Develops a more complete interpretation of Jean-Paul Sartre's doctrine of the transcedent ego, based on excerpts from his works Transcendence of the Ego. The title of this essay may be somewhat confusing. Transcendence of the Ego is not only the title of one of his books, it is also avery terse description of.
First published in France in 1937, this important essay marked a turning point in Sartre's philosophical development. Before writing it, he had been closely allied with phenomenologists such as Husserl and Heidegger.
Here, however, Sartre attacked Husserl's notion of a transcendental ego. The break with Husserl, in turn, facilitated Sartre's transition from phenomenology t First published in France in 1937, this important essay marked a turning point in Sartre's philosophical development. Before writing it, he had been closely allied with phenomenologists such as Husserl and Heidegger. Here, however, Sartre attacked Husserl's notion of a transcendental ego. The break with Husserl, in turn, facilitated Sartre's transition from phenomenology to the existentialist doctrines of his masterwork, Being and Nothingness, which was completed a few years later while the author was a prisoner of war.This student-friendly edition of The Transcendence of the Ego also includes an introduction and notes/annotations by the translators.
Imposes itself on us'Don't let the length of this book trick you, it's anything but a light read or overview or Sartre's philosophy (unlike Existentialism is a Humanism for example). I vividly remember spending about an hour on 5-7 pages of this work, only really taking in a minor dose of information in that stretch of time.The main crux of this book is Sartre's rejection of the then dominant psychology, Freud's ego psychology, which sought to split the mind or the 'Unconscious' int 'anguish. Imposes itself on us'Don't let the length of this book trick you, it's anything but a light read or overview or Sartre's philosophy (unlike Existentialism is a Humanism for example). I vividly remember spending about an hour on 5-7 pages of this work, only really taking in a minor dose of information in that stretch of time.The main crux of this book is Sartre's rejection of the then dominant psychology, Freud's ego psychology, which sought to split the mind or the 'Unconscious' into parts (the famous ID, Ego and Superego).
In response, Sartre, building on Descartes, Heidegger and Husserl (even making reference to Proust and La Rochefoucauld) uses phenomenology to fight against this erroneous idea. Sartre takes on from Husserl's work, focusing specifically on his 'Cartesian Meditations', adapting this revolutionary phenomenological method, but rejecting Husserl's implication that the I is a formal structure of consciousness.Simply put, for Sartre, consciousness simply is.
It is not a mystical, idealist spirit, but simply a negation. It is how we see the world, and the thing through which we live.To understand Sartre, this probably isn't the best place.Introduction - Sarah Richmond introduces the text by situating this text within Sartre's 'early work', wherein Sartre 'exhausts' Heidegger and Husserl, developing, critiquing and deepening their phenomenology. Richmond also explains the two separate sections of Sartre's essay, with the first section 1)engaging with Husserlian thought, and section 2)offering a simplified alternative to Husserl's phenomenology.Husserl's Phenomenology - Sartre provides an exposition of Husserl, depicting Husserl as a continuation of Kant's effort to make philosophy proceed as a 'rigorous science'.
Husserl therefore continues from Descartes' cogito, parenthesising unproved beliefs, to narrow pheonomenology down to the indubitable consciousness. This indubitable consciousness is the epoche. However, whilst Husserl explains the epoche, he also adds a 'transcendental I' above it, an ego of sorts, which Sartre sees as superfluous.The Ego and the Epoche - Sartre replaces the epoche with a Pure Ego. This Pure Ego self objectifies itself and comes to see itself as part of the world. Personhood is the result of this anonymous constitution for Sartre. This is a worldy ego also, not some transcendental idealistic 'I' as Husserl would hold.The Transparency of Consciousness - Sartre explains the purity of consciousness, with the transcendental I being superfluous as this would in effect rule over the Ego, making the Egouseless.
This makes seeing the Transcendental I as the source as Ego, 'nothing except consciousness can be a source of consciousness'.The Non-Transparency of Reflection - Descartes and Husserl were correct in personalising the cogito, yet they also misinterpret the encounter with a self that had always been there. The reflecting attitude, rather than discovering the self, creates it. There is no 'inner life', or division in the mind.Phenomenology without Reflection - Sartre explains unreflective consciousness, wherein we remember things without reflecting on them, for example reading a book and recalling the characters without actively contemplating them.The Constitution of the Ego - The ego is a 'transcendent pole of synthetic unity' consisting of 1)Qualities, 2)States and 3)Actions. The relation between me and my mind is beyond normal causal relations, it is a mystical and magical thing.Phenomenology Existentialised - The epoche is driven not by reason, but by the experience of anguish. Sartre rejects the idea that this notion leads to idealism, instead situating himself within a historical materialist framework and referring to Spinoza's idea of substance. Sartre is best digested by high school students who think everyone but Holden Caulfield is a phony and who feel alienated in the world because their own selfishness is best enabled by pretending freedom is an end for itself.This essay (it’s really not a book) is not difficult reading and Sartre is flushing out his soon to be thoughts that will go into his mostly vacuous ‘Being and Nothing’.In this book Sartre does beat down Husserl and phenomenology.
Husserl had previously turned against pheno Sartre is best digested by high school students who think everyone but Holden Caulfield is a phony and who feel alienated in the world because their own selfishness is best enabled by pretending freedom is an end for itself.This essay (it’s really not a book) is not difficult reading and Sartre is flushing out his soon to be thoughts that will go into his mostly vacuous ‘Being and Nothing’.In this book Sartre does beat down Husserl and phenomenology. Husserl had previously turned against phenomenology himself and had moved away from it before he died in 1938; the year this book was published. Husserl’s book ‘Ideas’ is probably the best overall intro to the topic of phenomenology and even if one can beat it down one can still enjoy it. When I read it and got confused by it, I would think of the opposite of what Heidegger was saying in ‘Being and Time’ and reorient my bearings thusly. Husserl will exclude the world and think only of the object under consideration, Heidegger will include the world and exclude the object.In this book, Sartre will argue against the ‘transcendental ego’ (or in Kantian terms ‘transcendental consciousnesses’) and not make the consciousness about anything rather than itself and return the ‘I’ (or ‘ego’) back to within the consciousness itself and not out of it and tries to negate the concept of the unconsciousness.In this book, Sartre will still have it in for Pierre as he did in ‘B&N’. Though this time it will be about his imaginary hate or anger towards Pierre and how that it is not about the intentional states he possesses against Pierre and he’ll also have Pierre (or was it Paul?) run after a trolley, or think about having read a book. He’ll further expand those same tropes within ‘B&N’, so these examples are probably familiar to most readers of Sartre.Sartre does not mention Hegel in this book.
It is not until ‘B&N’ that Hegel takes a starring role for Sartre. In this book, Sartre will briefly mention Balzac and Proust but in ‘B&N’ he’ll expound on them at length as being illustrative of his philosophy. He really is laying a foundation in this essay for what he expounds on for 500 or so mostly incoherent rambling pages later in ‘B&N’. (I don’t like Sartre as a philosopher. I’ll use his logic ‘Pierre is not a waiter he is only acting at being a waiter’, well Sartre is not a philosopher he is only acting at being a philosopher). Sartre will use Hegel in ‘B&N’ to get at the crux of what he wants to elaborate and he will illustrate that in his short play ‘No Exit’.There is some intentionality and non-intentionality that Sartre plays at with in this book which will later morph into existence and non-existence or ‘being and nothing’.
His ontological foundation for truth is absolute freedom of the individual, and for him freedom will be justified as an end in and for itself. Now, he doesn’t explicitly say that in this book but the way he’s framing the self, the ego, the cogito makes it obvious what he’s getting at.I’m currently reading Heidegger’s ‘Basic Problems in Phenomenology’.
There is definitely an overlap between these two books’ subject matter. Heidegger writes and thinks like an astute philosopher and Sartre is mostly grasping at straws. Some of Heidegger’s ‘Being and Time’ comes through in this book, but none of what Heidegger more intelligently says from his ‘Basic Problems’ seems to lurk in Sartre’s book. It is possible Sartre had not read Heidegger’s ‘Basic Problems’ since he doesn’t mention it in this book.
Sartre will even cite Heidegger slightly after I thought to myself that’s exactly what Heidegger said in ‘Being and Time’. Though, to be clear, Heidegger strikes me as a real philosopher and Sartre not too much.Though, it’s easy to dismiss Husserl and his phenomenology, I still find him and Gadamer (the last of the great phenomenologist) well worth reading despite some of their pratfalls, and overall I don’t think Sartre adds much new to the conversation except for diehard fans who think Holden Caulfield is not the phony one or ‘B&N’ fans who think freedom for its own sake is a worthwhile goal as a meaning for life. Overall, I would recommend Heidegger’s ‘Basic Problems of Phenomenology’ over this book. I promised a friend I would read Satre's works.
So here is the first.I'll give the book 3 because even translated he's a far better writer than I am, but otherwise, I am not a fan and I don't understand how others aren't finding it a little annoying.I can see why Satre has to come up in a world concerned w/ #AlternativeFacts. Of course you experience reality differently because each ID is self-contained. But to me, Philosophy itself is a major practice in #AlternativeFacts. Aside from the I promised a friend I would read Satre's works. So here is the first.I'll give the book 3 because even translated he's a far better writer than I am, but otherwise, I am not a fan and I don't understand how others aren't finding it a little annoying.I can see why Satre has to come up in a world concerned w/ #AlternativeFacts. Of course you experience reality differently because each ID is self-contained.
But to me, Philosophy itself is a major practice in #AlternativeFacts. Aside from the obvious, e.g. Only old white dudes with beards get to participate meaningfully in the discipline, let's talk about how obnoxious it is for philosophy to draw convenient lines of separation from other disciplines that use to be a part of it and might therefore be relevant.Satre is no exception here. He's got this bit in his conclusion section about a lady who is totally upset because her man leaves. Satre is like, yeah, she's scared of freedom because she hasn't experienced it.
Its overwhelmingly new. How about bull sh.t?How very convenient to be allowed to ignore the entire body of dialogue on Structuralism. Thank goodness it sits far away in the field Anthropology. It would be so inconvenient to have to address it.
#alternativefactsAnd that's not even the only spot in this book. I mean, how wonderful it must be to be Satre. To be able to concern one's self with the ego and wax philosophy about how the internal is able to manifest in the external! Go Team Will to Power!!!! God forbid that happy little ego have to interact with reality or be effected by it.
Thank goodness we've conveniently relegated structuralism to anthropology, political science or sociology.But technically, if you are white, old, male, and fully tenured.then structuralism can be ignored because, after all, you are the Man. You are the structure and reflexively. The Man is you! You can actually ignore structuralism. Because you are just experiencing yourself. Heck, even I and every other race and gender are experiencing you. #blacklivesmatter #timesupMaybe this explains why philosophers get to sit in an ivory tower and dismiss all matters of reality to the lesser, more mundane disciplines.
If you are the Man, you can let others figure out how to deal with the problems created by the Man. In this case, your ego manifests reality and we don't have to make an argument that justifies how reality reflexively then impacts, forms, modifies, or otherwise effects the ID. Because as along as Philosophy remains primarily white and male, we can just apply the identity rule of logic x=x.So yeah, under that paradigm that chica is totally overwhelmed not because this book is in 1930 where without a man she's fully exposed and unprotected from a world that both formally and informally is entirely sexist. But because of her entire lack of experience with this new reality of Freedom. Full marks for a solidly substantiated argument.I mean COME ON philosophy!! How is it that none of philosophy's child disciplines are allowed to ignore their findings in complimentary disciplines?? ?And how is it that everyone is comparing him to the Buddha when the dude takes the very best part of Buddhist, daoist, even hindi religion, i.e.
We are our truth and the truth is we, and then somehow manifests this super bogus conclusion. It's not an accident that he uses this example.
If Satre was the buddha then he would have been more like. We can affect our reality and make it better. Not women are afraid of freedom b/c they haven't experienced it.
Goodness People!!! It was 1930, not 1530 when he wrote this!!!I hope his other works are better. Really have to think twice when I make promises to people about reading stuff. Sartre utilizes the tenets of phenomenology (primarily intentionality of consciousness) to reveal the fictional nature of the I within experience. According to Sartre, the ego or I is 'given through reflective consciousness' (51), as a modification of the spontaneous consciousness of the Erlebnis. In the end, this 'radical' thought of Sartre's impersonal consciousness embedded in the world seems not so different from the lifeworld of the late Husserl and of Merleau-Ponty.
But maybe I just haven' Sartre utilizes the tenets of phenomenology (primarily intentionality of consciousness) to reveal the fictional nature of the I within experience. According to Sartre, the ego or I is 'given through reflective consciousness' (51), as a modification of the spontaneous consciousness of the Erlebnis. In the end, this 'radical' thought of Sartre's impersonal consciousness embedded in the world seems not so different from the lifeworld of the late Husserl and of Merleau-Ponty.
But maybe I just haven't read enough of the latter two to make the nuanced distinction.Although Sartre does much in tearing dowm the facade of the transcendental ego, in transcending this sense of ego in finding the transcendence of the ego constituted or written into experience by reflection. But Sartre seems to take as given that the object of intentionality, of intuition, is the thing itself - that it is not an abstaction or conceptually formulated 'essence.' He inherits this naivety directly from Husserl. But can we grasp the existence of the thing itself, or does it ever remain outside of us, beyond us, as other? How does consciousness WORK? Is it active or passive in its relations with an other? These questions, which Sartre seems to appropriate unquestioningly from Husserl and phenomenology, need perhaps be delved into further - an adventure that requires us to throw aside all fear of a headfirst plunge into an abyss.
Definitely a book that shows that Sartre owes a debt to Husserl, Descartes, and Kant. It is intended to show how he carves out a place for the active unity of the ego, but that underlying its synthetic unity is absolute nothingness. He even says, foreshadowing Being and Nothingness that once the ego begins to consciously reflect inward upon itself the mind realizes that the 'me' (or the self beyond the mere ego as it is represented) comes ex nihilo, or exists out of nothing.
To me that is the mo Definitely a book that shows that Sartre owes a debt to Husserl, Descartes, and Kant. It is intended to show how he carves out a place for the active unity of the ego, but that underlying its synthetic unity is absolute nothingness. He even says, foreshadowing Being and Nothingness that once the ego begins to consciously reflect inward upon itself the mind realizes that the 'me' (or the self beyond the mere ego as it is represented) comes ex nihilo, or exists out of nothing. To me that is the most important part of this book. It takes a rather subtle turn towards Buddhism and I dig it towards the end.The first forty pages or so are really about sorting out his differences with Husserl and explaining where he disagrees.
Since it is only about 110 pages the last half of the book is the most interesting because he puts forward a totally unique conception of the ego. I enjoyed this a lot and I will return to it again and again. Can be read in one sitting, but it takes repeated readings to fully absorb all of it. The book is heavy on terminology; the argument is thick. I think the basic theme is as follows: Husserl posits some sort of Transcendent Ego, something out there, external to humans, yet manifested by them in the way they perceive the world.
Husserl's Ego entity is akin in some way to Kant's a priori structures.Sartre, once aligned philosophically with Husserl, breaks with this form of consciousness. Sartre transcends Husserl's Transcendent Ego by pulling the latter down to Earth, and transformi The book is heavy on terminology; the argument is thick. I think the basic theme is as follows: Husserl posits some sort of Transcendent Ego, something out there, external to humans, yet manifested by them in the way they perceive the world. Husserl's Ego entity is akin in some way to Kant's a priori structures.Sartre, once aligned philosophically with Husserl, breaks with this form of consciousness. Sartre transcends Husserl's Transcendent Ego by pulling the latter down to Earth, and transforming it into a repository of expressions as formed by the objective world. Sartre puts ego in its place. In becoming earth-bound, ego loses its mystery and transcendental potency.In transforming the ego in this way, Sartre joins the nurture camp through and through.
The ego is object like any other; it does not have a special standing that is exempt from the day-to-day world. The self as ego takes on and is formed by what we see and experience with the outside. We, via a regularized ego, process this incoming stimuli and make choices about how to relate to the world. In making choices, I believe it's fair to say that for Sartre there is a basic goodness in the human heart or, if not, there ought to be.A third rail, neither Husserl's or Sartre's, but one that combines elements of both, might be as follows: Take Husserl's transcendental Ego and bring it back to Earth.
At its most basic level, it is the Self seeking to survive, but that life force is more than eating, pooping, peeing and consummating. It permeates how we relate to the world, not only via the all-pervasive social instincts, but more generally as well. We are not value-free entities. We are value-infused entities who reflect thoroughly Hume's observation that passion direct our thought and we are more Freudian Id than we care to admit.Sartre denies this fixed form of ego. His ego is object only. Or, alternatively, it is subject only so far as it has been modified by the outside via learning and experience. But the relationship with the world is more complicated than that.
The ego has both fixed and variable elements. It starts with primal ego, as subject, as a self that pushes itself into the world based on a full-suite of needs.
The object, a subject it is own right (other selves; the environment), in turn modifies the self. It tells the self how it must manifest itself in order to satisfy its needs. The self's needs remain fixed, but how needs are satisfied are variable and they are subject to the reactions (and actions) of the outside world. This is how the ego gets modified, transformed, in the way that Sartre seems to be getting at.In regard to Sartre's belief in the basic goodness of human nature (if that's his position), it could be that the needs of many or their fears, are stronger than those of others, and it is this that leads them to impose themselves on the world rather than, Tao-like, to accommodate themselves to it.
In contrast, Sartre might say that this is a wrong-headed way to look at it. Mind ought to commit on behalf of humanity. But when mind is seen as the body's tool, Sartre's mind-directed behavior is fruitless if there's no motivation to change one's behavior (i.e., if one's needs or fears are too great). Corrective behavior - choices on behalf of humanity - then need to come from external sources to counter excessively self-oriented behavior. As the extremely informative introduction by Sarah Richmond (my review is heavily based on it since I am not interested enough in this to reread it closely) says, this article's value (Sartre's first) is mostly historical. It deals with how Sartre views the Ego, but within (Husserl's) phenomenological tradition.Husserl thinks that there is a (pure) Ego that can be reached if we put aside the ordinary way we experience the world and observe our consciousness (like meditation?) which will help us As the extremely informative introduction by Sarah Richmond (my review is heavily based on it since I am not interested enough in this to reread it closely) says, this article's value (Sartre's first) is mostly historical. It deals with how Sartre views the Ego, but within (Husserl's) phenomenological tradition.Husserl thinks that there is a (pure) Ego that can be reached if we put aside the ordinary way we experience the world and observe our consciousness (like meditation?) which will help us discover “the nature of experience”.
Sartre doesn't disagree with this method (it is after all what phenomenology is about) but thinks that this Ego that Husserl finds is an unnecessary duplication of the ordinary Self; it doesn't exist but it is created the moment we reflect upon it. Another sign that it doesn't exist appears when we remember reading a book or driving and the heroes of the book or the road was there are but our Ego wasn't.So there is only the ordinary everyday Self, the ordinary consciousness that is absolute and not reducible to anything else. If it was, then human freedom would be at stake. However, as Richmond notes, this claim is never defended by Sartre, he says we just know it. Also if consciousness is indivisible then how do we (divide it and) posit this fake Ego? And since he is skeptical of introspection as a means to describe our inner lives, this undermines phenomenology as a whole and not only this specific issue. Maybe he would say that the problem is that Husserl's reflection is impure.Another reason he is skeptical is because of the “range” of our states.
He says we are entitled to say what we feel at that moment, like in a case of a strong revulsion towards someone, but we are not entitled to say we hate someone as this implies a continuous state.But he still goes ahead and describes what this fake Ego (that we posit during reflection) does. Its job is to unify our experiences but how it does that is as he writes “magical”. We don't know.
We know the reflection of an event (which is undeniable, indubitable like the cogito) and the original event and what we end up with is the unification of those two. There is a sense of regret for what we end up with but it's not clear if it's because of our intellectual limitations or our culpability.Richmond also adds (I don't remember if it was in the text) that the reason we introspect is the anguish we feel because the natural attitude 'masks from consciousness its own spontaneity'.
We stay in the natural attitude to avoid the anguish that spontaneity of consciousness will induce, but sometimes it appears and makes us reflect.Overall, this article is too limited by phenomenology to be of any interest to me. The most interesting thing was that, since he puts consciousness out in the world (because he is skeptical of accurate introspection), he says that we don't have any privileged access to our states (like hate). My access to my state of hate is as good as your access to MY state of hate. This is in a way close to how Rorty uses Sellars' “myth of the given”. Sellars says we don't have any special access to our inner states and Rorty takes it and argues in favor of an epistemological behaviorism where our access to our inner states is defined by how our community views them. Building off from Kant (and inherently Descartes), Sartre then explores and discusses Husserl’s phenomenology.
These analyses brings upon inferences and conclusions that ultimately present the phenomenological views of Sartre. One of the most unique descriptions by Sartre, this is a must read for those getting into Sartre. It is important to understand his phenomenological views in order to fully understand where he is coming from and what he means, especially when dealing with his essay on the Building off from Kant (and inherently Descartes), Sartre then explores and discusses Husserl’s phenomenology. These analyses brings upon inferences and conclusions that ultimately present the phenomenological views of Sartre. One of the most unique descriptions by Sartre, this is a must read for those getting into Sartre.
It is important to understand his phenomenological views in order to fully understand where he is coming from and what he means, especially when dealing with his essay on the phenomenological psychology of the imagination, The Imaginary, and his phenomenological essay on ontology, Being and Nothingness.If there is one thing that you should get from this work, it is that all positional consciousness of an object is a non-positional consciousness of itself. If I have not forgotten what this means and if I have not mixed up my understanding of the various phenomenological outlines, this is basically saying that consciousness grasps its entirety, all the representations of the I, in a single stroke as to be conscious is not an action of reflection, and thus not intentional, meaning non-positional. The ego is in the world, and thus, must not be the conscious inwardness in order to be consciousness of such a transcendental object outside our consciousness; the intentional (positional attention and consciousness) of an object is reflective, however, this cannot be the case for consciousness since the consciousness of reflection cannot be reflected on, and as such, consciousness is a a non-positional consciousness of itself.“In the I Think there is an I who thinks. We attain here the I in its purity, and it is indeed from the Cogito that an ‘Egology’ must take its point of departure. The introduction by the translators are a great help for me to grasp the outline of Husserl's transendental Ego that Sarte is reacting against.In short, Sarte argues that the Cogito is not behind the synthetic unity of consciousness, but rather the synthetic unity of consciousness is what makes the Cogito possible in the first place. The Ego is not immanent in the consciousness.
It is a transcendent object just like the other intentional objects.' the ego is neither formally nor materially in The introduction by the translators are a great help for me to grasp the outline of Husserl's transendental Ego that Sarte is reacting against.In short, Sarte argues that the Cogito is not behind the synthetic unity of consciousness, but rather the synthetic unity of consciousness is what makes the Cogito possible in the first place.
The Ego is not immanent in the consciousness. It is a transcendent object just like the other intentional objects.' the ego is neither formally nor materially in consciousness: it is outside, in the world. It is a being of the world, like the ego of another'The essay is said to be Sarte's turn away from Husserl's phenomenology to his own Existentialism. There are parts where it is quite difficult to follow where he's getting at ( at least for those who are not familiar with phenomenology). But overall, it is not so difficult to get what he's trying to say (at least for those who are acquainted with philosophy).If you don't want to read the whole essay, just read the introduction.
It's quite a good summary. I'd like to say I could follow everything Sartre is offering in this work, but I'd be lying! This suggests to me that that I should read some Husserl now, so I'm thankful in this regard that I have read Transcendence - it has prompted me to expand my understanding of phenomenology and consciousness in general.
This will definitely be something I refer back to once I have become more enlightened as to the subject matter in general. With that said, I do not suggest that reading Transcendence was a I'd like to say I could follow everything Sartre is offering in this work, but I'd be lying!
This suggests to me that that I should read some Husserl now, so I'm thankful in this regard that I have read Transcendence - it has prompted me to expand my understanding of phenomenology and consciousness in general. This will definitely be something I refer back to once I have become more enlightened as to the subject matter in general. With that said, I do not suggest that reading Transcendence was a waste of time for me. I'm someone who believes that even those things we find hard to absorb are worth engaging - for me it's a kind of mental gymnastics.
Can I do the roundhouse flip flop yet? No, but with further practice and more authentic attempts. I think I will be able to. Sartre's break with phenomenology in Transcendence of The Ego illuminates the larger and more important themes in Being and Nothingness.
Especially profound is his focus on the mind being one, undivided unit that experiences and understands the world. This essay is important for understanding Sartre's later work.However, philosophical issues aside (which would take much more space and time to properly go through), this essay is not particularly engaging and is at points hard to follow. Recommen Sartre's break with phenomenology in Transcendence of The Ego illuminates the larger and more important themes in Being and Nothingness. Especially profound is his focus on the mind being one, undivided unit that experiences and understands the world. This essay is important for understanding Sartre's later work.However, philosophical issues aside (which would take much more space and time to properly go through), this essay is not particularly engaging and is at points hard to follow.
Recommended solely for those who have strong interest in Sartre and those that follow in his footsteps. Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre, normally known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre, was a French existentialist philosopher and pioneer, dramatist and screenwriter, novelist and critic. He was a leading figure in 20th century French philosophy.He declined the award of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature 'for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has ex Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre, normally known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre, was a French existentialist philosopher and pioneer, dramatist and screenwriter, novelist and critic. He was a leading figure in 20th century French philosophy.He declined the award of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature 'for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age.' In the years around the time of his death, however, existentialism declined in French philosophy and was overtaken by structuralism, represented by Levi-Strauss and, one of Sartre's detractors, Michel Foucault.
The Ontological Foundation of PetulanceA MeditationWritten in 1936, some 5-6 years before he took time out from his day job at the French Resistance field office and began to work on his famous treatise, Being and Nothingness (1943), Sartre wrote the remarkable essay, “The Transcendence of the Ego.” It is a seminal work of existential Metaphysics, a refutation of Solipsism, and a document of liberation, all at the same time. The last description fulfills his own stated intention of separating Sartre from the putative doctrinal error of his teacher, Edmund Husserl, who had, in his own philosophical investigations, recently taken a regressive step backwards from “pure” phenomenological description to, in Sartre’s view, merely speculative Metaphysics. He committed this unpardonable sin when he went beyond the bounds of pure Phenomenology – his own creation - and posited a transcendent, concrete Ego as the actual, albeit passive, subjective unity of experience.This, in the language of Metaphysics, is the subjective correlate of the Subject-Object dichotomy, which has defined the poles of metaphysical (and epistemological and psychological) inquiry since, at least, the time of Descartes. So far as Sartre was concerned, this regression made Husserl no better than Kant in joining an unholy alliance with an idealist philosophical tradition, which imprisons the Ego in the ontological solitude and isolation known, but not often recognized, as Solipsism.The thesis is still as challenging as it ever was. Without going too deeply into the details or the background (which would be necessary), suffice it to say that the ‘Transcendence’ essay is a document of critical analysis, intended to repudiate the very notion of an absolutely existing, transcendent subject of consciousness, which stands over and above acts or moments of consciousness as their proprietor. And Sartre is often very convincing in his various approaches to the repudiation of the Ego as a necessary or even (rational!) postulate of Phenomenology, or even as the necessary and inevitable outcome of Descartes’ program of systematic doubt. While some version of the Cogito may forever stand as indubitable, it is by no means obvious – though it may appear so – that behind every thought there must be a subject which is having that thought.
Thus (pp 53-54),The Cogito affirms too much. The certain content of the pseudo-“Cogito” is not “I have consciousness of this chair,” but “There isconsciousness of this chair.” This content is sufficient to constitutean infinite and absolute field of investigation for phenomenology.(Italics in original)Indeed, if there is one analysis which stands out to me (Sorry, Jean Paul) as brilliant in the essay, it is precisely the argument made about the necessary elusiveness of such a subject. Sartre argues that since it is in the nature of consciousness to be directed (only seemingly) outward, toward things, it is only to be expected that it does not show itself in experience, but only through experience –and then, not as a unifying principle, but as an horizon, a limitation, the contour of experience. Not as the origin of, or the proprietor of, but as the awareness of. Things.And when one becomes self-conscious, what are we aware of?
Certainly not of awareness, as such, but only a memory-of-awareness, or an imagination-of-awareness, or a moment-of-awareness, because consciousness is ALWAYS consciousness OF. One can no more likely see or experience consciousness, as such, than one can see the back of one’s own head directly, or the inside of one’s own eyes. The horizon recedes as reflection turns its gaze inward.
So, if it is not to be as an object, why should it be at all? Isn’t consciousness itself a mysterious enough symphony without assuming it also must have a conductor who is necessarily invisible and possibly (or often) mad? At least consciousness manifests itself, however obliquely; whereas the I, as proprietor of consciousness, remains as elusive and as opaque even to ourselves as the consciousness (the I) of others.“The ego is not the owner of consciousness; it is the object ofconsciousness.” (pg 97)Sartre is never more convincing than when he punctures some of long standing illusions we commonly cherish about self-knowledge, the putatively incorrigible knowledge we think we have about our own ‘mental states’, as though this were to each of us a personal repertoire of irrefutable achievement. I must admit, his critical analysis did seem to be a stripping away of illusions worn by habit, literally now and not figuratively speaking. For, once we get beyond the constructs of a self that we only habitually assume and never experience, we must confront with an abashed sense of nakedness the actual flimsiness of our vaunted self-awareness. What is left to behold after the analysis is frankly shameful. One wonders, is this dubious construct really worth fighting for?
It put me in mind of Eliot’s observation from “Whispers of Immortality”: “But our lot crawls between dry ribs/To keep our metaphysics warm.”However, Sartre does offer us a robe, of sorts, to keep out the chill. He acknowledges an 'ego-life' (note the lower case) as a conceptual adjunct to the unified conception we have of our own consciousnesses (however illusory it may be), when we conceive of them as our own and as constituting a unity. This is also to say, when we think of them as objects of consciousness, not as subjects. He differentiates between levels of consciousness, in fact, describing consciousness “of the second degree as” as the proper realm of the ego-life. It is the level of reflect ed consciousness, of consciousness as object of the reflect ive consciousness. We apparently construct – though he doesn’t actually say so or say how – a sense of ourselves, much like our sense of others – corrigible and hypothetical in essence – and call it ‘ I’, or ‘me’ which is another, yet even more socially constructed (illusory?) aspect of my self.
![Transcendental ego Transcendental ego](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125615079/367404219.jpg)
What is important for Sartre is that we understand the ontological difference. He writes (pg. The unreflected has the ontological priority over the reflectedbecause the unreflected consciousness does not need to be reflectedin order to exist. We arrive then at the followings conclusion:unreflected consciousness must be considered autonomous. It is atotality which needs no completing.This last is obviously the point made about the Transcendent Ego.
It doesn’t exist. Just as Gertrude Stein said about old Ezra when he was still young, ‘There is no there, there.’ Standing in will be the socio-physical ego, which is as objective, worldly, contingent and dubious as is the ‘problematical’ subjectivity of others.“.the ego is an object apprehended, but also an object constituted,by reflective consciousness.” (pp. 80-81)Now if that’s not already enough of a take-down, consider what this means for all those Freudians and their conception of the Ego (and its Id): since the Ego does not exist, it is not allowed to conceal motives -like pebbles in a pockets.
For along with his existence, the Ego is losing his pockets, too. Therefore, there is to be considered no Freudian theory of ulterior motives rising up from the unconscious to control our emotions, for there is no unconscious, nowhere down there to rise up from.Obviously, Sartre’s thesis is pregnant with possible disasters for idealist theories as well as for people would like to marry their mothers or kill their fathers. For neither group has now a convenient hook to hang their proclivities on. The critical appraisal of the postulated Ego is performed by a demonstration of the descriptive analysis afforded by Phenomenology. It succeeds, if it succeeds, by showing consciousness for what it is, and from that, also what it is not!We may therefore formulate our thesis: transcendental consciousnessis an impersonal spontaneity. It determines its existence at each instant,without our being able to conceive anything before it. Thus each instantof our conscious life reveals to us a creation ex nihilo.
98-99)Whether this doctrine actually solves the problem of Solipsism is now, in my mind (Apologies, again) more than ever, an open question. For it seems to me the essential point about solipsism is that it is a lonely vigil. If transcendental consciousness is indeed impersonal, then whether it is one or many is quite beside the point, since there would be nobody there to notice the absence. And if hell is, indeed, “other people,” as Sartre once famously said, this is no doubt just the way he would want it!. So, I came back to Sartre’s ‘Transcendence’ again, after more than 25 years, by way of the awkwardly winding path that characterizes my own literary and logico-philosophical mission, and I found it different. I remembered my earlier (haughty) disdain for the categorical sloppiness and the whiny -even eschatological – protests (‘oh, the anxiety!’), and the petulant tone of voice. I remembered the frustration I had experienced with ambiguities that he had seemed to add into the text just to provoke me.
These qualities are still there! But, I was different.I was less put off this time by his Nietzschean posturing – his programmatic use of the royal “We” - and his (apparently life-long) penchant for ‘framing’ the debate in unfounded and tendentious irrelevancies, which masquerade as (phenomenological) descriptions. (Why is the slave’s first apprehension of his master a ‘NOT’?. Why not a “Get-back-into-the fields!”? Someone should have told Sartre, that if you are going to authentically “describe” experience, i.e.
From the inside, it is best you stick to your own!) This time, I was far less bothered, and now much more bemused by the insight that the likeliest reason Sartre could write so convincingly about in-authenticity (“bad faith”) is, that he, himself, was so obviously a man constitutionally incapable of sincerity, in almost any form. (After proclaiming his solidarity with the downtrodden masses, he joined the Stalinist intellectuals’ drum and bugle corps and piped eagerly and loudly, so as to drown out the shots of the dictator’s firing squads.)Like Heidegger before him, who had supported the Nazi regime, his praxis seems perversely at odds with his theory!
And, as it was for Nietzsche before him, for Sartre the heroic pose of the existential hero (think Sisyphus) is at once an ideal and an impossibility, so obviously so in view of his character and action, to say nothing of the physical constitution, as to make his assuming the pose almost entirely laughable.Leaving aside the man, however, there is still the work; his ideas and his writing. I was, this time, more open to the thesis, that there is no transcendent Ego behind, nor imminent in, the experience of consciousness. That consciousness is – or, at least, might be -, as he says, nothing like a disembodied, all-perceiving eye on the horizon of Reality, but ‘is’ something rather like a spontaneous gust of wind blowing towards objects in the real world, being opposed by them, interacting with them, silhouetting them in its breezes and moving on, or even turning back into the force of its own impulse, to create (to hypostatize) the ominous presence of a storm. I was more willing to listen to the harangue and to hear the urgency in the voice.
For, if Sartre’s voice is nothing else, it is urgent.I began to realize that evaluating this work was much more akin to evaluating fiction than I had earlier been ready to believe. I could hear in his urgent and hectoring tone an insistent conviction that the categories that he was bent on upsetting – by doing willful and intentional violence to their employment – were not the categories needed to understand his point. (Nor could any others perform better!) He was using these categories inconsistently not out of incompetence, but out of contempt. His whole theory is based on the conviction that the categories, like the Transcendental Ego, are a false construction, doing more to lead us astray than to lead us to truth. Hence, it is the categorical mindset, the one that rests easily only on the neat and consistent employment for the same words (or kinds of words) for the same things (or kinds of things) that he was rejecting.I began to think of the style of his propositions in all their opacity as a statement in and of itself –perhaps, as the statement. I realized that Sartre’s (middling to low) concern for consistency, as such, is reflected in his language choices.
Not just at the level of words but also at the level of the language of those words. Latin, French, German and English expressions for ‘the I’ and for ‘experience’ are all represented here, seemingly willy-nilly. This is not accidental, I think. It is most probably thematic. If the specific words don’t matter, or can be indiscriminately substituted, how much more (or less) should we expect of concepts?Just as, in literature, we may ‘read’ a writer’s intent in his selection of words, details, plot lines and structures, so also in this case we can infer some of Sartre’s deepest convictions, the tacit ones – the ones that he has yet to give expression to, but which are nevertheless involved - in his own selections. The choices he makes add up to a thesis, even if it remains inarticulate. That thesis seems to be, that words – and therefore concepts, at least as traditionally understood – cannot be used successfully to capture consciousness, no matter how strictly regimented and precisely chosen.
In fact, it is precisely these qualities of traditional categorical thinking that make traditional (categorical) thinking inadequate (to use Sartre’s term) from the get go, since consciousness is ‘essentially’ un-categorical; it is by its very nature the not-that-either.Apparently Sartre believes, then, as did Hegel, that there is a higher level of understanding than that which mere rationality, i.e. Discursive thinking, can achieve. Hegel referred to it as Reason (note the capital-R), and explicitly stated (though not without contradiction) that it is Reason, not Aristotelian logic or mere understanding, which resolves the dialectical contradictions that mere understanding posits.
(For example, understanding may fix Being, an sich, as its object thesis, but it is Reason alone which can ferret out the Non-Being antithesis which is implicit within (the concept of) Being, thereby discovering the synthesis: Becoming.) Sartre says something vaguely similar when he says:The I proffers itself to an intuition of a special kind which apprehendsit, always inadequately, behind the reflected consciousness. 53)In a very cryptic footnote to these lines, he says that there is nothing mystical or magical about this special kind of intuition, only that it is “not the same as, say, confronting a physical thing by an act of perceptual intuition.” So, it is special, non-magical, and different from physical intuitions.
Sounds delightful. (Who wants to try passing that off as philosophical rigor?)My own intuitions about this theory indicate to me that there is a plethora of presuppositions and agendas behind Sartre’s style and rendering of the existential creed. When I reflect on the “angst” and the appeal to pity for the existential hero, which Sartre intentionally invokes in such dramatic fashion, I am reminded that Kierkegaard also had ‘Dread’ at the heart of his philosophy, as did Heidegger in his “being towards death. These writers left Sartre a legacy, which he seems to have spent rashly. His ad hoc theory about consciousness hiding from itself the truth about Nothingness, as being afraid of its own spontaneity, make me wonder what kind of intellectual economy he was pursuing here.
Did he really throw out the Transcendental Ego only to make room for these primordial fears and paranoid projections? Did he think the metaphysical closet was overstuffed? (Isn’t it rather like cyberspace: virtually endless in expanse?)However these things may be, finally, it is a fascinating little book by an intriguing thinker and a rebel of the first order. I think I see why Camus finally said no mas, but I think I also know why it probably pained him to do it. He probably didn’t actually solve the problem of Solipsism, even in his own philosophy. Nor is it clear, really, whether he successfully escaped the prison erected by idealism –no doubt just to hold him.
What he did do, though, was provide a very plausible case for his own obvious petulance. And that, at least, is something.Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, New York; translated by Forrest Williams and Robert Kirkpatrick.From “Bad Faith and Falsehood,” in Essays in Existentialism, the Philosophical Library, 1965 reprinted in The Citadel Press edition of 1979, pg. 'Peer Gynt' (1867), by Henrik Ibsen. The Tower and the Abyss (1957), by Erich Kahler. The Unquiet Grave (1942), by Cyril Connoly.
The Horse’s Mouth (1944), by Joyce Cary. “Araby” and 'The Dead', from Dubliners (1904), by James Joyce. 'A preface to ‘Paradise Lost’” (1942), by C. Lewis“. Der Schandfleck (re-released 1963), by Ludwig Anzengruber.
Der Tod in Venedig (1954), by Thomas Mann. The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (1993), by Roberto Calasso. A River Runs Through It, (1976), by Norman Maclean. The Rules of Chaos (1969), by Stephen Vizinczey.