JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

80Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writingsself-consciousness is a quality of pleasure. There is no more first a consciousnesswhich receives subsequently the affect “pleasure” like water which one stains, thanthere is first a pleasure (unconscious or psychological) which receives subsequentlythe quality of “conscious” like a pencil of light rays. There is an indivisible, indissolublebeing— definitely not a substance supporting its qualities like particles of being, buta being which is existence through and through. Pleasure is the being of selfconsciousnessand this self-consciousness is the law of being of pleasure. This is whatHeidegger expressed very well when he wrote (though speaking of Dasein, not ofconsciousness): “The ‘how’ (essentia) of this being, so far as it is possible to speak ofit generally, must be conceived in terms of its existence (existentia).” This means thatconsciousness is not produced as a particular instance of an abstract possibility butthat in rising to the center of being, it creates and supports its essence—that is, thesynthetic order of its possibilities.This means also that the type of being of consciousness is the opposite of thatwhich the ontological proof reveals to us. Since consciousness is not possible beforebeing, but since its being is the source and condition of all possibility, its existenceimplies its essence. Husserl expresses this aptly in speaking of the “necessity of fact.”In order for there to be an essence of pleasure, there must be first the fact of aconsciousness (of) this pleasure. It is futile to try to invoke pretended laws ofconsciousness of which the articulated whole would constitute the essence. A law is atranscendent object of knowledge; there can be consciousness of a law, not a law ofconsciousness. For the same reasons it is impossible to assign to a consciousness amotivation other than itself. Otherwise it would be necessary to conceive thatconsciousness to the degree to which it is an effect, is not conscious (of) itself. Itwould be necessary in some manner that it should be without being conscious (of)being. We should fall into that too common illusion which makes consciousness semiconsciousor a passivity. But consciousness is consciousness through and through. Itcan be limited only by itself.This self-determination of consciousness must not be conceived as a genesis, as abecoming, for that would force us to suppose that consciousness is prior to its ownexistence. Neither is it necessary to conceive of this self-creation as an act, for in thatcase consciousness would be conscious (of) itself as an act, which it is not. Consciousnessis a plenum of existence, and this determination of itself by itself is an essentialcharacteristic. It would even be wise not to misuse the expression “cause of self,”which allows us to suppose a progression, a relation of self-cause to self-effect. Itwould be more exact to say very simply: The existence of consciousness comes from