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Towards a developmental phenomenology

transcendental-ego and body-ego

Henry Elkin

pp. 258-266

Husserl in his later years came to realize that his phenomenology, to become the properly foundational science that had always been his goal, would have to take on a genetico-historical focus. Freud, whose familial and cultural background strikingly parallels those of Husserl in some fundamental respects, formulated a theory of psycho-sexual development which greatly influenced Max Scheler’s latest work, and upon which Merleau-Ponty and Ricouer have elaborated their own thought. More recent Freudian studies on infancy, however, if examined from a phenomenologico-existential viewpoint, may apply more directly to Husserl’s goal by illuminating the very onset and development of consciousness. I wish here to present a theory, drawn mostly from Freudian investigations, which has served to clarify my own work as a psychotherapist, and which, I believe, may have an important bearing upon current phenomenological research and philosophy.

Publication details

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-010-2882-0_20

Full citation:

Elkin, H. (1972)., Towards a developmental phenomenology: transcendental-ego and body-ego, in A. Tymieniecka (ed.), The later Husserl and the idea of phenomenology, Dordrecht, Reidel, pp. 258-266.

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