The unity argument: Phenomenology's departure from Kant

Abstract

Phenomenology questions the centrality that Kant attributes to the “I think.” It claims that on the pre‐reflective level experience is selfless as unity is given. I call this the “unity argument.” The paper explores the significance of this claim by focusing on the work of Edmund Husserl. What interests me is that although the unity argument claims that we can account for the unity of experience without appealing to the an “I think,” Husserl agrees with Kant that experience must be owned. Moreover, he endorses Kant's dictum that ‘the “I think” must be capable of accompanying all my presentations’. The aim of the paper is to explore how Husserl can consistently appeal to Kant's account of the “I think” and at the same time contend that on the pre‐reflective level experience is selfless. The thesis I wish to advance is that although the unity argument acknowledges that experience is necessarily mine, it reveals that it is a necessary feature of self‐reference that I have never taken absolute ownership over my experience. This may explain why our sense of self can often be out of tune with the way we live our lives.