The Post-War Reception of Ideen I and Reflection

Abstract

The paper submits the phenomenological concept of reflection to the existentialist, hermeneutical, and Neo-Kantian critique. All three traditions found Husserl’s experiment of the annihilation of the world indefensible. The paper identifies this experiment as an early expression of the paradox of subjectivity. The paper offers a piece of eidetic description, which suggests that the paradox of subjectivity is rooted in the paradox of reflection. According to my central thesis, phenomenological reflection is a radicalization of mundane and psychological reflection, which brings to light that the transcendental and the mundane egos are two moments of the egoic structure of experience.