JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

Imagination and emotion105world may also confront us at one non-utilizable whole; that is, as only modifiablewithout intermediation and by great masses. In that case, the categories of the worldact immediately upon the consciousness, they are present to it at no distance (forexample, the face that frightens us through the window acts upon us without anymeans; there is no need for the window to open, for a man to leap into the room or towalk across the floor). And, conversely, the consciousness tries to combat thesedangers or to modify these objects at no distance and without means, by some absolute,massive modification of the world. This aspect of the world is an entirely coherentone; this is the magical world. Emotion may be called a sudden fall of consciousnessinto magic; or, if you will, emotion arises when the world of the utilizable vanishesabruptly and the world of magic appears in its place. We must not, therefore, see inemotion a passing disorder of the organism and the mind which enters and upsets themfrom outside. On the contrary, it is the return of consciousness to the magical attitude,one of the great attitudes which are essential to it, with the appearance of the correlativeworld—the magical world. Emotion is not an accident, it is a mode of our consciousexistence, one of the ways in which consciousness understands (in Heidegger’s senseof Verstehen) its Being-in-the-World.A reflective consciousness can always direct its attention upon emotion. In thatcase, emotion is seen as a structure of consciousness. It is not a pure, ineffable qualitylike brick-red or the pure feeling of pain— as it would have to be according to James’stheory. It has a meaning, it signifies something in my psychic life. The purifyingreflection of phenomenological reduction enables us to perceive emotion at workconstituting the magical form of the world. “I find him hateful because I am angry.”But that reflection is rare, and depends upon special motivations. In the ordinary way,the reflection that we direct towards the emotive consciousness is accessory after thefact. It may indeed recognize the consciousness qua consciousness, but only as it ismotivated by the object: “I am angry because he is hateful.” It is from that kind ofreflection that passion is constituted.