Abstract:

Can Alexander Pf?nder’s studies of character be called the phenomenology of character? Of course, naming is secondary to and determined by the methods, namely, the question lies in whether or not the methods that Pf?nder employed in his studies and analyses of character belong to phenomenological methodology. Here I can give a preliminary answer: if the methods of the phenomenology of consciousness consist of two aspects, namely, reflection as the transcendental reduction and eidetic intuition as the eidetic reduction, then the foundational part of Pf?nder’s studies of character is undoubtedly first and foremost the “phenomenology of character” in the sense of eidetic and theoretical psychology. Secondary to it may be the “axiology of character” and “nomology of character” in his terminology. Moreover, his studies of character also differ from experimental psychology and psychoanalysis with its modes of experimental observation in that his studies as such are mainly performed in the reflection on the own subject and the empathetic understanding of other subjects.

Key words: character, phenomenology, Alexander Pf?nder, Edmund Husserl, Carl Gustav Jung