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(1976) Comparative studies in phenomenology, Dordrecht, Springer.
The ego and consciousness in rival perspectives
Sartre and Husserl
pp. 80-100
Sartre's early essay on The Transcendence of the Ego 1 remains a constant challenge for a phenomenologist of the Husserlian variety. Sartre attacks Husserl in a twofold way: he wants to show that Husserl's notion of the transcendental ego is neither necessary nor desirable in a phenomenological theory of consciousness. It is, indeed, his contention, that the ego appears as an object of a special (reflecting) consciousness rather than being a part of consciousness itself. The second task of Sartre is to show that a concept of consciousness liberated from the transcendentality of the ego would work as well or better within a general theory of mind than a concept of consciousness which is burdened with the transcendental ego. It is this second claim which will be taken up in this paper, and I will therefore assume, for argument's sake, that Husserl's transcendental ego is neither necessary nor desirable, and that the ego which appears in consciousness is in fact only an object of reflection and not a part of consciousness itself.2
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-9999-2_5
Full citation:
(1976). The ego and consciousness in rival perspectives: Sartre and Husserl, in Comparative studies in phenomenology, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 80-100.
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