Andrea Altobrando

The notion of the “pure ego” is an expression which seems to have long been discredited. Even before the twentieth century – in the work of Hume, for instance – the idea that there is a pure pole of experience, and life, has been considered to be nothing more than a myth. More recently, criticism of the pure ego has often been made along the same lines as the criticism against the Cartesian self. That is to say, both have been regarded as something lacking not only a body, but also any psychological or historical qualifications. In this article, by means of a reconsideration of some ideas by Husserl and Hegel, I will try to show how it is possible to make sense of the pure ego, i.e. what kind of a real and, as it were, concrete meaning such an expression can have. I will claim that the capacity to refer to oneself as a pure ego is fundamental to our achievement of a understanding of oneself as a free agent.

In the this article I try to show how an interaction between the phenomenological works of Enzo Paci and of Bernhard Waldenfels can lead to some interesting results concerning Husserl's search for a rigorous and apodictic ground for knowledge and for a universal science which involves the whole life of consciousness also in its intersubjective aspects. I do not try to compare the two thinkers, nor to assess the correctness of their interpretation of Husserl's thought, but to show through their thoughts some remarks concerning problems which are still crucial in the philosophical and phenomenological debate. Paci's insistence on the practical and existential value of phenomenological reflection leads to constantly have to face the question “what is to be done?”, demanding in this way for an answering to the provocation of the Alien so well analysed by Waldenfels. Through such a process a common constitution does preserve from the lost of diversity and, at the same time, does not escape responsibility.