transcendental ego

Definitions

The conscious self which is the unifying subject of a person's experiences and which cannot itself be experienced as an object, understood by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) as knowable only by inference, and understood by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) as pure consciousness.

Examples

“If, however, the self be taken to mean⟳, not an object existing among other objects, but the subject logically implied in all knowledge, the "Transcendental Ego" which we never can know⟳ as an object, and which therefore we never can "get⟳ behind," that may be allowed to be the ultimate reality.”

“On the basis of such a theory, it becomes legitimate to assert that every human being "contains" a transcendental Ego.”

“The absolute goal of all phenomenological inquiry is pure consciousness as it manifests itself in the transcendental ego, the source of all intentional acts.”

CEFR level