Hegel and Husserl on the Emergence of the I out of Subjectivity

Abstract

AbstractModern philosophy tends to conflate subjectivity and ego (I-think, cogito, and the like). One lesson we can draw from Hegel is that the I emerges out of a natural and habitual state in the form of a return to itself through an opposition between self and world. In turn, Husserl has an interesting take on the anonymity of an ego-less subjectivity submerged in an affective and initially passive life out of which an ego-pole first constitutes itself. In both, a latent, functioning subjectivity which forms an unconscious ground is to be kept distinct from the several activities of a wakeful and self-conscious mind. I wish to compare and contrast Hegel and Husserl on this theme. The primary texts for my examination will be Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit in the Encyclopaedia, and Husserl’s Ideas I, Ideas II, Cartesian Meditations and Experience and Judgment.