JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

Being133of Einstein it has been found advantageous to speak of an event conceived as havingspatial dimensions and a temporal dimension and as determining its space in a spacetime;or, on the other hand will it remain preferable despite all to preserve the ancientduality “consciousness-being.” The only observation which ontology can hazard hereis that in case it appears useful to employ the new notion of a phenomenon as adisintegrated totality, it will be necessary to speak of it both in terms of immanenceand in terms of transcendence. The danger, in fact, would be of falling into either adoctrine of pure immanence (Husserlian idealism) or into one of pure transcendencewhich would look on the phenomenon as a new kind of object. But immanence will bealways limited by the phenomenon’s dimension in-itself, and transcendence will belimited by its dimension for-itself.After having decided the question of the origin of the for-itself and of the nature ofthe phenomenon of the world, the metaphysician will be able to attack various problemsof primary importance, in particular that of action. Action, in fact, is to be consideredsimultaneously on the plane of the for-itself and on that of the in-itself, for it involvesa project which has an immanent origin and which determines a modification in thebeing of the transcendent. It would be of no use to declare that the action modifies onlythe phenomenal appearance of the thing. If the phenomenal appearance of a cup can bemodified up to the annihilation of the cup qua cup, and if the being of the cup isnothing but its quality, then the action envisaged must be capable of modifying thevery being of the cup. The problem of action therefore supposes the elucidation of thetranscendent efficacy of consciousness, and it puts us on the path of its veritablerelation of being with being. It reveals to us also, owing to the repercussions of an actin the world, a relation of being with being which, although apprehended in exteriorityby the physicist, is neither pure exteriority nor immanence but which refers us to thenotion of the Gestalt form. It is therefore in these terms that one might attempt ametaphysics of nature.Notes1 Correction for epo??, an obvious misprint. Tr.2 “To take part in,” “to participate.” Tr.3 Literally the “self” in “he bores himself” (il s’ennuie), a familiar construction in themany French reflexive verbs. Cf. English “he washes himself.” Tr.4 Deux en-soi. Ungrammatical as the expression “in-itselfs” admittedly is, it seemsto me the most accurate translation. “In-themselves” would have a different