Some Remarks on the Ego in the Phenomenology of Husserl

Abstract

1. Commenting on a passage of Husserl’s Cartesianische Meditationen Roman Ingarden has put the problem how one and the same Ego can be the constituting, pure Ego and the constituted real self at the same time. For Husserl had written that the phenomenological, meditating Ego could become the “impartial spectator” (unbeteiligter Zuschauer) of itself and, consequently, of all objectivity there is, in the way in which it is, for this Ego. For that reason, Husserl goes on to say, I am, in my quality of the natural self, also, and always, the transcendental Ego, although it is true that I do not realize this until I conduct the phenomenological reduction.