The history of phenomenology is the history of the unfolding of a fundamental idea by its founder, Edmund Husserl. Such diverse temperaments as Scheler, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty have advanced it - the subsequent generation has primarily managed it. Ferdinand Fellmann traces the original intentions of the discipline and seeks the common thread in the significantly differing positions. Through an unconventional interpretation, he clears away the clutter of phenomenology and highlights those forms of thought that can connect with contemporary questions. At the center is the cultural scientific transformation that brings phenomenology back into focus as a general theory of media in light of the mediatization of the lifeworld.