Abstract

The aim of this paper is to defend the thesis, found across the works of Edmund Husserl, that the most fundamental level of subjectivity – the so-called absolute consciousness – is given in time as an immediate unity. In order to do so, I first consider Martin Hägglund’s critique of the Husserlian absolute consciousness. My subsequent answer to Hägglund has two parts: firstly, I argue that Hägglund’s own account of subjectivity is contradictory; secondly, I offer a model of absolute consciousness impervious to Hägglund’s critique. Drawing on Husserl’s “Bernau Manuscripts,” I demonstrate that time is, in fact, compatible with the notions of immediacy and unity, and that a correct account of the Husserlian absolute consciousness recognizes the latter to be given as a temporally differentiated immediate unity.