JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

The self155consciousness apprehends the I Think, does it apprehend a full and concreteconsciousness gathered into a real moment of concrete duration? The reply is clear: theI is not given as a concrete moment, a perishable structure of my actual consciousness.On the contrary, it affirms its permanence beyond this consciousness and allconsciousnesses, and— although it scarcely resembles a mathematical truth—its typeof existence comes much nearer to that of eternal truths than to that of consciousness.Indeed, it is obvious that Descartes passed from the Cogito to the idea of thinkingsubstance because he believed that I and think are on the same level. We have just seenthat Husserl, although less obviously, is ultimately subject to the same reproach. Iquite recognize that Husserl grants to the I a special transcendence which is not thetranscendence of the object, and which one could call a transcendence “from above.”But by what right? And how account for this privileged treatment of the I if not bymetaphysical and Critical preoccupations which have nothing to do withphenomenology? Let us be more radical and assert without fear that all transcendencemust fall under the ep???; thus, perhaps, we shall avoid writing such awkwardchapters as Section Sixty-one of Ideen Zu Einer Reinen PhänomenologischenPhilosophie. If the I in the I think affirms itself as transcendent, this is because the I isnot of the same nature as transcendental consciousness.Let us also note that the I Think does not appear to reflection as the reflectedconsciousness: it is given through reflected consciousness. To be sure, it is apprehendedby intuition and is an object grasped with evidence. But we know what a serviceHusserl has rendered to philosophy by distinguishing diverse kinds of evidence. Well,it is only too certain that the I of the I Think is an object grasped with neither apodicticnor adequate evidence. The evidence is not apodictic, since by saying I we affirm farmore than we know. It is not adequate, for the I is presented as an opaque realitywhose content would have to be unfolded. To be sure, the I manifests itself as thesource of consciousness. But that alone should make us pause. Indeed, for this veryreason the I appears veiled, indistinct through consciousness, like a pebble at thebottom of the water. For this very reason the I is deceptive from the start, since weknow that nothing but consciousness can be the source of consciousness.In addition, if the I is a part of consciousness, there would then be two I’s: the I ofthe reflective consciousness and the I of the reflected consciousness. Fink, the discipleof Husserl, is even acquainted with a third I, disengaged by the ep???, the I oftranscendental consciousness. Hence the problem of the three I’s, whose difficultiesFink agreeably mentions. For us, this problem is quite simply insoluble. For it isinadmissible that any communication could be established between the reflective I andthe reflected I if they are real elements of consciousness; above all, it is inadmissiblethat they may finally achieve identity in one unique I.