Transcendental and Spiritual Consciousness

Abstract

Transcendentalism is one of the most relevant concepts of modern and contemporary philosophy. Many important works have been elaborated on this subject over the years. For example, A-T Tymieniecka’s researches showed how concepts of mental and corporeal experience play an essential part in grasping overall process of life and in the constitution of its wholeness. Starting from this point, we would like to go through the definition of transcendentalism as it is explained by Husserl in his phenomenology of living experience. We would focus on the meaning of spiritual and transcendental consciousness, highlighting the role played by the first and second group of Husserlian ethical lectures. Namely, we would show the differences between the definition of transcendental consciousness, as we know it in Idee I and as it is described in the ethical writings of 1914 and 1920. We think, in fact, that the ethical researches compel Husserl to work out an idea of transcendental consciousness nearer to a personal living experience than to epistemological one.