Introduction. The article reveals some methodological aspects of the phenomenological discussion of the personal subject. The dispute is caused by realistic tendencies in phenomenology, according to which the totality of properties of a thing allows us to assert the existence of their ontological basis, which is contained in the essence of the thing. In the case of a human being, such ontological foundation is the soul, which determines the basic characteristics of the personality that exist prior to any constitution. Theoretical analysis.
