Husserl Studies 18: 51–64, 2002.

© 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 51

The Three Concepts of Consciousness in

Logische Untersuchungen

DAN ZAHAVI
Danish Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities

1. Introduction

Sooner or later any all-round appraisal of Logische Untersuchungen will have

to take a stand on its relation to Husserl’s later phenomenology. Were most of
the insights that can be found in Logische Untersuchungen superseded by
Husserl’s later analyses, or did his turn to transcendental philosophy on the
contrary represent a fateful and global decline?
When it comes to such a comparison between Husserl’s early and later
thought, the two most popular topics have undoubtedly been the concept of
intentionality on the one hand, and the very idea of phenomenology (descrip-
tive vs. transcendental phenomenology) on the other. In this paper, I have
chosen another central but somewhat less favored topic for discussion, namely
Husserl’s concept of consciousness. More specifically I wish to focus on the
first chapter in the 5th Investigation which bears the title “Bewußtsein als
phänomenologischer Bestand des Ich und Bewußtsein als innere Wahrneh-
mung,” in order to determine whether the position defended by Husserl in
Logische Untersuchungen is superior to the one he adopts later on.

2. The three concepts of consciousness

In the very first paragraph of the 5th “Investigation” Husserl points out that
the concept of consciousness is equivocal, and he sets out to distinguish three
interwoven notions. This tripartition is not supposed to be exhaustive, but
Husserl considers the notions in question to be the ones that are of particular
relevance for the analyses to follow. Let me quote his list in full:

1. Bewußtsein als der gesamte reelle phänomenologische Bestand des empi-

rischen Ich, als Verwebung der psychischen Erlebnisse in der Einheit des
Erlebnisstroms.
2. Bewußtsein als inneres Gewahrwerden von eigenen psychichen Erlebnissen.
52
3. Bewußtsein als zusammenfassende Bezeichnung für jederlei “psychische
Akte” oder “intentionale Erlebnisse” (Hua 19/356).

What exactly is Husserl saying here? The first notion mentioned by Husserl
is the one that simply denotes a totality of experiences. It is this notion that
we evoke when we speak of a stream of consciousness, or when we affirm
that a certain entity has a consciousness. Secondly, Husserl calls attention to
the fact that we can use consciousness in an intransitive sense as a one-place
predicate, i.e., we can say of an experience that it is conscious (rather than
unconscious). This use, which has to do with the fact that our experiences can
themselves be given to us, is related to the issue of self-awareness. Finally,
we can speak of consciousness in a transitive sense. We can say of a certain
experience that it is conscious of something, i.e., we can speak of conscious-
ness in the sense of an intentional directedness.
When it comes to an investigation of consciousness Husserl consequently
distinguishes three separate issues: The nature of the stream of consciousness,
the nature of self-awareness, and the nature of intentionality. The task he then
sets himself is to clarify all three and to investigate their interrelation. Are they
equiprimordial or is one of them more fundamental than the others? As we all
know, in Logische Untersuchungen Husserl mainly concerned himself with
the third issue, namely with the notion of intentionality. In fact, a frequent
criticism has been that Husserl in this work was so preoccupied with inten-
tionality, that he severely neglected the two other issues. He did not pay suf-
ficient attention to the temporal structure of the stream of consciousness, and
he mistakenly thought that self-awareness was nothing but an unusual type
of intentionality, namely a question of directing one’s inner objectifying gaze
towards the experience in question. Let us see whether this criticism holds true.

3. The stream of consciousness

Despite Husserl’s use of the term “ego” in his initial listing of the different
notions of consciousness, his analysis of the nature of the stream of conscious-
ness is basically a defense of a so-called non-egological theory of conscious-
ness. According to Husserl, there is no pure identical ego-pole to which all
experiences refer and share, and which conditions their unity. On the contrary,
the experiences are not states or properties of anyone, but mental events that
simply occur. Whereas we can distinguish between an experience of a red
sports car and this red sports car itself, we will, according to Husserl, be un-
able to locate a third element, a pure ego which is directed at the sports car
through the experience.
This is not to say that we cannot speak of an ego at all, but Husserl only
acknowledges two legitimate uses of the term. Either the ego is simply iden-
 53
tical with the empirical person, i.e., with the person who can be described from
a third-person perspective (Hua 19/363, 19/761), or the term “ego” is used as
a synonym for the stream of consciousness (Hua 19/362). In the latter case,
the ego would not be taken as a distinct and formal principle of identity that
owned the different experiences, but simply be the experiences in their total-
ity. Thus, the relation between a single experience and the ego could be de-
scribed in terms of a part-whole relationship.
Husserl’s defense of a non-egological model is in part motivated by his
aversion to any kind of ego-metaphysics. Already in the introduction to the
second part of Logische Untersuchungen Husserl made it clear that when we
engage in a phenomenological description of experiences we should seek to
capture them in their essential purity and not as they are empirically apper-
ceived, namely as the experiences of humans or animals. In other words, we
should aim at essential descriptions of the experiences, and these descriptions
would exclude any reference to their empirical bearers (Hua 19/6, 19/16). Husserl
consequently speaks favorably of a “Psychologie ohne Seele” (Hua 19/371),
and as he writes in a letter to Hans Cornelius in 1906: “Die phänomenologisc-
he Untersuchung interessiert sich gar nicht für Ichs und Zustände, Erlebnisse,
Entwicklungen von oder in Ichs . . . .”1
As is well known, Husserl’s non-egological position was subsequently taken
over by Sartre.2 What might be less well known is to what large extent Sartre’s
arguments in La transcendance de l’ego can already be found in Logische
Untersuchungen.3 Let me try to illustrate the remarkable match:
It has often been argued that mental life would dissipate into a chaos of
unstructured and separate sensations if it were not supported by the unifying,
synthesizing and individuating function of a central and atemporal ego. But
as Sartre points out, this reasoning misjudges the nature of the stream of con-
sciousness. The stream of consciousness does not need an exterior principle
of individuation, since it is per se individuated. Nor is it in need of any tran-
scendent principle of unification, since it is as such an ecstatic flowing unity.
It is exactly qua temporalizing that consciousness unifies itself. Thus, a cor-
rect account of time-consciousness will show that the contribution of an ego
is unnecessary, and it has consequently lost its raison d’être.4
In a second move, Sartre then points out that an unprejudiced phenomeno-
logical description of lived consciousness will simply not find an ego, un-
derstood as an inhabitant in or possessor of consciousness. Pre-reflective
consciousness has no egological structure. As long as we are absorbed in the
experience, living it, no ego will appear. When I am absorbed in reading a story,
I have a consciousness of the narrative, and a pre-reflective self-awareness of
the reading, but according to Sartre, I do not have any awareness of an ego, nor
of the reading being done by me. Thus, Sartre seems to accept Lichtenberg’s
critique of Descartes. The traditional rendering of the cogito affirms too much.
What is certain is not that “I am aware of this chair,” but that “there is aware-
54
ness of this chair.”5 It is only when we adopt a distancing and objectifying
attitude toward the experience in question, that is, when we reflect upon it that
an ego appears. In short, the ego is a product of reflection. But even then we
are not dealing with an ego-consciousness, since the reflecting pole remains
non-egological, but merely with a consciousness of an ego. The ego is not the
subject, but the object of consciousness. It is not something that exists in or
behind consciousness, but in front of it.6 When I engage in a reflective explo-
ration of this object, I will be examining it as if it were the ego of an other.
That is, I will assume the perspective of an other on myself, and naturally this
perspective will never reveal the original self-givenness of my own subjec-
tivity.7 Thus, Sartre can write: “L’attitude réflexive est exprimée correctement
par cette fameuse phrase de Rimbaud (dans la lettre du voyant) ‘Je est un
autre’.”8 It is in this sense that the ego is transcendent, and it is exactly for
that reason that Sartre in an attempt to bypass the problem of solipsism can
deny that my ego is something to which I have privileged access. “Mon Je,
en effet, n’est pas plus certain pour la conscience que le Je des autres hommes.
Il est seulement plus intime.”9
If we now return to Husserl’s analysis, we will see that he in paragraph 4
starts out arguing that the phenomenologically reduced ego (in contrast to the
empirical ego or personality which he takes to be just as empirical an object
as a house or a tree) is nothing but the totality of a complex of experiences.
Husserl even speaks of the ego as a “bundle of experiences” (Hua 19/390).
Thus, the ego is not something that floats above the manifold of experiences,
but is simply identical with their unified whole. But even though the experi-
ences are in fact unified, this unification is not due to the synthesizing contri-
bution of the ego. On the contrary, such a contribution would be superfluous
since the unification has already taken place in accordance with intra-experi-
ential laws. (In the second edition of Logische Untersuchungen Husserl ex-
plicitly refers to the process of temporalization (Hua 19/369)). Moreover, since
the ego is exactly the result of this unification, it cannot be something that
precedes and conditions it (Hua 19/364).
In paragraphs 8 and 12, Husserl follows up on this, and claims that as long
as we simply live in the act in question, as long as we are simply absorbed in
the perception of an event taking place before our eyes, or immersed in a
daydream, or in the reading of a story, or in the carrying out of a mathemati-
cal proof, we will encounter no identical ego-pole (Hua 19/390). As Husserl
remarks after having briefly accounted for Natorp’s arguments for the exist-
ence of a pure ego: “Nun muß ich freilich gestehen, daß ich dieses primi-
tive Ich als notwendiges Beziehungszentrum schlechterdings nicht zu finden
vermag.” (Hua 19/374). Despite this very Humean assertion, Husserl does not
claim however that we never experience an ego. We do and in a twofold manner
depending upon whether we are speaking of the ego qua empirical person or
qua totality of experiences:
 55
1. As for the first case, Husserl points out that our empirical ego stands in a
relation to numerous other objects. To take a simple example, when I am
sitting on a chair, there is a quite tangible relation between the chair and
myself. If we reflect on this relation, our reflection will in fact contain a
reference to an ego (Hua 19/374). It will be quite natural to say “I am sit-
ting on a chair.” But the ego in question is not some elusive formal entity,
but simply myself in flesh and blood. It was probably this observation that
made Husserl make the following somewhat reckless claim: “Aber die
Selbstwahrnehmung des empirischen Ich ist die alltägliche Sache, die dem
Verständnis keine Schwierigkeiten bietet. Das Ich wird so gut wahrgenommen
wie irgendein äußeres Ding.” (Hua 19/375).
2. As for the second case, Husserl remarks that if we identify the ego with the
stream of consciousness, then it is to some extent true to say that the ego is
involved whenever we are conscious of an object. However, as Husserl then
adds, although this reference to an ego (qua stream of consciousness) might
be almost unavoidable whenever we reflect upon an intentional experience
and try to describe it – after all, it seems so much more natural to say “I am
thinking of the election” than to say “there is a thinking of the election” – it
would be wrong to claim that there is actually an ego present in the experi-
ence. For how should the whole be contained in one of its parts? That we
nevertheless tend to experience an ego in these cases simply testifies to the
transforming nature of reflection. When we reflect upon an experience we
are no longer simply living it through, we transcend it, and in doing so, we
so to speak situate the experience in an egological context (Hua 19/391).10

Thus, in both cases Husserl is basically making the same claim as Sartre (only
35 years earlier). Our experience of an ego is the result of a reflective opera-
tion.
So far Husserl has been trying to analyze the first notion of consciousness,
but at this point in the argumentation he poses the following question: How
do we know that there is at all something like a stream of consciousness, how
do we at all know that there are something like experiences? Is our claim based
on an inference to best explanation, or rather on some kind of more direct ac-
quaintance? Husserl’s answer is of course the latter: We can speak phen-
omenologically of a stream of consciousness because our experiences are given
to us, because they are conscious, and because we can reflect upon them. The
first notion of consciousness consequently presupposes the second (Hua 19/
367). The latter has methodological primacy. It is by expanding the focus from
a single experience that is given thematically in reflection to all of the expe-
riences that are retained in the retention and can be remembered in recollec-
tion that we eventually reach the notion of a stream of consciousness and of
a totality of experiences. Let us with this in mind turn to second notion of
consciousness.
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4. Self-awareness

What does Husserl say about self-awareness in the 5th “Investigation”? If

we look at the central paragraph entitled “Das ‘innere’ Bewußtsein als innere
Wahrnehmung,” Husserl’s view appears to be roughly something like the
following: Inner consciousness (our awareness of our own mental life) is
described as a kind of inner perception, an inner perception which might ac-
company our occurrent experiences by taking them as its objects (Hua 19/
365).
Husserl’s use of the term “inner consciousness” contains a clear reference
to Brentano’s position in Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt. Accord-
ing to Brentano, all occurrent experiences are conscious, that is, they are all
accompanied by an inner consciousness. As Brentano (and Husserl) were well
aware, this doctrine can easily lead to an infinite regress, namely if the ac-
companying inner consciousness is itself conceived of as an independent
experience. Were that the case, it itself would also have to be accompanied
by a further inner consciousness, and so forth. In order to avoid this conse-
quence, Brentano argues that the inner consciousness in question is an inter-
nal feature of the primary experience, and not a new experience. An experience
is conscious not by being taken as an object by a further experience, but by
taking itself as object. Let me provide a simple illustration: While hearing a
tone, I can be aware of hearing it. What is the structure of my consciousness
in this case? I have a perception of a tone, and an awareness of the percep-
tion, and consequently two objects: The tone and its perception. Contrary to
appearance I do not, however, have two different experiences. As Brentano
points out, the perception of the tone is so intrinsically and intimately united
with the awareness of the perception of the tone, that they only constitute one
single psychical phenomenon. Their apparent separation is merely due to a
conceptual differentiation.11 Brentano consequently claims that every inten-
tional act has a double object, a primary and a secondary. In the case of the
hearing of a tone, the primary and thematic object is the tone, the secondary
and unthematic object is the hearing. It is important to notice, however, that
this secondary object of the act although conscious is not itself thematically
observed (beobachtet). To observe something thematically is to take it as one’s
primary object, and for the act to do that with itself is strictly impossible. The
tone which we hear is observed, the hearing of the tone not, since it is only by
observing the tone, that we are aware of the hearing; only by intending the
primary object, that we are aware of the secondary object.12
How does Husserl appraise Brentano’s theory? Rather negatively, in fact.
Husserl denies that there is any phenomenological evidence in support of the
claim concerning the existence of a constant and continuous inner perception,
and he consequently rejects Brentano’s theory as a piece of construction (Hua
19/367, 19/759).
 57
Where does this leave us with regard to Husserl’s own position? It is very
tempting to conclude as follows: According to Husserl, our experiences are
brought to consciousness when they are objectified by an accompanying in-
ner perception. An inner perception which Husserl incidentally also char-
acterizes with the use of the term “reflection” (Hua 19/669). In contrast to
Brentano, however, Husserl does not believe that this inner perception is al-
ways present. On the contrary, it only accompanies our experiences under
unusual circumstances, namely whenever we turn our attention away from the
worldly objects and towards our experiences, that is, whenever we reflect. In
short, Husserl defends a reflection-theoretical account of self-awareness.
By and large, this has been the dominant interpretation of Husserl’s posi-
tion in Logische Untersuchungen (more imprudent scholars have even claimed
that it also remains true for Husserl’s later work). Let me give a few exam-
ples. In Selbstbewußtsein und Selbstbestimmung Tugendhat argues that Husserl
in Logische Untersuchungen defined self-awareness as a relation between two
different experiences, one taking the other as its object in an inner perception.13
In Karen Gloy’s Bewußtseinstheorien we find a related interpretation. Accord-
ing to her, the main difference between Husserl and Brentano is that whereas
Brentano speaks of one single act which is intentionally directed towards a
physical phenomenon and non-intentionally towards itself, Husserl speaks of
two different intentional acts:14

Von Husserl wird das innere Bewußtsein als innere Wahrnehmung verstanden.
Wahrnehmung aber ist prinzipiell intentional strukturiert, folglich untersteht
sie auch als innere der Intentionalitätsstruktur. Sie ist daher nur angemessen
bestimmt, wenn sie als Akt interpretiert wird.15

At first glance this interpretation seems to have a solid textual basis. As a

consequence the standard criticism of Husserl appears warranted: Due to his
preoccupation with intentionality Husserl took object-consciousness as the
paradigm of every kind of awareness and therefore settled with a model of
self-awareness based upon the subject-object dichotomy, with its entailed
difference between the intending and the intended. As a consequence, Husserl
never discovered the existence of a pre-reflective self-awareness, but remained
stuck in the traditional, but highly problematic reflection-theoretical model
of self-awareness.16
On closer inspection, however, one can find a number of statements scat-
tered throughout Logische Untersuchungen which runs counter to this inter-
pretation, and which might warrant a new reading. To repeat, according to the
standard interpretation of the central 5th section in the 5th Investigation,
Husserl is supposed to be arguing that an occurrent experience becomes con-
scious when it is taken as an object by a higher-order intentional act, namely
by an inner perception. But how does this agree with the following series of
assertions? In the 1st Investigation, Husserl writes that sensations are origi-
58
nally simply lived through as moments of experience, they are not objectified
and taken as objects. This only happens in a subsequent psychological reflec-
tion (Hua 19/80). This assertion is then followed up in the 2nd “Investigation”,
where we find the following very significant remark:

Daß der zugehöriger Belauf an Empfindungen oder Phantasmen erlebt und

in diesem Sinne bewußt ist, besagt nicht und kann nicht besagen, daß er
Gegenstand eines Bewußtseins in dem Sinne eines darauf gerichteten
Wahrnehmens, Vorstellens, Urteilens ist (Hua 19/165. Cf. 19/395).

Obviously the central word is the term “bewußt.” Husserl is arguing that sen-
sations are not a phenomenological nothing. On the contrary, they are con-
scious, that is, experientially given, when they are lived through, and as he
points out this givenness does not come about as the result of an objectiva-
tion, does not come about because the sensations are taken as objects by an
(internal) perception. The sensations are given, not as objects, but exactly as
subjective experiences.17 The very same statement can be found in the 5th
Investigation. There Husserl writes that the sensations as well as the inten-
tional acts themselves (i.e., all that is really contained in the stream of con-
sciousness) are lived through and experienced (erlebt), but that they do not
appear in an objectified manner, they are neither seen nor heard. They are
conscious without being intentional objects (Hua 19/395, 19/399). This is not
to deny that we can in fact direct our attention towards our experiences, and
thereby take them as objects of an inner perception (Hua 19/424), but this only
occurs the moment we reflect.
In the light of these statements, the conclusion is easy to draw: Husserl does
not seek to identify the givenness (or to be more precise the self-givenness)
of our experiences with the givenness of objects. Thus, unlike Brentano Husserl
does not believe that our experiences are conscious by being taken as secondary
objects. As he explicitly states in the 6th Investigation: “Erlebtsein ist nicht
Gegenständlichsein”(Hua 19/669). In contrast to Gloy’s interpretation, Husserl
obviously did realize that the structure of object-intentionality falls short when
it comes to an understanding of experiential self-givenness. Why speak of self-
givenness? Because whereas we in the case of the givenness of an object have
to operate with a distinction between the object that is given and the subject
to whom it is given, this distinction is no longer legitimate when it comes to
the first-personal givenness of our experiences. The experience is given in and
through and for itself.18 The very duality involved in intentionality, the differ-
ence between the intending subject and the intended object, cannot be upheld:
“Zwischen dem erlebten oder bewußten Inhalt und dem Erlebnis selbst ist kein
Unterschied. Das Empfundene z.B. ist nichts anderes als die Empfindung”
(Hua 19/362).19
Husserl’s account in the central 5th section which deals with the issue of
inner consciousness and inner perception should consequently not make us
 59
overlook that he elsewhere in Logische Untersuchungen employs the highly
relevant distinction between perceiving (Wahrnehmen) and experiencing
(Erleben): prior to reflection one perceives the perceptual object, but one
experiences (erlebt) the intentional act. Although I am not intentionally di-
rected towards the act (this only happens in the subsequent reflection, where
the act is thematized), the act is not unconscious but conscious, that is pre-
reflectively self-given.
The remaining question is then whether Husserl’s account in the 5th sec-
tion simply contradicts his other statements, or whether it is possible to re-
interpret the paragraph in a manner that removes the contradiction. Basically
we have the choice between the two following interpretations:

1. Husserl equates self-awareness with reflective (or introspective) self-aware-

ness. He denies however that this type of self-awareness is constantly present
(Hua 19/384).20
2. Husserl distinguishes between two types of experiential self-givenness, a
reflective and a pre-reflective one. What he is denying in the 5th paragraph
is simply the claim that we are always and incessantly conscious of our own
experiences as objects. But this does not prevent the experiences from be-
ing conscious in a pre-reflective and non-objectifying manner, and that is
exactly what he is claiming elsewhere in the text.21

Needless to say, I believe the second interpretation to be the correct one. It

removes the contradiction and presents us with a better theory.

5. Critical remarks

It is now time to return to the question posed in the beginning of my paper. Is

Husserl’s account of the non-egological character of the stream of conscious-
ness and of the nature of self-awareness persuasive? More specifically, does
his treatment of these issues in Logische Untersuchungen compare to or even
surpass the analyses we find in his later works? To put it in one word: No. In
the rest of my article I will briefly try to argue for this negative appraisal.
A. Let me first return to Husserl’s account of self-awareness. Although this
account is probably far less problematic than usually believed, although it is
in fact very much on the right track, it remains severely underdetermined and
can by no means compete with the analyses that were subsequently developed
in volumes like Ding und Raum, Ideen II, Erste Philosophie II, Analysen
zur passiven Synthesis not to speak of Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des
inneren Zeitbewußtseins. In fact, I think the evidence for this is so overwhelm-
ing that I doubt that anybody truly familiar with Husserl’s later analyses would
disagree with my appraisal. The complexity of Husserl’s mature theory, the
60
fact that it is integrated into and intertwined with his analyses of a number of
related issues, such as the nature of intentionality, spatiality, temporality, at-
tention etc., prevents any quick summary of his theory, but let me at the very
least mention some of the aspects that were later introduced, but which re-
main absent in the account we find in Logische Untersuchungen:

• An analysis of the temporal structure of self-awareness. Under this head-

ing we will find both Husserl’s account of the relation between impressional
self-givenness and the retentional modification, but also his differentiation
between the temporality of reflective vs. pre-reflective self-awareness
• An investigation of the lived body and of a variety of bodily forms of self-
awareness, including reflections on the relation between the kinesthetic sen-
sations and inner time-consciousness
• An account of the relation between self-affection and hetero-affection, and
more generally of the relation between self-awareness and intentionality,
and between selfhood and alterity
• A detailed analysis of different types of reflection
• An analysis of the intersubjective modalities of self-awareness

Apart from the fact that Husserl’s later theory of self-awareness is far more
articulate, and draws upon far more aspects than his treatment in Logische
Untersuchungen, there is also another significant development. Although
Husserl was initially prepared to concede that the issue of self-awareness had
priority over an investigation of the stream of consciousness, he did not make
a similar claim when it came to the relation between self-awareness and in-
tentionality. On the contrary, Husserl unequivocally seemed to consider in-
tentionality as the most important topic. Later on, however, Husserl came to
consider the elucidation of self-awareness to be of at least as much if not more
importance to phenomenology than the analysis of intentionality. Not only did
his own reflective methodology make such extensive use of reflection that a
detailed examination of reflective self-awareness was called for, but Husserl
also very well knew that his analysis of intentionality would lack a proper
foundation as long as the problem concerning the self-givenness of conscious-
ness remained unaccounted for. That is, without an elucidation of the unique
first-personal givenness of subjectivity, it would be impossible to account
convincingly for the appearance of objects – after all, these object do not simply
appear, they appear for someone i.e., in my case for me – and as a consequence
phenomenology would be incapable of realizing its own proper task, namely
to clarify the conditions of possibility for appearance.22
B. Whereas a criticism of Husserl’s account of self-awareness in Logische
Untersuchungen might be rather uncontroversial, a critical appraisal of
Husserl’s non-egological position might be more contested. Although I once
again think that everybody would agree that Husserl’s very cursory descrip-
 61
tion of the stream of consciousness is no match to what we find in his lectures
on inner time-consciousness, some might still tend to assess his rejection of
the pure ego positively. The matter is further complicated by the fact that
Husserl operates with a number of different notions of ego, and with a variety
of different egological levels.23
One way to approach the issue is to ask what it was that eventually made
Husserl change his mind. Why did he write in the 2nd edition of the Investi-
gations that he was no longer opposed to the doctrine of a ‘pure’ ego, and that
he in the meantime had managed to find it, i.e. had learned not to ignore it
due to his aversion to different corrupt forms of ego-metaphysics (Hua 19/
364, 19/374)?
As Marbach has shown, one of Husserl’s principal reasons for this change
was the difficulties his initial theory encountered when it came to the prob-
lem of intersubjectivity!24 A condition of possibility for investigating inter-
subjectivity is that one operates with a conception of subjectivity that allows
one to demarcate one consciousness from another, thereby allowing for plu-
rality. But as long as Husserl held on to a non-egological theory, which oper-
ated with anonymous experiences belonging to nobody (Hua 16/40), and which
took the unity of consciousness to be nothing but the sum total of all contigu-
ous experiences, he was faced with difficulties of the following kind. If we
imagine a situation in which I am delighted by the unexpected praise of a
colleague, we would say that I am delighted not by my own praise but by the
praise of another. But it is exactly this distinction which will evade me as long
as I opt for a non-egological theory. In my encounter with the colleague’s
praise, I am both self-conscious and conscious of somebody else. I am con-
scious of two different subjects. What is it that permits me to distinguish be-
tween my own experience (of delight) and the other’s experience (of praise)?
Well, when I am aware of a pain, a perception or a thought from the first-person
perspective, the experience in question is felt immediately, non-inferentially and
non-criterially as mine, i.e., I do not first scrutinize a specific perception or
feeling of pain, and subsequently identify it as being mine. But whereas my
own experience is given to me originarily in this first-personal mode of
presentation, this is obviously not the case with the praise of the colleague. In
fact, the first-personal givenness of the other’s experience is in principle in-
accessible to me, and it is exactly therefore that the other is given to me as an
other. As Husserl writes: Had I direct access to the other’s experiences, they
would become part of my own subjectivity, and the difference between the
two of us would disappear (Hua 1/139, 15/12, 9/416).
When Husserl realized this, he abandoned his non-egological theory. Every
conscious experience belongs to a subject, i.e., either to me or to somebody
else. It cannot belong to nobody. Husserl’s abandonment of the non-egological
conception was consequently motivated by his growing recognition of the first-
person perspective. A recognition that was still wanting as long as Husserl
62
insisted on conceiving of the experiences as being nobody’s experiences. To
put it differently, Husserl’s reflections illustrate yet another legitimate way to
speak of an ego. The ego does not need to be conceived of as something stand-
ing apart from or above the experience, nor does one need to conceive of the
relation between ego and experience as an external relation of ownership. It
is also possible to describe the very first-personal givenness of an experience,
that is, its very self-givenness or self-manifestation, as the most basic form of
egocentricity.
A position which equates the first-person mode of givenness and a certain
basic sense of egocentricity or ipseity25 is clearly preferable to the one Husserl
adopts in Logische Untersuchungen. Not only does Husserl’s more mature
position seem more mindful of the first-person perspective, but it also ena-
bles one to broach the question of intersubjectivity. And finally, whereas the
non-egological conception of self-awareness which Husserl defended in
Logische Untersuchungen was faced with the difficulty of accounting for a
self-awareness that could bridge the difference between different acts, and be
established across temporal distance, i.e. with the problem of only being able
to account for the self-awareness of a single, isolated act, these issues are all
handled by Husserl’s mature theory.

6. Conclusion

In the beginning of the paper I posed the following question: Is Husserl’s

investigation of consciousness in Logische Untersuchungen superior to the
account he offers later on, or is it rather the case that most of the insights that
can be found in Logische Untersuchungen are superseded by Husserl’s later
analyses? Some interpreters have claimed that there is no relevant difference
between Husserl’s view on consciousness (particularly his conception of self-
awareness) in Logische Untersuchungen and in his later works, and they there-
fore think that a criticism of Husserl’s account in Logische Untersuchungen
can serve as a refutation of Husserl’s position tout court. Another group of
scholars are so opposed to Husserl’s transcendental turn (which they take to
constitute a betrayal of the very phenomenological enterprise) that they ei-
ther condemn or ignore all of Husserl’s later writings, and instead praise
Logische Untersuchungen as his phenomenological masterpiece. As should
have become clear from my presentation, I consider both views to be highly
problematic. Obviously one should be very careful with any hasty generali-
zation. But I hope that I have been able to show that when it comes to an under-
standing of consciousness, Husserl’s treatment in Logische Untersuchungen
represents the beginning and by no means the culmination. That I also tend
to believe this to be true of most of the other topics treated in Logische
Untersuchungen is another story.
 63
Notes

1. Edmund Husserl, Briefwechsel II (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994), p. 27.

2. Jean-Paul Sartre, La transcendance de l’ego (Paris: Vrin, 1936/1988), p. 20.
3. Cf. however John D. Scanlon, “Consciousness, the Streetcar and the Ego: Pro Husserl,
Contra Sartre,” Philosophical Forum 2: 332–354, 1971, and Rudolf Bernet, La vie du
sujet (PUF: Paris, 1994), 300–303.
4. Sartre, La transcendance de l’ego pp. 21–23. Referring to Husserl’s investigations in
Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewußtseins, Sartre mentions in passing that the
Längsintentionalität unites the chain of retentions, but he does not elaborate on this in
La transcendance de l’ego (p. 22).
5. Ibid., pp. 31–32, 37.
6. Ibid., pp. 34, 43–44.
7. Ibid., pp. 65, 69.
8. Ibid., p. 78.
9. Ibid., p. 85. In L’être et le néant (Paris: Tel Gallimard, 1943), p. 280, Sartre admits that
this maneuver did not work.
10. Just like Sartre, Husserl even hints that a non-egological position might solve the prob-
lem of solipsism. As he writes in the lectures on Ding und Raum from 1907: “Die
phänomenologische Reduktion ist ja nicht die solipsistische Reduktion, und das Ich ist
ja selbst ein Dingliches, nur im intentionalen Zusammenhang und seinen wesentlichen
Formen sich Konstituierendes und nur dadurch sich Ausweisendes. Welches Recht es hat,
die Bewußtseinsgestaltungen auf ein Ich zu beziehen, auf die oder jene Person, das ist
durch objektivierendes Denken und durch seine Logik erst zu begründen, und dieses
Recht weist seinen Sinn aus in der phänomenologischen Analyse. Das Denken aber, von
dem sie spricht, ist niemandes Denken. Wir abstrahieren nicht bloß vom Ich, als ob das
Ich doch darin stehe und nur nicht darauf hingewiesen würde, sondern wir schalten die
transzendente Setzung des Ich aus und halten uns an das Absolute, an das Bewußtsein im
reinen Sinn” (Hua 16/40–41, my emphasis).
11. Franz Brentano, Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt I (Hamburg: Felix Meiner,
1874/1973), pp. 179–180.
12. Ibid., p. 181. For a more extensive discussion of Brentano’s theory of self-awareness see
my article “Brentano and Husserl on Self-awareness,” Études Phénoménologiques 27–
28, 1998, pp. 127–168.
13. E. Tugendhat, Selbstbewußtsein und Selbstbestimmung (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
1979), pp. 52–53.
14. Karen Gloy, Bewusstseinstheorien. Zur Problematik und Problemgeschichte des Be-
wusstseins und Selbstbewussteins (Freiburg: Alber, 1998), p. 296.
15. Ibid., p. 293.
16. Cf. ibid., p. 300. For a criticism of this traditional understanding of self-awareness cf.
my book Self-awareness and Alterity. A Phenomenological Investigation (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1999), pp. 14–37.
17. To claim that there is only one type of givenness or manifestation, namely object-
givenness, and that the sensations are therefore either given as objects, or not given at
all, is to fall victim to a misunderstanding that according to Michel Henry has dominated
most of Western thought, and which he has dubbed ontological monism. It is exactly this
principle of ontological monism which has been behind the persisting attempts to inter-
pret self-awareness in terms of reflection or introspection. In these cases the model of
intentionality has been the paradigm, self-awareness has been understood as the result of
an objectifying intentional activity, and therefore taken to be a special form of inner
64
object-manifestation (M. Henry, L’essence de la manifestation (Paris: PUF, 1963), pp.
91–118). In contrast, one has to insist on the difference between object-givenness and
self-givenness. Although the term “givenness” is used in both cases, they do not share
the same structure (cf. my article “Michel Henry and the Phenomenology of the Invis-
ible,” Continental Philosophy Review, 32/3, 1999, pp. 223–240).
18. Elsewhere I have argued more extensively for the claim that phenomenal consciousness
is a (weak) form of self-awareness (in Self-awareness and Alterity. A phenomenological
Investigation, cited above, and in my article “Self and Consciousness,” in D. Zahavi
(ed.): Exploring the self. Philosophical and Psychopathological Perspectives on Self-
experience (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2000), pp. 55–74). I consequently take it to be
legitimate to speak of self-awareness the moment I am no longer simply conscious of a
foreign object, but of my experience of the object as well, for in this case my subjectivity
reveals itself to me. That is, whenever I am acquainted with an experience in its first-
personal mode of presentation, whenever there is a “what it is like” involved with its in-
herent quality of “mineness,” we are dealing with a (primitive) form of self-awareness.
19. Husserl also remarks that the appearance does not itself appear (this would generate an
infinite regress), it is simply experienced (Hua 19/360). In connection with this statement,
Benoist has remarked that since the experience does not appear, but is exactly experi-
enced, there is an inappearance at the very core of the phenomenon. When Benoist then
continues by saying that every appearance is accompanied by an originary self-sensa-
tion, and that the “living” of this immanence is defined by the absence of any internal
self-distance or self-differentiation (J. Benoist, Phénoménologie, sémantique, ontologie
(Paris: PUF, 1997), pp. 251, 255), it should be clear that we are faced with a remarkably
Henryian reading of the Investigations.
20. A contemporary philosopher who adopts this position is Searle. Searle speaks of the
mistake involved in claiming that all our states of consciousness involve self-awareness.
One version of this mistake would be to argue that every conscious state apart from in-
tending a certain object also has itself as its own intentional object, i.e., in the case of a
perception of a red sports car, we would have a perceptual awareness of the sports car
and in addition a second-order awareness of the perception (J.R. Searle, Mind, Language
and Society (New York: Basic Books, 1998), p. 73). Since Searle denies that this is a case
for all conscious states he can conclude that it is a mistake to say that they all involve
self-awareness. But obviously that argument is only valid as long as a the type of self-
awareness just outlined is the only one around.
21. It could be argued that this criticism is in part based on a misunderstanding. Husserl
seems to equate Brentano’s notion of inner consciousness with his own notion of inner
perception, but he is thereby overlooking the fact that Brentano explicitly warns against
understanding inner consciousness as a kind of thematic observation (cf. F. Brentano,
Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt I (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1874/1973), p.
181). To put it differently, if Husserl takes Brentano to be claiming that we are constantly
thematically aware of our occurrent experiences he is right in rejecting this thesis but
wrong in ascribing it to Brentano. If Husserl is objecting to Brentano’s idea that we are
constantly objectifying our own experiences, he is right.
22. For an extensive discussion of Husserl’s theory of self-awareness cf. my book Self-
awareness and Alterity. A Phenomenological Investigation, cited above.
23. For a more elaborate account of the distinction between these different egological levels
cf. my book Self-awareness and Alterity. A Phenomenological Investigation, pp. 138–
156, and my article “Self and Consciousness,” both cited above.
24. E. Marbach, Das Problem des Ich in der Phänomenologie Husserls (Den Haag: Martinus
Nijhoff, 1974), pp. 77, 90.
25. Cf. EU/193, Hua 14/184, 14/151, 4/252, 4/350.