| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
 Posted - Nov 11 2008 : 10:52:10 AM
|
I've been thinking a lot about our discussion yesterday and have been trying my best to think of new and improved ways of formulating Sartre's basic conviction about the awareness of itself characteristic of all awareness quite apart from reflection. I'm not sure I'm making all that much progress. I've got a couple of ideas I'll eventually share, but first it would no doubt be useful to assemble the passages in the text of The Transcendence of the Ego (hereafter TE) in which Sartre speaks of this -- i.e., of this awareness of itself that he regards as characteristic of all consciousness. Here are some of the most important that appear in the first chapter: quote:
[T]he existence of consciousness is an absolute because consciousness is consciousness of itself. This is to say that the type of existence of consciousness is to be consciousness of itself. And Consciousness is aware of itself in so far as it is consciousness of a transcendent object. All is therefore clear and lucid in consciousness: the object with its characteristic opacity is before consciousness, but consciousness is purely and simply consciousness of being consciousness of that object. This is the law of its existence. (TE 40)
quote:
[T]his consciousness of consciousness -- except in the case of reflective consciousness which we shall dwell on later -- is not positional, which is to say that consciousness is not for itself its own object. Its object is by nature outside of it, and that is why consciousness posits and grasps the object in the same act. Consciousness knows itself only as absolute inwardness. We shall call such a consciousness: consciousness in the first degree, or unreflected consciousness. ([TE 40-41)
quote:
[The] original and profound view which makes of consciousness a non-substantial absolute [is this:] [a] pure consciousness is an absolute quite simply because it is consciousness of itself. It remains therefore a "phenomenon" in a very special sense in which "to be" and "to appear" are one. It is all lightness, all translucence. (TE 42)
quote:
[M]y reflecting consciousness does not take itself [emphasis added -TT] for an object when I effect the Cogito. What it affirms concerns the reflected consciousness. Insofar as my reflecting consciousness is consciousness of itself, it is non-positional consciousness. It becomes positional only by directing itself upon the reflected consciousness which itself was not a positional consciousness of itself before being relfected. (TE 45)
quote:
All reflecting consciousness is, indeed, in itself unreflected, and a new act of the third degree is necessary to posit it. Moreover, there is no infinite regress here, since a consciousness has no need at all of a reflecting consciousness in order to be conscious of itself. It simply does not posit itself as an object. (TE 45)
quote:
[E]very unreflected consciousness, being non-thetic consciousness of itself, leaves a non-thetic memory that one can consult. To do so it suffices to try to reconstitute the complete moment [cf. the notion of the living present we encountered in Sokolowski, 134-140 -TT] in which this unreflected consciousness appeared (which by definition is always possible). For example, I was absorbed just now in my reading. I am going to try to remember the circumstances of my reading, my attitude, the lines that I was reading. I am thus going to revive not only these external details but a certain depth of unreflected consciousness, since the objects could only have been perceived by that consciousness and since they remain relative to it. That consciousness must not be posited as an object of reflection. On the contrary, I must direct my attention to the revived objects, but without losing sight of the unreflected consciousness, by joining in a sort of conspiracy with it and by drawing up an inventory of its content in a non-positional manner. There is no doubt about the result: while I was reading, there was consciousness of the book, of the heroes of the novel, but the I was not inhabiting this consciousness. It was only consciousness of the object and non-positional consciousness of itself. I can now make these a-thetically apprehended results the object of a thesis and declare: there was no I in the unreflected consciousness. (TE 46-47)
quote:
[U]nreflected consiousness...is an absolute which has no need of reflective consciousness in order to exist. (TE 53)
quote:
[U]nreflected consciousness must be considered autonomous. It is a totality which needs no completing at all.... (TE 58)
Can any of you think of any other passages in the first chapter that ought to be added to this collection? What questions do these passages themselves make you want to ask? Clearly, they embody the view that consciousness is not "given" only in reflection. The view so many of you found so puzzling yesterday is just this view: whenever consciousness occurs, it itself "puts in an appearance" (in a way that I think is meant to be reminiscent of what Heidegger has in mind when he speaks of being-here's "disclosing itself") without thereby becoming either its own intentional object or the intentional object of any other consciousness. Indeed, when it does become an intentional object, it puts in another kind of appearance altogether, for then it appears as an object -- not as its own object (no consciousness is ever its own object), but as the object of a reflective awareness that supervenes upon it.
|
|
|
Will Emmons
Moderator
47 Posts |
Posted - Nov 12 2008 : 1:19:42 PM
|
Tom, is there ever consciousness of a transcendent object that is not consciousness of the transcendence of the object? In other words, is it true that the transcendence of an object is always given in the consciousness of a transcendent object? If so, then I would want to suppose that consciousness, insofar as it is always consciousness of something, is always consciousness of something that transcends consciousness, and is consciousness of itself insofar as it is not itself the transcendent object. Perhaps I have been rather sloppy with both formulations of my question, assuming that I have not indeed asked two different questions, and the conclusion to a positive reply. I would appreciate some clarification. I think that I am really trying to get the length of determining whether or not consciousness is always consciousness of the object, of which it is consciousness, as a transcendent object. I am quite glad that you are willing to discuss this on the forums.
[Lightly edited to enhance readability -TT] |
 |
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Nov 12 2008 : 10:20:01 PM
|
| Will, in the two places where you've got "transcendental" here, did you mean to type "transcendent"? If the answer is "yes," would you have any objection to replacing "transcendental character" and "transcendental quality" with "transcendence"? In other words: do you mean anything other than transcendence by those two two-word phrases? |
|
|
|
Will Emmons
Moderator
47 Posts |
Posted - Nov 12 2008 : 11:20:01 PM
|
| Tom, I have no objections to replacing "transcendental" with "transcendent." You may recall that you have had to ask me a similar question with respect to these same terms as they appeared in my final essay in metaphysics last semester. It seems to me that I am mistakenly using "transcendental" where "transcendent" is proper and I have yet to grasp my error. In addition to treating my original post as you have suggested will you explain what it is that I ought to keep in mind when using these terms? |
|
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Nov 13 2008 : 12:22:39 AM
|
I've made the change. Actually, I've made the more radical change I proposed in the second of my questions in my 10:20 p.m. post.
"Transcendent" means (roughly) "outside" or "beyond," and the contrast term is "immanent." In the context of phenomenology "transcendental" means (roughly) "having to do with the conditions of the possibility of knowledge," and the contrast term is "empirical."
Now that I understand them a bit better, I think that the answer to your first question is "yes," and that the answer to your second question is "no." I think that what your asking about is like what you'd be asking about if you asked: can there be consciousness of a triangular object that is not consciousness of the triangularity of the object (or in other words: is it true that the triangularity of an object [that is in fact triangular] is always given in the consciousness of a triangular object? I'd answer those questions "yes" and "no" too, and for essentially the same reason: not all intentions are categorial intentions of the kind in which we are conscious of the object's being (i.e., its being what it is or as it is).
|
|
|
|
Will Emmons
Moderator
47 Posts |
Posted - Nov 18 2008 : 12:43:47 PM
|
| Is consciousness of a transcendent object that is not consciousness of the transcendence of the object consciousness that is aware of itself? |
|
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Nov 18 2008 : 2:19:17 PM
|
| It certainly would be according to Sartre. I assume, in answering this question with so much confidence, that by "consciousness of the transcendence of the object" you mean consciousness of the fact that the object is transcendent. Do correct me if I'm mistaken about that. |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
Is Consciousness "Given" Only in Reflection?
Forum Locked
