Being conscious of one’s project does not entail knowing it

Evidence

But if the fundamental project is fully experienced by the subject and hence wholly conscious, that certainly does not mean that it must by the same token be known by him; quite the contrary. The reader will perhaps recall the care we took in the Introduction to distinguish between consciousness and knowledge. … It is penetrated by a great light without being able to express what this light is illuminating. We are not dealing with an unsolved riddle as the Freudians believe; all is there, luminous; reflection is in full possession of it, apprehends all. But this “mystery in broad daylight” is due to the fact that this possession is deprived of the means which would ordinarily permit analysis and conceptualization. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1340

Categorization

• DEFINE: Crucial Sartrean distinction: the project is fully conscious (experienced) yet not known (conceptualized) — ‘mystery in broad daylight’.
• DEEPTHINKING: This consciousness-without-knowledge distinction is the epistemic hinge of the entire existential psychoanalysis method and resists one-sentence compression.
• XREF: Builds on the consciousness-versus-knowledge distinction flagged in the Introduction; also underpins Beauvoir’s later account of ambiguity. — connects to: Knowing aims to coincide with being yet is structured as not being it; Knowing is the very being of the for-itself, not a relation — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 572; Being conscious of one’s motives already places them outside the self — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1075 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Knowing aims to coincide with being yet is structured as not being it #expands (0.85)
• Being conscious of one’s motives already places them outside the self #corroborates (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1075
• Knowing is the very being of the for-itself, not a relation #expands (0.78) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 572
• Acts can seem intentional yet lack conscious reason at the moment #corroborates (0.75)
• The problem is not ignorance but knowing how to act on what we know #expands (0.75) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 783
• Intentionality means the mind’s constant aboutness, not deliberate purpose #complicates (0.72) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 152