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Reviewing the phenomenological position in respect of subjectivity - as in the preceding chapter - two questions seem to emerge with particular acuteness, and need clarification. One is with regard to the possibility of final characterization of the ontological status of consciousness - a question we prefer to keep in abeyance till the more general one regarding ontological commitment in Phenomenology is dealt with (see Chapter VII). The other question concerns, as already noted in the last chapter, the problem of identifying - or rather, relating - the principle of transcendental subjectivity with the actual human subject that is a person. In the latter case it has moreover to be decided whether the phenomenological view of pure consciousness would necessarily assume an "egological" character or should remain in the long run non-egological. Whatever alternative may be found finally acceptable, the relation between the so-called "transcendental ego" and the factual I or ego as ordinarily understood, has in any case to be shown. But that would entail a phenomenological analysis and description of the ego taken as a fact. So we come upon an investigation, on phenomenological lines, into the nature of person - the concept representing the facthood of human I, the rational self-conscious individual, who at the same time acts purposively.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-010-3369-5_5

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