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6. Human beings are finite. As a "being-in-the-world," we Epoché: The Photo 55 recognize that death is a "not-to-be- outstripped" (inevitable) possibility. Death as such is the possibility of the end of all possibilities. " As a "being-towards-death," as Heidegger would say, the human being becomes aware that she cannot have all the possibilities. Faced with the recognition of one's finitude, one also recognizes that one is always faced with choices. In making a choice, some one simultaneously eliminate thousands of other possible choices.

One cannot deny or understand nothing — something must be under consideration for thought to occur. In the presence of nothing, there is no person, no individual. 36 Chapter One (b) Transcendental Idealism “Everything which is and has reality for me, that is, for man, exists only in my own consciousness,” Husserl stated. According to Husserl, through reduction, the Phenomenological Ego can become and observer of itself, aware of itself, and self-conscious. Since we gain knowledge via this ego, we learn about the ego as we learn about the environment around us.

XXVI, p. 212). However, i t m a y b e n o t i c e d that Husserl does not naively take the existence of an extra-mental referent for granted. Instead, he asks which structures of consciousness entitle us to represent the world as containing particular objects transcending what is currently given to us in experience. Husserl can thus be read or at least be rationally reconstructed as both an early direct reference theorist and a nonnaive externalist on intentional content and respective meanings.