl's first books. almost all of husserl's work can be read as a more or less direct answer to this propositional question and some of his most meaningful and important texts were meant as introductions to phenomenology. 2 This need continuously to define itself is due, on the one hand, to the complex nature of phenomenology, which is never captured once and for all and is never dogmatic, which stays away from defining grids and rejects every oversimplification. There is no place for phenomenological orthodoxy, or for so-called "purism." The "ultimate book," one that defines phenomenological thought, can never be written.on the other hand, the need for continuous clarification itself is probably due to the fact that the essence of phenomenology can be found in its practice. in this sense, the proper ques-1 although both authors agree on the entire content of the present essay, massimiliano tarozzi is the author of the first, second, and fifth sections and luigina mortari is the author of the third, fourth, and sixth.2 "philosophy as rigorous science" (1911), Ideas I (1913), and "phenomenology and theory of knowledge" (1917, but published posthumously) were three introductions to phenomenology (see husserl 1965, 1982, and 1987) written within seven years. another introduction to phenomenology is the article written for the Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1927 (see husserl, 1997).1 There are three main approaches to what we can define as the "classical" phenomenological method in research (applebaum, 2007); (1) The duquesne school, including in particular giorgi, but also colaizzi, Fischer, and Van Kaam, was inspired by descriptive phenomenology with a husserlian framework; (2) hermeneutical phenomenology (van manen, 1990) " because of the influence of lagenveld and the utrecht school-is defined as "hermeneutical"