Vindicating Husserl's primal I

Dan Zahavi

Københavns Universitet

pp. 1-14

in: Jeffrey Bloechl, Nicolas de Warren (eds), Phenomenology in a new key, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

This paper explores the complex answer to the question of whether the self is prior to the Other or the Other is prior to the self in Husserl’s phenomenology. Contrary to standard accounts of Husserl’s presumptive solipsism, this paper demonstrates how Husserl understands the self and the Other as essentially related while at the same time developing a notion of the primal ego. Informative and critical comparisons with Merleau-Ponty and Scheler are also developed in a defense of Husserl’s notion of the primal ego.

Cited authors

Merleau-Ponty Maurice

Husserl Edmund