Roman Ingarden’s Egology and Cartesianism

Abstract

The article focuses on the problem of egology in the thought of Roman Ingarden, a conception that offers a creative and critical response to Husserl’s egology and converges with the historical conception of the ego in Descartes. It analyses the problem in two stages based on two important texts by Ingarden: Controversy over the Existence of the World and Man and Time. Starting with reflections on the status of pure consciousness, Ingarden recognises the pure ego as something solely abstract compared with the worldly and irreducible real ego. From there his reflections on the ego move on to the problem of its substantiality, specific temporality as well as the role and experience of the body to finally produce a philosophy of existence with ethical and personalistic overtones. In this way Ingarden recreates the egological journey in Descartes, who, searching for the foundation of knowledge, identified subjectivity as the union of body and soul and saw its fulfilment in the ethical experience of generosity. \n\nKeywords: egology, ego, Cartesianism, Ingarden, Husserl, substantiality, temporality, human existence, realism.\n