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It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of a phenomenological constitution of the ego for a philosophy which seeks to trace the objectivity of all regions of being, without exception, back to the constituting activity of an all-embracing transcendental consciousness. Phenomenology claims to be a presuppositionless philosophy, in the sense that it refuses to take the meaning of the being of any entity whatsoever for granted but seeks instead to bring to light the systems of correlation which obtain between the phenomena through which such an entity manifests itself and the ego for which it exists as a phenomenal datum. In this sense, the ego is presupposed in any constitutional activity whatsoever. To be sure, it is perfectly in order that the ego should remain an uncritically assumed presupposition just as long as the focus of attention bears upon the object or region of being in question. But if this presupposition could not itself be thematized and then investigated in such a way that the principles constitutive of the ego could be specified, the entire program would fall to the ground, or so it would seem.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-011-3754-6_4

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