Introduction

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the meaning of the concept of identity within a framework of the phenomenological theory of consciousness. Like all those concepts which are most comprehensive and, for this reason, most fundamental, the concept of identity is impervious to immediate clarity and shares, at first encounter, the vague generality peculiar to such concepts. Our intent, however, is not to discuss identity as a general concept or as a logical principle. The elucidation we seek aims, instead, at identity as experienced, understood and made use of in an activity of consciousness comprising both the perception of the object and the judgment about the object. Our aim is, more particularly, to bring to light the intentional structure of identity and thus to reveal identity in its “genuine” sense as itself constituted in judgmental and pre-judgmental orders of consciousness. Rather than being concerned, therefore, with a theoretical principle or with the formulation of a theory of identity, our inquiry shall attempt to answer the following questions: What kind of intentional structure is at work in a consciousness of perceptual and judgmental identity? And what, if any, is the possible relationship between perceptual and judgmental identity?