ABSTRACT
The main goal of this chapter is to adopt an Aristotelian model in order to account for Husserl’s conception of philosophical subjectivity. By comparing noûs poietikós with light, Aristotle introduces the model of the double actualization according to which active intellect makes things thinkable and at the same time actually thinks. I will examine Husserl’s distinction of the stages of phenomenological research in light of Aristotle’s model of double actualization. My thesis is that the phenomenologizing subject can be described as an active power (héxis, in Aristotle’s terms) to be fully actualized by adopting a self-critical attitude toward phenomenological research. This will also allow me to argue that at the level of the natural attitude, the mundane ego trains itself to make a transcendental attitude habitual in an unconscious and involuntary manner (en parergoi, in Aristotle’s terms).
