From the “geistige Ich” to the “Ich mit-verstrickt” and Back: Husserl and Schapp on the Narrative Constitution of the Self
Francesca Maffettone
Eidos: A Journal for Philosophy of Culture August 15, 2026 DOI: 10.14394/eidos.jpc.2026.0005 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that Schapp's philosophy of stories is not a simple rupture from Husserl's phenomenology but remains deeply indebted to it, and that the two projects converge on the subject of an intersubjective world despite starting from different conceptions of the self. |
Abstract
The relationship between the father of phenomenology and the father of the philosophy of stories has been described as a departure of Wilhelm Schapp from Edmund Husserl, following the turn to transcendental idealism marked by the publication of Ideen (1913).This supposed rupture is taken to ground Schapp's narratological reinterpretation of phenomenology.Nevertheless, Schapp's work -particularly In Geschichtenverstrickt (1953) -remains deeply indebted to Husserl's phenomenology, and the relation between their respective projects is more complex than a simple rupture would suggest.While their points of departure -Husserl's reine Ich and Schapp's Ich-verstricktare undeniably different, it would be unfair to dismiss phenomenology for its transcendental idealism, apparently incompatible with an approach centered on an empirical subject entangled in a network of stories.This paper aims to overcome this dichotomy by showing that Husserl's phenomenology and Schapp's philosophy of stories meet at what constitutes the subject of an intersubjective world.