ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author discusses the decisive conceptual distinctions that allow researchers to understand both the similarities and the differences between Husserl’s and Pfander’s positions. He addresses a controversial aspect of Pfander’s analysis: his assumption that willing “includes the immediate consciousness of self”. The author outlines and critically discusses Husserl’s concept of action as realization of the will as developed in his 1914 considerations. According to Pfander, willing “includes the immediate consciousness of self”–i.e. willing means being aware of oneself as the one who is willing, grasping one’s own ego and turning it into the subject of the action that follows the will. According to Husserl, the action-will which is constitutive of the action is clearly defined with respect to what is willed. The realization of the willing is to be understood as the practical execution of the willed, in relation to which the action is determined as fulfillment of an intention of the will.
