The Reality of the Invisible: The Phenomenology of Invisibility in H. Conrad-Martius’s Metaphysical Realism

This article aims to establish the theoretical foundations for a phenomenology of the invisible, conceived as an ontologically primary dimension of reality. It draws on the work of the realist phenomenologist Hedwig Conrad-Martius (1888–1966) and situates the discussion within the methodological framework of Husserl’s phenomenology—as developed by members of the Munich–Göttingen Circle, of which Conrad-Martius was one of the leading figures, and which employed the methods of Ideation and epoché. This study elaborates three ontological structures, Nothingness, Selfness (ichhaftes Sein), and Transcendence, proposed here as anchor points for addressing the phenomenon of invisibility. Through this, it seeks to extend the phenomenological notion of givenness from what appears to that which resists appearance. Given that Conrad-Martius herself does not explicitly link these structures—as developed in her thought—to invisibility, nor does her writing offer a systematic conceptual development or detailed examination of their broader implications, the author—taking inspiration from Eugen Fink’s notion of “philosophizing-along-with” (Mit-Philosophieren) as a means to achieve a methodological and “theoretical stance”—frames a thematic exploration of invisibility in relation to these structures. The article thus proposes an ontologically grounded phenomenological framework for understanding the invisible as an integral dimension of the totality of reality: the primordial ground preceding all existence (Nothingness), the structural condition of human reality (Selfness), and that which lies beyond both human finitude and existence as such (Transcendence). In doing so, it seeks to contribute to contemporary phenomenological discourse by articulating the invisible as a fundamental mode of Being.