The Transcendence of the Ego

The Transcendence of the Ego

Cover of the first edition
Author	Jean-Paul Sartre
Original title	La Transcendance de l'ego: Esquisse d'une description phénomenologique
Language	French
Subject	Philosophy
Publication date	1936
Publication place	France
Media type	Print

The Transcendence of the Ego (French: La Transcendance de l'ego: Esquisse d'une description phénomenologique) is a philosophical and phenomenological essay written by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in 1934 and published in 1936. The essay demonstrates Sartre’s transition from traditional phenomenological thinking and most notably his break from the philosopher Edmund Husserl’s school of thought (phenomenology), and into his own. This transition is more apparent after Sartre’s military service from 1939 where we observe a rather more sympathetic view of being in the world, a topic that is dealt with in much greater detail in his 1943 work Being and Nothingness. This essay begins Sartre's study and hybridisation of phenomenology and ontology.

The basis of the essay is to at once appreciate Husserl's description of 'intended objects' (as appearing) being described in their own right, but also to observe the ego as 'in the world' and not materially of consciousness. For Sartre, it was rather more apt to describe the ego as an object for consciousness.