Sartre Phenomenology Midterm Review

Existence precedes essence 

• Opposes the idea that there is an essence for humans or a plan/blueprint. Our existence precedes this idea

• Man exists then defines himself afterward 

• Human is free to choose what they are and who they want to be - both true and not true, not what he may wish to be but is a manifestation of prior 

• We are born with essence it is what we become through the fundamental project 

Being-for-itself 

• conscious beings or subjects

• contains possibility 

• way human consciousness exists in the world - being of consciousness - subjectivity

Being in-itself  

• the being of objects, 

• nonconscious existence - it is what it is 

• Complete

Thetic consciousness

• Reflective consciousness 

• Unaware of one's own consciousness until after action and it become knowledge of the action that happened

• Realization of what were are experiencing 

Non-thetic consciousness 

• Pre-reflective or non-reflective consciousness 

• Still conscious but not reflectively aware of itself or knowledge of something 

• One can be conscious of something without knowledge of something 

• Flow state

Original choice or fundamental attitude 

• The self we become is not given to us ahead of time but relies on a choice but no one that we are always aware of. It's not unconscious (rejects unconscious) but it is pre reflected. The way we respond to existence is fundamental to who we become  

• Not an object of knowledge

• Attitude we develop to life itself, a choice because our consciousness if free

• Sense in which we choose who we are but that choice is not a reflective choice 

• Fundamental attitude that emerges from being in the world and our existence

Fundamental project

• Project of being or becoming of self or project of identity 

• Believes humans have ability to make choice, more of a sense hat consciousness is free

• Non being- non thetic mode, not result of a judgment 

• We have a sense of nothingness period to judgement prior to knowledge because it is part of the structure of consciousness and the way we experience it

Phenomenology 

• Understands the objectivity of experience in terms of an infinite number of perspectives on that object 

• the study of phenomena (things and content as we experience them)

• Phenomenology begins with consciousness and context of it

Appearance vs reality 

• Reality of the object constitutes on the bases of intersubjective experience 

• Appearances and content of experiences itself takes on a new importance in modern philosophy 

• Appearance loses its negativity and becomes full in its positivity 

Sartre’s view of consciousness 

• Consciousness is not a dual structure

• Consciousness itself must itself be conscious and self-aware it is conscious 

• Pleasure doesn't consistent of an additional consciousness of pleasure but a consciousness of pleasure

• Both conscious and conscious of being self, but don't realize that conscious until there is a break in experience and go into a more reflective act of experience 

• Get away from consciousness being subject and object

Sartre’s view of self-consciousness vs higher-order theories 

Higher order consciousness 

• What makes a state conscious -  it is consciousness of it being conscious 

• Second order consciousness is being conscious of consciousness 

• Third order consciousness to second order consciousness to conscious 

• Consciousness is not an object of being conscious, it's an immersed consciousness 

Self-consciousness 

• Self-consciousness does not have both reflected and reflected on 

• I think of myself in the way I think of object 

Transphenomentality of being 

• Idea that it's not just live experience but it is also experience of other consciousnesses 

• Being of things is established across multiple experiences and within experiences 

• Wants to reject both idealism and realism, whose reality is established independently of consciousness 

• The world is intersubjective

Abstract vs concrete non-being 

Sartre has a more concrete account of nothingness as well as heidegger but hegel has a more abstract account of being 

Abstract

• Suggests that there is still some kind of being 

• Not only that being has logical priority over nothingness but also being is that nothingness aries efficacy 

Concrete 

• Part of totality and can cause and be affected by other things 

How does nothingness enter the world 

• human consciousness is that being which brings nothingness into the world 

Anguish vs fear 

• Freedom in question of itself - anguish - Anguish is distinct from fear

• Fear is thing out of your control - fear because im an object in the world 

• Anguish is fear of your own control

Bad faith 

• Compared bad faith to a lie to oneself, how can one be the person lying and the person being lied too

• In bad faith i might have some awareness of the truth and it is not hidden from me but i proceed with the attitude of the lie partially because it works and I can get by this way 

  • The other can see better than the individual the truth

• Lower standard of evidence, since we want to persuade ourselves, and interrupt things that isn't as critical 

Sincerity 

• Learning of myself through others, listening to what others think I am, when i try to be this i approach my consciousness as a thing

• Sincerity is impossible and undermine itself

• If i wanna be who i am then when try to be it i am the duality between what i'm trying to be and the sincerity of myself 

Cynical lie 

• If one knows they are lying to oneself of deceiving oneself it undermines bad faith 

Facticity 

• Most experiences or situations i have no control over but i get to control how i react and how i act in that situation is what matters 

• Object of our being, physical body, time we are born, culture, factual things about us

Transcendence 

• conscious aspect of existence 

• Feature of consciousness that allows us to detach from our normal physical process of life, from thought, freedom of consciousness

Descartes error of substantialism 

Because he can doubt the things of the physical material world, yet he can not doubt he, a thinking exists then there must be something fundamentally different between material thing and the thinking thing

Reflective vs pre-reflective cogito 

Descartes - reflective cogito 

• One's own existence as a thinking thing by way of reflection and deducing it through reason 

• Self that is posited based on reflection as a kind of substance of a thinking thing 

• Self as substance 

• Remain faithful to factual truths 

Sartre - pre-reflective cogito 

• Have an awareness of our own consciousness at pre-reflective consciousness 

• Self as implicit in consciousness 

• Can reveal itself at the consciousness level 

• I am aware that i am conscious of the world and of myself

Ipseity 

• first person consciousness - pre-reflective cogito

Self as a project 

• fundamental project - our personality identity - (objects separate from personal fundamental projects) 

Ego 

• object self - turning consciousness into an object - reification of consciousness 

Two senses of self 

• Ipseity - selfness (non-thetic) 

• Ego - self as object

Desire and lack 

• Defines it as a ‘lack’

• Desire perpetuates itself 

• Comes from a lack of being 

• Can desire be satisfied 

• Desire has a physiological base but also ontological, also experience desire in relation to being 

• Is desire ever satisfied? Can live through desire meaningfully

Being-for-the-other 

• Something that is mine and i am responsible for it but its not in my immediate no control, no control over what they see 

• Reflects back to you but not in the way you want to see 

The other 

• The existence of the other, see the other as an object of knowledge - classical theory explains 

• Being as the other as terms of being and not object of knowledge - how Sarte explains 

• My being for the other is something that is mind but which i have no control over 

• My being without being myself 

• The other is not a fundamental object of knowledge for me my relation to the other must take another form, takes the form of my own consciousness or desire to be 

• In this desire to be who i am is outside of my first person perspective