The Transcendence of the Ego in Continental Philosophy – Convergences and Divergences

Abstract

Th is article deals with a core matter of continental philosophy which is the nature of the ego taken as a concept originating in the subjective idealism of the German school of the early nineteenth century and further developed in its various ramifi cations throughout the twentieth century. Th e main philosophical positions I will discuss are Husserl's phenomenology of the ego in his later transcendental phase, the Heideggerean view of the nature of Dasein, and Sartre's approach of the Being-for-itself as mainly exposed in Being and Nothingness. Th e central idea defended throughout this article is that self-constituting temporality as immanently induced may serve as a common foundation of the nature of the transcendental ego both in the Husserlian phenomenology and in the Heideggerean and Sartrean alternative positions; further, I will hold that, as consequence, the ultimate question about the possibility of an ontology of the pure ego is transposed to the question of the origin and foundation of inner temporality. Yet, in this case one is set to face anew the circularity of an infi nite regression in terms of refl ecting-refl ected and the inevitability of the subjective character of the origin of temporality. Besides this key question-a primary issue of this article-I will address the issue of the convergences and diff erences regarding aspects of the essential nature of the Husserlian ego, the Heideggerean Dasein, and the Sartrean Being-for-itself, especially regarding the widely debated topic of the 'exteriority' of the latter two 'egological' concepts with regard to the world in contrast to the 'interiority' of the Husserlian absolute ego.