The ‘A Priori’ Moment of the Subject-Object Dialectic in Transcendental Phenomenology: The Relationship between ‘A Priori’ and ‘Ideality’

Abstract

“Consciousness appears… differently depending upon the difference of the given object and its continuation qua continuation of the given object” (“Das Bewußtsein erscheint… verschieden nach der Verschiedenheit des gegebenen Gegenstandes, und seine Fortbildung als eine Fortbildung des Objects….” Hegel).¹ This statement expresses the essence of what is implied in the subject-object-dialectic of human consciousness: subject as well as object are feasible and definable only in a complementary or reciprocal distinction from each other. This position is supported especially in the phenomenological definition of the phenomenon proper, which presents itself in the mutual interchange of subjectivity and objectivity which in turn are to be understood as correlational concepts which cannot be defined as independent ‘substances’.