Körper, Leib, Gemüt, Seele, Geist: Conceptions of the Self in Early Phenomenology

Abstract

This chapter considers conceptions of the self in three early phenomenological thinkers: Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Edith Stein, and Gerda Walther. Although colleagues or students of Husserl and influenced by his phenomenology, they developed their own phenomenology of the human person in explicit opposition to Husserl’s more “idealist” turn. They remain, however, virtually unknown today in philosophical circles. This chapter seeks to retrieve their philosophies of the human being and suggests that their particular phenomenological approach still has much to teach us, especially in the context of the conversation about the “self after the subject” and the question of inter-subjectivity.