JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing
JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing
Nothingness137sense because it is nothing over and above the arrangement of theremaining parts of the wall. An earthquake destroys a city and ontologicallythis is a distribution of beings that to human beings is disastrous. Sartresays after a storm there is no less than before, there is something else. It isthe presence of human reality in the world, being-for-itself, that makes theredistributions of beings called ‘storms’ and ‘earthquakes’ into cases ofdestruction.Nothingness depends upon consciousness. Consciousness dependsupon being-for-itself so nothingness is ultimately introduced into the worldby being-for-itself. In the café, we are aware of the absence of Pierre becausewe expect to see him there; as a figure against a background. Sartredistinguishes clearly between non-existence that depends onconsciousness and non-existence that does not. After all, many people areabsent from the café. The Duke of Wellington and Paul Valéry are absent.But they are only thought to be absent, in the abstract, or not even thought.Pierre’s absence is experienced. In these ways, according to Sartre,consciousness is prior to nothingness.Consciousness is defined by negation. This is partly the modal point thatits being and its being what it is depend upon its not being what it is not. It ispartly the psychological claim that its imaginative power to negate is one ofits essential properties. Unless we could think or imagine what is absentwe could not intuit that which is present.There is a more profound connection between consciousness andnothingness. I am my consciousness and my consciousness is a kind ofnothingness; a nothingness at the heart of being. The being ofconsciousness contrasts with the kind of being of Sartre calls ‘en-soi’ or ‘initself’.Being-in-itself is massive, opaque, full, dense and inert. It confrontsme and it surrounds me. If I try to locate myself as consciousness, in contrast,I am strangely absent. Phenomenologically, I seem to be a subjective regionof non-being within the plenitude of being. Consciousness is a kind ofemptiness or non being. Consciousness is certainly not one object amongstothers that I could encounter in the course of my experience. Sartre thinksnothingness distances me from being-in-itself and I am nothing butconsciousness of being.Sartre often speaks as though consciousness is a kind of nothingnessor emptiness. Sometimes he says consciousness is a prerequisite for
138Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writingsnothingness. Sometimes he says nothingness confronts consciousness.For example, when in Being and Nothingness he says consciousness istotal emptiness because the whole world is outside it, he implies thatconsciousness is a kind of non-being, an absence of being-in-itself. Allthese views may be exhibited as mutually consistent. Sartre is establishinga hierarchy of dependencies between kinds of absence. Consciousness isa kind of absence that depends on being: being-in-itself. Consciousnessessentially involves the power of negation: the possibility of denial throughimagination. This in turn makes possible the experience of absence as akind of quasi-being.It is through its power of negation that consciousness distinguishesitself from its own objects. This distinction makes possible consciousness’intentionality which, as we saw in the last two chapters, is essential to whatconsciousness is.BEING AND NOTHINGNESSThe origin of negationI. The questionOur inquiry has led us to the heart of being. But we have been brought to an impassesince we have not been able to establish the connection between the two regions ofbeing which we have discovered. No doubt this is because we have chosen an unfortunateapproach. Descartes found himself faced with an analogous problem when he had todeal with the relation between soul and body. He planned then to look for the solutionon that level where the union of thinking substance and extended substance wasactually effected—that is, in the imagination. His advice is valuable. To be sure, ourconcern is not that of Descartes and we do not conceive of imagination as he did. Butwhat we can retain is the reminder that it is not profitable first to separate the twoterms of a relation in order to try to join them together again later. The relation is asynthesis. Consequently the results of analysis can not be covered over again by themoments of this synthesis.M. Laporte says that an abstraction is made when something not capable ofexisting in isolation is thought of as in an isolated state. The concrete by contrast is atotality which can exist by itself alone. Husserl is of the same opinion; for him red isan abstraction because color can not exist without form. On the other hand, a spatial-
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138Jean-Paul <strong>Sartre</strong>: <strong>Basic</strong> <strong>Writing</strong>snothingness. Sometimes he says nothingness confronts consciousness.For example, when in Being and Nothingness he says consciousness istotal emptiness because the whole world is outside it, he implies thatconsciousness is a kind of non-being, an absence of being-in-itself. Allthese views may be exhibited as mutually consistent. <strong>Sartre</strong> is establishinga hierarchy of dependencies between kinds of absence. Consciousness isa kind of absence that depends on being: being-in-itself. Consciousnessessentially involves the power of negation: the possibility of denial throughimagination. This in turn makes possible the experience of absence as akind of quasi-being.It is through its power of negation that consciousness distinguishesitself from its own objects. This distinction makes possible consciousness’intentionality which, as we saw in the last two chapters, is essential to whatconsciousness is.BEING AND NOTHINGNESSThe origin of negationI. The questionOur inquiry has led us to the heart of being. But we have been brought to an impassesince we have not been able to establish the connection between the two regions ofbeing which we have discovered. No doubt this is because we have chosen an unfortunateapproach. Descartes found himself faced with an analogous problem when he had todeal with the relation between soul and body. He planned then to look for the solutionon that level where the union of thinking substance and extended substance wasactually effected—that is, in the imagination. His advice is valuable. To be sure, ourconcern is not that of Descartes and we do not conceive of imagination as he did. Butwhat we can retain is the reminder that it is not profitable first to separate the twoterms of a relation in order to try to join them together again later. The relation is asynthesis. Consequently the results of analysis can not be covered over again by themoments of this synthesis.M. Laporte says that an abstraction is made when something not capable ofexisting in isolation is thought of as in an isolated state. The concrete by contrast is atotality which can exist by itself alone. Husserl is of the same opinion; for him red isan abstraction because color can not exist without form. On the other hand, a spatial-
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