The Duality of the I: A Commentary on Hedwig Conrad-Martius’s Realist Phenomenology

Abstract

This article deals with the duality that characterizes the idea of the I in the realist ontology of the phenomenologist Hedwig Conrad-Martius (HCM) (1880–1966). At the basis of the discussion is the uncovering of two dimensions of duality in HCM’s perception of the I: one, appearing in her early treatise On the Ontology and Doctrine of Appearance of the Real External World (HCM, 1916b), focuses on the phenomenological dimensions of the I, and in it, she lays the critical foundations for the more developed ontological duality in HCM’s later writings that addresses the ontological aspects of the I. The later phase in HCM’s thinking of the I focuses on the spiritual I and established the simultaneous operation of two elements in it: its “origin-like” nature (Ursprungshaftigkeit) and its spritualness (geistlichthafte), which is also referred to as “infrastasis” (Infrastase). The phenomenological interpretation of the idea of the I in HCM’s thinking commences with unveiling these two phases in her writing, proceeds to explicate the meaning of the I, explores them, and culminates in the illumination of the relations between them. Meanwhile, HCM’s radical response to Husserl’s turn towards transcendentalism transpires and the well-established criticisms of realistic phenomenology contemporary with Husserl regarding the lack of discussion of the issue of the ego or the I are refuted.