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From the very beginning, Husserl’s phenomenology is characterized by its oppositionto all kind of contemporary scientific reductionism. If the qualitative distinction betweenpure logic on the one hand, and applied logic or psychology on the other, is the leitmotivof the first part of his Logical Investigations, 6 his Ideas I establishes phenomenologyitself as an absolutely autonomous kind of science that differs both from formal logic andfrom the various material and formal ontologies which govern the object-regions of thenatural and the human sciences. 7 The “region” proper to phenomenology is no longer justpart, a more or less fragmentary part, of a homogeneous extension: it is the result of aradical change in attitude with regard to the order of dependence between “pure consciousness”and the “world” as the totality of all possible objects. Whereas “reality,” inits broadest sense, is “purely nothing” 8 apart from also being a phenomenon perceivedby consciousness, the immanent sphere of the pure ego is radically heterogeneous anddifferent from everything that is “transcendent,” i.e., from everything that is not intrinsicto the act of consciousness itself.The fundamental gnostic concepts of kosmos, psyché and pneuma (or their Germanequivalents Welt, Seele and Geist) also play a key role in phenomenology; their significationand mutual relationship, however, is slightly different from the classical gnosticschema. Though Husserl, on the one hand, does not fail to emphasize the differencebetween transcendental phenomenology and psychology as the science of the empiricalego, he maintains, on the other hand, an important distinction between empirical psychologyand the rest of the natural sciences: both phenomenology and psychology deal withinternal perceptions, which, unlike the external objects of the natural sciences, are inaccessibleto inter-subjective verification. Without relapsing into psychologism, Husserlgoes so far as to say that psychology is in a privileged relation to phenomenology, sinceall of its phenomena have their correlate in the sphere of pure subjectivity. 9 Thus, insteadof the ancient dichotomy kosmos / psyché versus pneuma, Husserl introduces a tripartitedivision by establishing first a distinction between the “natural” and the “intentional”before separating the intentionally structured, empirical subjectivity from the pure egowhose a priori structure includes the possibility, in equal measure, of being intentionallyrelated to transcendent or to transcendentally modified phenomena.The radical asymmetry -- between the “immanent” and the “transcendent” within thesphere of transcendental subjectivity -- is not limited to the single act of consciousness;it also entails a dichotomy between the subject-pole and the laws that govern the differentrealms of phenomena. If “nature” does not mean anything in itself, but is the name givento a certain form of coherence within the sphere of external and sensible phenomena, 10then pure consciousness itself can never be subject to any of these merely factual laws.Like the “pneumatic man” of ancient Gnosticism, who is independent of the “mundane,”cosmic nomos or heimarmené, 11 Husserl’s transcendental subjectivity is free of anycausal or “real” connection with the world of things; 12 it is both autonomous in itself and6See Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, Erster Teil: Prolegomena zur reinen Logik,Husserliana XVIII (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1975), 44-62, §§ 13-16. (Henceforth quoted as Hua.)7See Edmund Husserl, Ideen zur einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischenPhilosophie, Erstes Buch, Husserliana III/1, 2d ed. (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1976), 66-69; 125-127, §§ 33.59. (Henceforth quoted as Hua.)8Ibid., 106, § 49.9See Edmund Husserl, “Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft,” in idem, Aufsätze und Vorträge(1911-1921), Hua XXV (Dordrecht/ Boston/ Lancaster: Nijhoff, 1987), 17.10See Husserl, Ideen zur einer reinen Phänomenologie, 108, § 51.11See Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, 328.12See Husserl, Ideen zur einer reinen Phänomenologie, 105.223