Sequential descriptive psychology leaves every causal transition unexplained

Evidence

At each stage in the description just quoted, we meed with an hiatus. Why did ambition and the feeling of his power produce in Flaubert exaltation rather than tranquil waiting or gloomy impatience? Why did this exaltation express itself specifically in the need to act violently and feel intensely? Or rather why does this need make a sudden appearance by spontaneous generation at the end of the paragraph? And why does this need instead of seeking to appease itself in acts of violence, by amorous adventures, or in debauch, choose precisely to satisfy itself symbolically? And why does Flaubert turn to writing rather than to painting or music for this symbolic satisfaction; he could just as well not resort to the artistic field at all (there is also mysticism, for example). “I could have been a great actor,” wrote Flaubert somewhere. Why did he not try to be one? In a word, we have understood nothing; we have seen a succession of accidental happenings, of desire springing forth fully armed, one from the other, with no possibility for us to grasp their genesis. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1320

Categorization

• XREF: This demand for genesis over sequence connects to the reader’s Beauvoir project and to the broader Continental rejection of empiricist associationism. — connects to: The transition from universal to particular self is unexplained; Neurology cannot explain what makes mental transitions possible — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 210; Conceptual progress requires specifying underlying mental mechanisms, not just clearer definitions (+2 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The cascade of unanswered ‘whys’ — each transition veiled by invoking an unintelligible empirical rule — is a dense, paradigm-adjacent statement of what an adequate account of human action must explain.

Broader Connections

• Neurology cannot explain what makes mental transitions possible #corroborates (0.85) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 210
• The transition from universal to particular self is unexplained #exemplifies (0.82)
• Conceptual progress requires specifying underlying mental mechanisms, not just clearer definitions #expands (0.80)
• Causality cannot serve as a bridge between two radically separated experiences #corroborates (0.75)