Sartre’s reading recast Beauvoir’s Hegelian consciousness-world unity into his own lack-and-negation framework

Evidence

Although Sartre’s comments above in his War Diary concerning the relationship between consciousness and the world of objects were clearly inspired by his reading of Beauvoir’s nighttime description of the theatre, what is particularly interesting is the way he interprets her work. Inevitably, Sartre read Beauvoir’s text, as all readers do, through the prism of his own subjectivity. Th e result is that his reading of the novel tends to be somewhat idiosyncratic. Beauvoir’s “Hegelian” starting point in She Came to Stay is that consciousness fi nds certainty of itself in its unity with an object. Th e world “belongs” to Françoise because she confers unity and meaning to it. In contrast, Sartre interprets the above scene purely in terms of his own evolving phenomenological framework. Profoundly infl uenced by Husserl, Sartre expands on his evolving thesis, fully developed in Being and Nothingness, which posits the relationship between consciousness and its transcendental object as one of lack and negation. … On the contrary, Beauvoir, in the above scene, demonstrates through the character of Françoise, Hegel’s thesis of the essential unity of consciousness and the world. Th e chairs belong to Françoise because she has conferred meaning on them; they exist uniquely for her: “She exercised this power: her presence revived things from their inanimateness” (SCS, 12; Inv, 12). — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 244

Categorization

• XREF: Contrasts Beauvoir’s Hegelian unity of consciousness and world with Sartre’s Husserl-derived transcendental negation — a core distinction relevant to continental scholarship on Sartre’s Being and Nothingness and Beauvoir’s early philosophy. — connects to: Beauvoir’s concept of transcendence evolves from Sartre’s metaphysics toward an active Hegelian sense — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 591; Beauvoir’s situated account of freedom moved Sartre beyond his earlier absolutism — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 46; Sartre’s Hegel exposure during Being and Nothingness came mediated through Beauvoir. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 246 (+2 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The passage exposes two divergent phenomenological starting points (unity/negation) used to read the same text — a dense distinction between Beauvoir’s and Sartre’s philosophies of consciousness worth sitting with.

Broader Connections

• Beauvoir’s concept of transcendence evolves from Sartre’s metaphysics toward an active Hegelian sense #complicates (0.75) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 591
• Beauvoir’s situated account of freedom moved Sartre beyond his earlier absolutism #corroborates (0.72) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 46