Self and Self-Ownership in the Husserlian Phenomenological Tradition
Research in Phenomenology May 12, 2026 DOI: 10.1163/15691640-12341594 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Historicity philosophy Character mathematics Phenomenology philosophy Intersubjectivity Self-consciousness Epistemology Psychoanalysis |
| Key points | Argues that Husserl's conception of the self requires understanding it as both an identical I-pole and a historically developing unity, and that this temporal, habitual character can be analyzed as a form of "ownship." |
Abstract
Abstract In this paper, I examine Husserl’s conception of the self as both an identical I-pole ( Ichpol ) for-all experience and as a developing, unfolding unity whose self-explication is its history. As Husserl proclaims in the Cartesian Meditations § 37, “time is the universal form of all egological genesis.” He further states: “The ego constitutes itself for itself in, so to speak, the unity of a history,” (Husserl, Cartesian Meditations § 37, p. 75; Hua I 109). In this paper, I will explore how Husserl understands the temporalization of the ego, including the ego’s essential historicity in the life-world. The Danish philosopher Dan Zahavi has spoken about the “minimal self” as a requirement that all experience have the character of “for-me-ness,” i.e., an immediate, non-objectifying, self-acquaintance of the self with itself. I broaden out this account to analyze the nature of the sensory basis for our experience of the self and the need to understand the self in its habitual and developmental character as a form of “ownship”.