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đŸȘ” The Threshold

Consciousness is a duality that is unity, irreducible to the in-itself

Properties2
tagsja-picks, causal_relationships, singleton, xref, category/causal-relationships
aliases@sartre_being_1943, loc. 775, @sartre_being_1943, loc. 154, @bakewell_at_2016, loc. 739

4 min read

Consciousness is a duality that is unity, irreducible to the in-itself

Evidence

A for-itself which would have to be a self without being itself would be conceivable. The For-itself which I am simply has to be what it is in the form of a refusal of the Other; that is, as itself. Thus by utilizing the formulae applied to the knowledge of the Not-me in general, we can say that the For-itself as itself includes the being of the Other in its being in so far as its being is in question as not being the Other. 
 In other words, in order for a consciousness to be able to not-be the Other and therefore in order that there may be an Other without making this non-being, which is the condition of the self of consciousness, become purely and simply the object of the establishment of a “third man” as witness, two things are necessary: consciousness must have to be itself and must spontaneously have to be this non-being; consciousness must freely disengage itself from the Other and wrench itself away by choosing itself as a nothingness which is simply Other than the Other and thereby must be reunited in “itself.” This very detachment, which is the being of the For-itself, causes there to be an Other. This does not mean that it gives being to the Other but simply that it gives to the Other its being-other or the essential condition of the “there is.” — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 775 (#expands, via linked claim)

Consciousness is the revealed-revelation of existents, and existents appear before consciousness on the foundation of their being. Nevertheless the primary characteristic of the being of an existent is never to reveal itself completely to consciousness. An existent can not be stripped of its being; being is the ever present foundation of the existent; it is everywhere in it and nowhere. There is no being which is not the being of a certain mode of being, none which can not be apprehended through the mode of being which manifests being and veils it at the same time. Consciousness can always pass beyond the existent, not toward its being, but toward the meaning of this being. That is why we call it ontic-ontological, since a fundamental characteristic of its transcendence is to transcend the ontic toward the ontological. The meaning of the being of the existent in so far as it reveals itself to consciousness is the phenomenon of being. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 154 (#expands, via linked claim)

For Merleau-Ponty, consciousness can never be a ‘nothingness’ radically divided from being, as Sartre had proposed in Being and Nothingness. He does not even see it as a ‘clearing’, like Heidegger. When he looks for his own metaphor to describe how he sees consciousness, he comes up with a beautiful one: consciousness, he suggests, is like a ‘fold’ in the world, as though someone had crumpled a piece of cloth to make a little nest or hollow. It stays for a while, before eventually being unfolded and smoothed away. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist CafĂ©, 739 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

  • XREF: connects to: The In-itself’s full being makes the emergence of consciousness inexplicable; Self-consciousness is the sole mode of existence for any consciousness of something — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on
, 135; The perceived object is irreducible to the consciousness that perceives it. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on
, 142 (+12 more)

Broader Connections

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