Reflection Upon the Living Present and the Primal Consciousness in Husserl’s Phenomenology

Abstract

In this paper I work on the problem of the phenomenological reflection upon the living present in Husserl’s last analysis of time and try, by following his manuscripts chronologically, to bring out how Husserl carries out his reflections upon the living present in those manuscripts, and how he himself understands these reflections. It will be discovered through this chronological research that Husserl, in his late manuscripts on time, carries out his reflections upon the living present based on the self-touching or inner primal consciousness of the functioning Ego, and that he, wavering between epistemological and ontological perspectives in those manuscripts, comes finally to present an epistemological-ontological method of reflective exhibition grounded on the self-touching consciousness. Lastly, a further epistemological-ontological interpretation will be attempted to clarify what the self-touching consciousness really is and how the reflection is founded in it.