In phenomenology, the deliberate suspension of all assumptions about the external world in order to examine consciousness and experience in its pure form.

Introduced as a philosophical method by Edmund Husserl, derived from the ancient Pyrrhonian sceptic practice of suspending judgement.

From the Greek epoche meaning a stoppage or cessation — in ancient scepticism, a halt in judgement about whether things are as they appear.

Sometimes rendered in English as bracketing — the act of setting aside the question of whether something exists in order to study how it appears.

Husserl first introduced the technique in a 1905 lecture at Göttingen University, where his students reportedly found the exercise profoundly disorientating.