ABSTRACT
Historically and intellectually there are complex connections between phenomenology and the later manifestations of existentialism. The phenomenology of Husserl was one of the major influences on Sartre, although Sartre came to reject some of Husserl’s most distinctive doctrines. Some of the connecting and discussed doctrines are: that the defining feature of consciousness is intentionality so that every and only acts of consciousness are directed to a meant or intended object; the nature of the ego or I; the question of which is logically prior, essence or existence; and the possibility and adequacy of a disinterested or pure transcendental conceptualization of reality or being.
