Andrew Krema

In this article, I give a systematic exposition of Edmund Husserl’s account of Hingabe, a phenomenological concept that has only recently received attention. I contend that the concept of Hingabe phenomenologically reveals that the ego of the intentional correlation ego-cogito-cogitatum is not an empty pole and more than a mere ‘datum of manifestation,’ but is active, engaging itself at various depths in experience. I trace the concept in the three types of experience in which Hingabe appears in Husserl’s work. First, in interested attention, the tension of interest is not a one-sided attraction of the object, but the ego is active “giving itself over” to interested objects of attention that makes possible interested engagement with an object. Second, in value experience, Hingabe refers to a way in which the ego contributes to registering genuine value in an ‘originary’ experience. In such experience, the ego opens itself and allows for the value object to impose its weight on the ego, thereby registering the value, yet Hingabe can also be a source of error in evaluation. Finally, Hingabe concerns the love for vocational objects that are at the core of the person and play out in everyday life. In these analyses, we see a way in which the subject is active in the appearing of the world.