transcendental ego

noun1

1. •
   The conscious self which is the unifying subject of a person's experiences and which cannot itself be experienced as an object, understood by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) as knowable only by inference, and understood by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) as pure consciousness.

   • On the basis of such a theory, it becomes legitimate to assert that every human being "contains" a transcendental Ego. — 1957