Phenomenology of Character and Personal Essence

In this paper, I discuss the notion of character as a person’s individual essence from a phenomenological standpoint. After introducing the idea of individual essence by contrast to universal essence and situating individual essence in the framework of early twentieth century characterology, I present Alexander Pfänder’s distinction between fundamental and empirical character in Grundprobleme der Charakterologie. I then turn to Emil Utitz’s criticism of this distinction as unduly introducing ethical concerns in the purely descriptive discipline of characterology. I finally introduce Edmund Husserl’s perspective on character, which aptly emphasizes the difference between talk of essence in the domain of nature and in the domain of personhood. While Husserl’s solution is not without difficulties of its own, I argue that it offers a two-dimensional view of character that avoids both Pfänder’s metaphysical overtones and Utitz’s reduction of character to a quasi-biological phenomenon. I conclude with a brief recapitulation and a statement of phenomenology’s potential to avoid standard objections to essentialism.