Sartre’s philosophy is neither idealism nor realism but a third position

Evidence

Obviously the most strikingly original idea here presented as well as the unifying motif of the entire work, is the position that consciousness is a Nothingness. Yet as a Nothingness it is also a revelation of Being. Aside from the paradoxical nature of this position, we are immediately puzzled as to how to relate it to the traditional theories of idealism and realism; and I think that perhaps our best approach to the whole question of the negativity of consciousness is to observe just how Sartre himself believes that he can hold a theory not open to the objections generally directed against either of the others. His philosophy is not idealism, not even Husserl’s brand of idealism, as he points out, because Being in no way creates consciousness or is in any way dependent on consciousness for its existence. Being is already there, without reason or justification. It is not exhausted by any or by all of its appearances, though it is fully there in each one of its appearances. (That is, it does not serve as a sort of phenomenon with a noumenon behind it.) It always overflows whatever knowledge we have of it—just as it is presupposed by all our questions and by consciousness itself. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 40

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the transphenomenality of Being and how Sartre distinguishes his position from both Husserlian idealism and realism.
• XREF: Sets up the systematic backdrop for Beauvoir’s ethics, and connects to the idealism/realism debate in continental philosophy. — connects to: Sartre’s philosophy forms a total system whose parts cannot be understood in isolation