Causality cannot serve as a bridge between two radically separated experiences

Evidence

Can we make use of causality here? This question is well designed to show the ambiguous character of the Other in a Kantian philosophy. Causality could in fact link only phenomena to each other. But to be exact, the anger which the Other feels is one phenomenon, and the furious expression which I perceive is another and different phenomenon. Can there be a causal connection between them? This would conform to their phenomenal nature, and in this sense I am not prevented from considering the redness of Paul’s face as the effect of his anger; this is a part of my ordinary affirmation. But on the other hand, causality has meaning only if it links the phenomena of one and the same experience and contributes to constituting that experience. Can it serve as a bridge between two experiences which are radically separated? Here we must note that by using causality in this capacity I shall make it lose its nature as an ideal unification of empirical appearances. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 669

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the Kantian constraint that causality unifies only phenomena within a single experience, showing why the Other’s anger cannot causally produce my perception of his expression.
• XREF: connects to: Fear and anguish are the same situation judged from opposite directions of causality — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 236; Psychic causality cannot be mechanical or constant-succession, only magic action at a distance — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 544; The Other cannot coherently organize my experience given the structure of experience itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 668 (+7 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Fear and anguish are the same situation judged from opposite directions of causality — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 236; Psychic causality cannot be mechanical or constant-succession, only magic action at a distance — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 544; The Other cannot coherently organize my experience given the structure of experience itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 668 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Mechanical causality cannot account for qualitative change or historical novelty. #expands (0.85)
• Conceiving consciousness as in-itself makes past and present unreconnectable #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 415
• Temporality cannot be derived from atemporal being or imposed upon it #complicates (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 467
• Structuralism introduced a new kind of non-reflective causality between social and mental categories. #contradicts (0.75)
• The past cannot be constructed from present elements alone #expands (0.72) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 411