Essences as Concrete Universals: Husserl’s Covert Hegelianism

Abstract This essay highlights hitherto overlooked continuities between Husserl’s phenomenological idealism and Hegel’s absolute idealism. I focus on Husserl’s account of essence and argue that some of Husserl’s core expositions of essences suggest that they are akin to Hegelian concrete universals: like concrete universals, phenomenological essences are ideal entities instantiated in particulars and exemplify a structure of unity-in-difference. Husserl’s proximity to these Hegelian tenets is evident in his account of the ego’s self-constitution, which is broadly consistent with Hegel’s account of the determination of the Concept. Appreciating Husserl’s similarities with Hegel suggests a means of reconciling competing metaphysical, epistemic, and transcendental interpretations of Husserl’s idealism. By revealing the extent to which the transcendental character of Husserl’s phenomenology is embedded within some absolute idealist commitments, these results locate Husserl in hybrid philosophical territory, between transcendental and absolute versions of idealism, allowing him to reconcile his transcendental and realist commitments, and offering him a defence against the charge that he succumbs to an unsophisticated and unattractive form of subjectivism.