On the “Idol of the Mind”: Edmund Husserl and Paul Valéry

Abstract

This article analyses some less explored structural parts of the phenomenological method as it was construed by Husserl in order to validate a twofold thesis. First, the application of phenomenological notions such as the neutrality modification, the distinction between the positional, transcendental, and imaginative ego, body-consciousness, etc. stimulates the deconstruction of a “spiritual” quest in any traditional and/or modern sense. On the other hand, this approach offers some new possibilities for the quest for “transcendental absolu- tion” which is illustrated here by Valéry’s creative approach. Husserl’s and Valéry’s distinct but complementary projects represent several major intellectual shifts in early contempo- rary Western philosophy and literature.