Consciousness has no content because it is always directed outward at objects

Evidence

All consciousness, as Husserl has shown, is consciousness of something. This means that there is no consciousness which is not a positing of a transcendent object, or if you prefer, that consciousness has no “content.” We must renounce those neutral “givens” which, according to the system of reference chosen, find their place either “in the world” or “in the psyche.” A table is not in consciousness—not even in the capacity of a representation. A table is in space, beside the window, etc. The existence of the table in fact is a center of opacity for consciousness; it would require an infinite process to inventory the total contents of a thing. To introduce this opacity into consciousness would be to refer to infinity the inventory which it can make of itself, to make consciousness a thing, and to deny the cogito. The first procedure of a philosophy ought to be to expel things from consciousness and to reestablish its true connection with the world, to know that consciousness is a positional consciousness of the world. All consciousness is positional in that it transcends itself in order to reach an object, and it exhausts itself in this same positing. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 129

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the core Sartrean sense of ‘positional consciousness’ — consciousness as pure directedness with no interior content.
• XREF: This is the foundational for-itself/intentionality structure that Beauvoir’s ethics builds on; connects to Husserl’s intentionality. — connects to: Consciousness cannot constitute its object because that object is a full presence outside it — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 148; Consciousness is necessarily consciousness of something, always self-consciousness through its object; Consciousness is necessarily directed at a being other than itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 151 (+7 more)
• CANDY: Tersely quotable: ‘A table is not in consciousness—not even in the capacity of a representation.‘

Broader Connections

• Consciousness is necessarily directed at a being other than itself #corroborates (0.92) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 151
• Consciousness is necessarily consciousness of something, always self-consciousness through its object #corroborates (0.90)
• Intentionality means consciousness is always directed toward something beyond itself. #corroborates (0.90) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 1186