Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show that Husserl's concept of a constituting life can be described as the phenomenological Unconscious. This allows one to argue that Husserl's distinction between passive and active syntheses must be integrated by that which is between conscious and unconscious syntheses. Starting from this perspective, the living organism reveals to be the primordial form of the constitutive process. Such theses will be defended by referring to Freud, to Fink's criticism of psychoanalytic treatment of the Unconscious and to Merleau-Ponty's reflections on the spontaneity of transcendental attitude.