Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Intentionality and Structure

One of the ambitions of Intentionality is to offer a concept of Consciousness that is an alternative to the Kantian thesis that Consciousness structures its objects. Hence, it insists that Consciousness is a projection towards an object that is independent of it. However, the elaboration of Gestalt structures, by many of the major post-Husserlians, within the Intentionalist concept suggests the limitations of that ambition. For example, on Sartre's analysis, Consciousness distinguishes a 'this' from the rest of a field, without explaining how the item is in-itself discrete from everything else. Indeed, he seems to have no grounds to assert even that Being-in-itself is plural. Hence, even if the In-itself is independent of Consciousness, he has no grounds for asserting that in Intending an object, the discreteness of the latter pre-exists the Consciousness of it. Now, such agnosticism is not necessarily a response to a reduction of the In-itself to the Kantian thing-in-itself. For, while artificial and mechanically-produced items are easily conceivable as in-themselves possessing discreteness, organic phenomena are, where not plainly amorphous, at least relatively lacking in clear differentiation. Thus, plurality in the latter group can only be the product of the extrinsic application of organizational and selective processes. To put it another way, what Intentionality takes to be a simple aiming at a pre-given discrete object, is, in at least some significant instances, the product of a representation of a general manifold in combination with a selection of one aspect of that representation. So, even without reducing the phenomenological In-itself to the Kantian In-itself, Intentional Consciousness constructs, not aims at, at least some of its objects.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Intention, Gestalt, Attention

Merleau-Ponty agrees with not only Sartre, but with the other main post-Husserlians, Heidegger and Jaspers as well, that Consciousness has a fundamental 'Gestalt' character. That is, the object of Consciousness is always a figure on a ground, i. e. it is given as not an isolated thing, but as a thing within a world. But, if so, then the Intentional formula, that Consciousness is always Consciousness of an object, is inadequate, because, on the face of it, it abstracts from the environing context in which an object appears. In contrast, the object of Attention is always a focal center with a vaguer periphery. Now, Husserl argues that since Consciousness can be inattentive, Attention is only a special case of Intention. However, on the Gestalt model, inattention is correlative with attention, as are, analogously, ground and figure. In other words, inattentive Consciousness is an implicated dimension of Attention, not a negation of it, and, so, there is no distinct species of inattentive Consciousness. Hence, Husserl has no grounds for rejecting an Attentional theory of Consciousness, while the Intentional model is inadequate to the Gestalt structure of Consciousness, even if those post-Husserlians persist in affirming their loyalty to Intentionality.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Merleau-Ponty, Perception, Corporeality

Whereas Sartre seems unsettled as to whether or not Consciousness is embodied, Merleau-Ponty unequivocally affirms that the subject of perception is bodily, and that the body is the center of motile action. Yet, he also asserts that "the theory of the body is already a theory of perception". Hence, he believes that perception, even presumably incarnated, still precedes, in some respect, bodily movement. So, while effectively distinguishing his view from Cartesian dualism, he, nevertheless, continues the methodological privileging, implicit in Phenomenology and Intentionality, of Consciousness with respect to its objects, including to one's own corporeal motility. But, that privileging presupposes that his method is not itself a mode of action, which seems difficult to defend. For, the Phenomenological method does not consist in the sheerly passive reception of phenomenal data, but, as Merleau-Ponty himself insists, it is a descriptive procedure, and, even when it is merely private, description is a mode of action. So, what Merleau-Ponty's effort does achieve is to underscore that the only conclusively corporeal concept of Consciousness is one that has it implicated in bodily motility.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Being-for-itself-in-itself

Deleuze. borrowing imagery from Merleau-Ponty, characterizes Sartre's concept of Nothingness as a 'lake' in the midst of 'Being', as opposed to a 'fold' in Being, thereby suggesting that for Sartre, Nothingness is Ontologically independent of Being. However, whether Nothingness, for Sartre, is as distinct from Being as water is from earth seems to be debatable. On the one hand, on a variety of occasions he does insist that Being is prior to Nothingness, as the ideal Being-in-itself-for-itself expresses, which would indicate that Nothingness is the product of a fold in Being. On the other hand, there is also textual evidence to indicate that the implicit ideal of Consciousness is, more accurately, Being-for-itself-in-itself, or, as Aristotle terms it, thought-thinking-itself. The latter would be Consciousness as it is in-itself, independent any of objects, of a body in which it is rooted, and of the limitations imposed on it by other Consciousnesses, all of which are themes that Sartre explores. Furthermore, as has been discussed, Sartre never explains how Consciousness could be re-embodied, which leaves it as groundless as water. So, in the final analysis Sartre may not have resolved, wittingly or otherwise, whether Nothingness is a fold or a lake.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Impulsion and Consciousness

By describing Impulsion as 'plastic', Dewey means that it is in itself formless, but shapeable. His own main purpose is to demonstrate how it can be shaped into habitual behavior, but it is formless in every specific instance, as well. In other words, every actuation of Impulsion requires coordination with some independent formative agency, without which only corporeal spasms or convulsions result. Thus, the Formaterial concept of Action entails, in addition to Impulsion, a fundamental manifestation of its Material Principle, an independent Formal Principle that organizes and guides motion. Now, in the System, the most fundamental manifestation of the Formal Principle in personal Experience is Consciousness, which healthily functions co-spontaneously with Impulsion. So, according to the Formaterial analysis of Action, Sartre's theory of Freedom compresses two distinct processes into what he calls 'Consciousness', while abstracting from the physical dimension of Impulsion.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Impulsion, Mind, Will

According to Dewey, a human possesses a plastic power to set itself in motion, which he calls 'Impulsion'. For Formaterialism, Impulsion is a manifestation of its Material Principle, but with two significant divergences from some traditional interpretations. First, Formaterialism disagrees with Dewey, and others, that, even as spontaneous, Impulsion functions only in response to circumstantial exigency, because, as has been discussed, the Material Principle is one of the two complementary, but independent, factors of human Experience. Second, it contests any characterization of Impulsion as non-mental. That it is non-mental is generally inferred from either of two observations--that it eventuates in physical processes, and that it is radically unlike phenomena that are uncontroversially classified as mental, e. g. cognitive representations. However, both inferences presuppose what Formaterialism rejects--the premise of a more fundamental Mind-Body split. As has been previously discussed, Formaterialism holds, to the contrary, that the Mind-Body split is an abstraction from two more unitary fundamental processes, each of which has both a mental and a physical pole--mind-becoming-body, e. g. locomotility, and body-becoming-mind, e. g. empirical cognition. So, in the absence of that standard presupposition, that Impulsion ends physically is no argument against it originating mentally, and that its origin is unlike cognitive mental components is no argument against its being mental in a respect different than them. In other words, Impulsion is Will in its unreflective mode.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Consciousness and Will

Sartre describes the Emotions as 'magical thinking', because, on his analysis, they are vicarious responses to actual exigencies. However, he seems to miss that the same analysis can apply, at least in some cases, to Consciousness. For example, in comparison with negating the visual perception of some object by closing one's eyes, turning one's head, moving the object, etc. the nihilations that he attributes to Consciousness, e. g. psychic withdrawal, detachment, doubt, etc. are likewise vicarious. Indeed, the comparison bears out that Consciousness is a Lack not insofar as it is not its object, but insofar as it is a disembodied abstraction from other processes that are physically efficacious. Now, the traditional term for those processes is 'Will'. However, Sartre rejects the possibility that Consciousness is an abstraction from Will, arguing, to the contrary, that Will is only a special case of Consciousness, in two respects: first, Will, unlike Consciousness is merely reflective, and, second, it is no more than a means to the ends that only Consciousness can choose. But, on the first point, if he allows that Consciousness has both reflective and unreflective modes, then his restriction of Will to the former mode is arbitrary. And, on the second, that Will does not set ends does not imply that it is merely a means, for, if it is intrinsically non-teleological, then it neither sets ends nor is intrinsically a means to ends that have been pre-established. On the other hand, his attempt to subordinate Will to Consciousness, as is the case with the entirety of Being and Nothingness, offers no explanation as to how the latter, unlike the former, can be conceived as both embodied and physically efficacious.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Excession and Freedom

According to Sartre, Freedom consists in a spontaneous upsurge of choosing how one will comport oneself under given conditions. More specifically, choosing is an act of Consciousness that can be either reflective or unreflective, e. g. even being-thirsty is freely chosen, according to Sartre. However, there are three weaknesses in his analysis. First, even if choice is spontaneous, it still arises only as a response to the exigencies of circumstances--none of Sartre's examples are of purely random behavior--so, to that extent, Freedom is still conditioned. Second, his account is susceptible to the Epiphenomenalist challenge that the upsurge that results in a conscious choice may itself have a non-conscious, e. g. organic, origin. Finally, his analysis both misses and cannot explain a closely related phenomenon. Even granted that Consciousness is a spontaneous upsurge that produces a choice, a further lacuna usually transpires as well--one between the conscious resolution to act and the subsequent action. This gap between thought and action is so familiar, and so chronically inexplicable, that it is probably a main evidential basis of many Mind-Body dualisms. Yet, since this Nothingness is produced by an upsurge of physical motion away from Consciousness, attributing it to Consciousness seems difficult. Hence, Sartre's theory of Nothingness cannot accommodate this most common of phenomena. In contrast, the transition from a formulated conscious intention to the intended act is, for Formaterialism, the prototype of Excession, and the fundamental moment of experiential Freedom. Furthermore, unlike Sartre's concept of Freedom, Excession is fundamentally de trop, and, hence, not intrinsically a response to circumstances. Plus, while it does not refute Epiphenomenalism, it puts the onus on the latter to explain how a transition, such as that from intending to raise one's arm to actually raising it, is illusory or coincidental. Finally, and perhaps most important, in contrast with all of Sartre's varying models and examples, Excession satisfies both conditions of Freedom--Spontaneity and Efficacy.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Excession and Nothingness

Excession entails that something is exceeded, so Excession can be said to negate the exceeded, and, in Ontological terms, it can be said that it is separated from the exceeded by a Nothingness. Plainly, Excession is a surplus with respect to the exceeded, so characterizing it as a deficient mode of the latter is inappropriate. Nevertheless, though Sartre describes Consciousness as an 'upsurge', a 'transcending', a 'surpassing', etc., all connoting Excession, its status in his System is as Ontologically deficient. For, therein it is a Lack, not with respect to the Being-in-itself that it exceeds, but with respect to its own becoming both In-itself and For-itself. In turn, that analysis implies not merely that Consciousness lacks Being-in-itself, or even that it seeks to unite with an In-itself, but that it itself seeks to become an In-itself in combination with a For-itself. Sartre thus imparts a towards-which into the dynamic of Consciousness that is extrinsic, if not antithetical to, upsurging, transcending, surpassing, etc. Indeed, he implicitly acknowledges the inessentially to Consciousness of a teleological element, towards the end of Being and Nothingness, when he entertains the possibility of Freedom without Value. In any case, without that element, Consciousness negates Being-in-itself, and it lacks Being-in-itself, without being Ontologically deficient with respect to Being-in-itself.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Excession

'Excession' is the process of exceeding, and, likewise, 'excessional' means 'excessive', but without the usual prejorative connotation. Excession is a key innovation in Formaterialism, since the Material Principle, in gerneral, and, for example, locomotility, in particular, are excessional, which facilitates a conceptualization of Experience that contrasts with the traditional teleological notion of behavior as fundamentally a response to a deficiency. Sartre seems to have a brief insight into Excession, which, in his terminology, could be defined as 'Being-de trop', but he eventually supplants it with Lack as the motor of existential processes, with significant consequences for his Ontology. For example, he characterizes Consciousness as a Lack because: it is Intentional, and, thus, has an object; the object is external to Consciousness, which means that a negation separates the two; since the object, as Being-in-itself, is a plenum, it cannot be the source of the negation; therefore, Consciousness is the source of that negation. But, to thus contain a Nothingness is possible only if, according to Sartre, Consciousness is Ontologically deficient, i. e. is a Lack. However, Excession also contains a negation, but one that is sublated. Thus, it can also follow from Sartre's Intentionality that Consciousness is a surplus of Being, in which case, for example, it is no longer intrinsically motivated by Value.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Intentionality and Consciousness

The cardinal principle of Intentionality, pioneered in contemporary Philosophy by Brentano, is that Consciousness is essentially Consciousness of an object, i. e. it challenges theories that hold that having an object is extrinsic to the fundamental structure of Consciousness. One main debate in Intentionality concerns the nature of the object of Consciousness, e. g. Husserl believes that it is constituted within Consciousness, whereas Sartre insists that any object of Consciousness pre-exists Consciouness. However, less clear for Intentionality is the status of a potentially related principle--that Consciousness is necessarily the Consciousness of a Subject, in the possessive sense of 'of'. For example, Sartre explicitly derives Being-for-itself from the Intentional Principle, i. e. it is the Consciousness of Consciousness that is implicit in the Consciousness of an object. Hence, he constructs Selfhood on the basis of the fundamental Intentional relation. But such Selfhood is essentially anonymous, so the Intentional Principle does not warrant the further instantiation of the For-itself as an upsurge from a specific In-itself. Instead, any such instantiation presupposes the second Principle cited above, i. e. that Consciousness is an attribute of some subject, which Sartre does not invoke. So, the status of the latter Principle is unclear in Sartre's Ontology. But, that he attempts to link the For-itself to a specific In-itself, at minimum, demonstrates the insufficiency of the Intentional Principle as a definition of Consciousness, as well as contests any presumption that Consciousness is the subject of its object, i. e. that it is not a relation between a subject and an object, nor an emergent dimension of a pre-existing subject-object relation.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Awareness, Detachment, Conscience

As has been previously discussed, a significant incoherence in Sartre's concept of Consciousness is that it both reveals an object and negates it, which, as both connecting with and disconnecting from the object, seems contradictory. One solution that has been considered, that Consciousness Sublates its object, synthesizes the seemingly antithetical processes. Another one, on the other hand, draws their distinction more clearly. As has been previously discussed, the French word 'conscience', which Sartre uses almost exclusively, is ambiguous, since it does not distinguish between the English terms 'conscience' and 'consciousness'. Now, because the conventional concept of 'conscience', in the English sense, refers to a mental event that takes no object, the locution, in English, 'conscience of X' is never used, i. e. to describe that object X is the target of someone's conscience. However, on the basis of Heidegger's Ontological concept of Conscience, 'conscience of X' is meaningful, i. e. as = 'one's awareness of X in light of one's ownmost possibilities'. Analogously, in Sartre's System, the expression could mean 'the reflective awareness of X', in contrast with 'consciousness of X', which could be restricted to 'unreflective awareness of X'. Or, to put it another way, 'consciousness of X' could mean 'revealing X', with respect to which 'conscience of X' would mean 'detachment from the revealing X'.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Sublation

Perhaps Hegel's most decisive innovation is the process 'Sublation'. He defines it as a species of Negation that, rather than annihilates its object, preserves it as it surpasses it, thereby raising it to another level. Without Sublation as its fundamental motor, his, and Marxian, Dialectic could not be cumulative. In contrast, it is unclear whether or not Sartre's concept of Nothingness is annihilative or Sublative--in some contexts he uses the term 'nihilates', but in others, especially in his analysis of Temporality, he treats experience as cumulative. If he takes Consciousness to Sublate, not annihilate, its object, then Consciousness of an object is a complex that is the result of a Sublation, by Consciousness, of some object. Hence, doubting, questioning, or detaching from Consciousness of an object, separates the complex Consciousness-of-an-object from the object, and not, as Sartre's standard analysis has it, merely Consciousness from the object. Likewise, the Consciousness of Consciousness is, on this interpretation, the Sublation of Sublation, which is an analysis to which Sartre seems averse, since it projects a possible infinite recursion in reflection that he asserts that his System avoids. On the other hand, that Consciousness Sublates its object seems the best explanation of how Consciousness can both reveal and negate it.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Consciousness as Excess

In any occasion of perceptual experience, the perception of an object entails some contact between subject and object, either immediate, e. g. touch, or mediate, e. g. seeing, via light waves. It is also common for a perceptual moment to be interrupted, e. g. either by the subject's being distracted by some other perceptual object, or it occurring to one that there is something else to do. Some simple reflection on these facets on experience seems to reveal that in the perception of an object, the subject is both momentarily unified in some respect with the object, and distinct from it as well. So, this mundane evidence seems to challenge a fundamental analysis of Sartre's. For, as he argues, the Consciousness of an object is also the Consciousness of Consciousness; the Consciousness of Consciousness is the Consciousness of not being the object; therefore, Consciousness is essentially a Nothingness. But, the example demonstrates that the Consciousness of an Object entails a unity between subject and object, a unity which the further detachment of subject from object does not undo, but adds to. So, the more accurate description of the relation between Consciousness and an object is that Consciousness both is and is not that object. Indeed, when Sartre characterizes Knowledge as a type of possession, and possession as a mode of Being in which the subject both is and is not its object, he seems to agree with the revised description. On the other hand, he often seems to treat this double relation as paradoxical, and as an indication that Consciousness is a lack of Being. But, as mundane experience demonstrates, that Consciousness both is and is not its object is simply because Consciousness is more than its object. If so, than Consciousness is not a lack, but an excess, or, as Sartre puts it in Nausea, it is de trop.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Being Too Much

For Sartre, the relation between Being and Nothingness is, for the most part, an intrusion of a vacuum into a plenum. However, early in Being and Nothingness, he characterizes Being as, not a plenum, but as "de trop", a reference to his previous treatment of it in Nausea. The contrast between 'de trop', literally 'too much', which he uses in the latter work to connote the superfluity and absurdity of Being, while seemingly minor, significantly alters the meanings of not only both Being and Nothingness, but the relation between them, as well. For, 'too much' implies a deviation from some pre-condition which is 'just right', in which case Nothingness is no longer a violation of Being, but a correction to that deviation. Now, there are two main candidates for the primordial condition of stability with respect to which Being is de trop--Nothingness and Unity. In the first case, if Being is an excess with respect to Nothingness, then nihilating Consciousness is the dissolution of Being, haunted by an ideal of a God with negative attributes. In the second case, if Being is, more accurately, a plurality of Beings that disrupts a primordial Unity, then Consciousnes is a re-synthesizing process, guided by the ideal of a Totality in which the particularity of its constituents is preserved. There is textual support for both interpretations, especially for the latter, e. g. in Sartre's eventual transition to Marxism. Furthermore, the former would plainly qualify as 'Nihilism' according to Nietzsche, a Philosopher that Sartre respects. In either case, Consciousness is no longer the superfluous intruder, but a correction, much as it is in Formaterialism, in which, as has been previously explained, its organic function is primarily homeostatic.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Body and Nothingness

For Sartre, there are two fundamental subjective dimensions--Being-for-itself and Being-for-others. In more familiar terms, the former is self-consciousness and the latter is the Body qua object for others. Hence, subjective physical activity has no Ontological status for Sartre, and, so, is a glaring Nothingness in his scheme. However, Sartre does not regard himself as aligned with the long tradition that holds that the Body is non-existent or illusory. So, he struggles to fill in that gap with locutions such as 'the lived body' to express one's active physical nature. Still, that approach encounters a difficulty because, for Sartre, on the one hand, Space is fundamentally 'hodological', i. e. the organization of the instrumentality of objects that Heidegger calls the 'ready-to-hand', while on the other, the Body is no such instrument, which amounts to the problematic denial of the spatiality of one's body. In contrast, in the alternative category that has been suggested her--Being-towards-others, one's physical dimension is at least active, with the 'towards' a generating of Space, i. e. between oneself and others. But, ultimately, so long as the phenomenological method takes as its fundamental distinction that between Consciousness and Phenomena, any classification of bodily phenomena must be as 'non-conscious', which even Merleau-Ponty does not seem to overcome.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Being-towards-others

Sartre's category Being-for-others does not distinguish between my helping someone in need and my attacking someone who is vulnerable, for, on his view, ethical assessment is extraneous to phenomenological description. However, that rationale is less effective in justifying his Ontology's indifference to the contrast between one's performing either of those acts, and one's inertly being the object of another's observation. For, in this case, the contrast is between different sets of phenomenological data, one of which is an abstraction from the other, e. g. that one's spoken words are passively at the disposal of others is only because one has addressed those words to the others to begin with. Given that such an abstraction can seemingly not be justified on phenomenological grounds, Sartre's abstracted Being-for-others is more properly Being-towards-others, and, so his arena of fundamentally conflicting interpersonal relationships is transformed into a sphere based on the attraction of potential mutual enhancement. Such a transform thus obviates many of the psychological analyses that Being and Nothingness presents, as well as more solidly grounds the social theory of Critique of Dialectical Reason. Since Being-towards-others is, thus, a main Ontological category, and is a mode of existence that is subject to ethical assessment, Ethics can be regarded as an independent main division of Ontology. This revision of the relation between Phenomenological Ontology and Ethics thus challenges not only Sartre, for whom the latter is extraneous to the former, but Heidegger, for whom it is irrelevant to it, as well as Levinas, for whom it conflicts.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Language and Freedom

The causal independence of language from the objects that it represents, generally agreed-upon by most Philosophers of Language, possibly except for some Mythological formations, conversely demonstrates the freedom of Language from those objects. Hence, the Freedom that Sartre attributes to linguistic Consciousness conforms with the mainstream. However, the Ontological status of linguistic processes, e. g. speaking, is, in his scheme, Being-for-others. Therefore, he allows that Being-for-itself is, at minimum, not the exclusive source of Ontological Freedom. Furthermore, this classification of the Being of Language aligns him with the likes of Mead, for whom Consciousness is primarily a linguistic medium, and a social medium. Hence, it tends to support the thesis previously proposed here--that even within Sartre's own scheme, Being-for-itself is only Ontologically derivative, the product of an internalization, by Conscious Being, of its Being-for-others, that first generates the subject-object split that constitutes Being-for-itself. And, since Being-for-itself is the locus of Ontological Freedom for Sartre, Language is therefore the source of that Freedom.

Friday, August 13, 2010

The Being of Phenomena

Modern Phenomenalism begins when Berkeley denies the existence of non-mental primary qualities, thereby distinguishing the doctrine in advance from the Kantian thesis of the existence of a thing-in-itself or a noumenon underlying an appearance or a phenomenon. Husserl is more cautious--he allows that things-in-themselves are the objects of ordinary experience, and that they are transformed, not obliterated, by the transition to the realm of phenomenal experience. In contrast, by dispensing with the Husserlian epoche, Heidegger and Sartre revert to Berkeleyan dogmatism regarding the existence of non-phenomenal objects, i. e. by denying them outright. However, both their subsequent Ontologies, Sartre's more explicitly, entail a further inference that even that dogmatism does not authorize. To assert that all existents are phenomena is to assert that they are objects for some subject, and that subject in all cases is a 'Me'. Hence, the Ontological status of any phenomenal object is always properly 'Being-for-me'. But, Sartre and Heidegger go further, and treat it as 'Being-in-itself', as Sartre puts it. However, Sartre's defense of the inference--that being perceived does not affect an object of perception, so it is perceived as it is in-itself--is not only question-begging, but likely refuted by contemporary Physics, leaving it illegitimate. Sartre's eventual abandonment of his Phenomenological Ontology, for Critical Dialectical Materialism, may be a tacit acknowledgment of that illegitimacy. In contrast, much of Heidegger's later work, e. g. his History of Metaphysics, aka the previously discussed History of the Forgetting of Being, is an extension of that logical subterfuge, and is all the more noxious because of its dogmatism.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Being and Animals

One fundamental problem with Sartre's Ontology is that either the distinction between Being-in-itself and Being-for-itself is unclearly drawn, or else the former category is too general. Of specific difficulty for his scheme is the classification of animals, especially chimps and dolphins. If Sartre is to attribute Consciousness to them, then where, and why, in the evolutionary scale the In-itself ends and the For-itself begins is uncertain. On the other hand, if only humans possess Consciousness, then his Ontology does not distinguish between animals and rocks. In contrast, Whitehead's System both agrees with Sartre that Consciousness is characterized by its capacity to negate factuality, and still manages to offer an account of the remainder of Being that accommodates a plurality of differing degrees of organic complexity. While Whitehead apparently gives no indication as to how he classifies animals, the nuance provided by his System underscores that Sartre overreaches in proposing that Conscious Being is one of the two main Ontological categories, not a minor, albeit significant mode of Being. At bottom, Sartre's oversimplification reflects the inadequacy of the phenomenological method to any project beyond the description of the relations between Consciousness and its phenomenal objects, and, hence, exposes the limitations of any phenomenological Ontology, including Heidegger's.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Sartre, Consciousness, and Reflection

According to most traditional theories of Consciousness, the Consciousness of Consciousness first arises as a second act of Consciousness supervening on a given Consciousness of some external object. So, perhaps Sartre's central innovation is to argue, instead, that there is an implicit Consciousness of Consciousness in the original Consciousness of an a object. The significance of this thesis to his System is that, because self-consciousness entails the origin of Nothingness in Being, Nothingness arises in all acts of Consciousness, even the most fundamental ones. Sartre distinguishes implicit self-consciousness from explicit self-consciousness by the contrasts unreflective vs. reflective, and non-thetic vs. thetic. As evidence of the existence of unreflective self-consciousness, he cites the familiar example of one who, having been absorbed in some activity, upon being asked by anyone what one is doing, is able to unhesitatingly describe the activity, thereby proving that there has been self-consciousness all along. For Sartre, the example entails a transition from unreflective Being-for-itself to reflective Being-for-itself, in which the latter makes explicit what is implicit in the former. However, what the example actually exhibits is a process different from his characterization of it. What actually occurs in the example is that the transition to reflection is prompted by someone else's question, so the act of responding that is the catalyst of the transition is in Sartreian mode of Being-for-others. In other words, Sartre has unwittingly demonstrated that reflective Being-for-itself is actually derived from Being-for-others, as many, e. g. Mead, have asserted. Furthermore, the example still begs the question, i. e. that self-consciousness arises upon reflection does not prove that it obtains in the unreflective Consciousness, only that it requires reflection to reveal it. In other words, the familiar experience of mindful absorption in an activity can be classified as Conscious Being-in-itself. Hence, contrary to the scheme that Sartre presents, there are only two modes of Conscious Being--Being-in-itself and Being-for-others, on the basis of which Being-for-itself is more accurately the hybrid Being-for-others-in-itself, i. e. the interiorization of one's being an object for some other.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Ontology, Conscience, and Freedom

If, as has been discussed, Freedom entails both spontaneity and efficacy, Conscience, as an unexpected source of behavior modification, seems to satisfy those conditions better than does Consciousness. While Conscience is thereby not immune to a Determinist interpretation, e. g. that it is the subconscious product of some prior conditioning, its possibility, at least, has been demonstrated by Kant, for whom it is a Universal corrective to subjective behavior, and by Heidegger, for whom, conversely, it is a private corrective to anonymous behavior. Now, Sartre's translater, Barnes, acknowledges that English 'conscience' and 'consciousness' are both 'conscience' in French, which, she, of course, renders as the latter of the English alternatives, noting that when Sartre means to distinguish the former from the latter, he qualifies it as 'moral'. However, that qualification could also serve Sartre to distinguish a traditional moral notion of 'conscience', from a novel Ontological one, such as Heidegger's. In other words, perhaps Sartre's theory of Being-for-itself is closer to Heidegger's theory of Conscience than to Husserl's theory of Consciousness. Indeed, the For-itself is "haunted" by Value, according to Sartre, and it is Conscience which is the normative of the two notions. To interpret the For-itself in terms of Conscience shifts the emphasis in its upsurge from its denial of its worldly object to its moment of dawning reflection, as is the case in Heidegger's analytic, requiring further adjustments, as well. For example, while 'self-conscience' might be an awkward locution in English, that very awkwardness could serve to underscore the novelty of the notion. In any case, interpreting Sartre's Consciousness as Ontological Conscience at least makes more plausible his attempts to attribute Freedom to it.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Sartre, Consciousness, and Freedom

The traditional 'Freedom' vs. 'Determinism' debate has entailed a variety of positions across the spectrum of the two main views. At minimum, a 'Free' action is one in which a conscious presentation of some physical motion is both spontaneous and causally efficacious, i. e. the presentation is independent of some prior condition, and that physical motion is actualized if and only if it is preceded by the conscious presentation of it. For example, the raising of my arm following the spontaneous conscious presentation of the movement from its given position at my side, is a 'Free' action. Hence, it suffices for the Determinist to argue either that the presentation is itself the effect of some prior condition, or, that either that motion does not follow it or occurs in its absence. Now, Sartre's theory of the 'Freedom' of Consciousness goes to great lengths to argue that any conscious presentation is spontaneous, and, in particular, that any imaginative presention of a prospective motion, e. g. that my arm, currently at my side will be raised, is likewise spontaneous. But he fails to explain how an imaginary presentation can be causally efficacious. Indeed, at one point, he seems to acknowledge that his demonstrative methodology can accomplish no more that to describe Consciousness 'as if' it were efficacious as well. Kant arrives at a similar conclusion, but subsequently explains how, in practice, such efficacity is possible, i. e. with his theory of Practical Reason. In contrast, Sartre's subsequent theory of Praxis retreats from the first condition of Freedom, with a qualified notion, i. e. Need, of the origin of conscious action. So, Sartre may have produced a theory of the spontaneity of Imagination, or a challenge to the causal theory of Perception, but not one of the Freedom, in the traditional sense of the term, of Consciousness.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Sartre, Consciousness, and, Causality

One central debate between Hume and Kant is regarding the efficacy of Reason. For Hume, the only function of Reason in behavior is, through its calculations, to assist in the determination of the best means to the ends that only Passion can set. In contrast, Kant presents his Principle of Pure Practical Reason as an example of the efficacy of Reason, and, hence, of its Freedom, because he defines Freedom as an uncaused cause. Now, according to Sartre, the 'Freedom' of Consciousness consists in its withdrawal from the world, the revelation of its objects, and the imaginative projection of new possibilities. Furthermore, the unachievable ideal of Consciousness is an entity capable of self-causation, and, towards the end of Being and Nothingness, he indicates that the problem of the efficacy of Consciousness is a 'metaphysical' topic which the preceding has not resolved. Later, in Critique of Dialectical Reason, Need is the fundamental motivation of human behavior. Hence, Sartre's theory of the efficacy of Consciousness seems to align him with Hume, in which case the 'Freedom' that he attributes to it does not qualify as 'Freedom' in the Kantian sense. On the other hand, as part of the discussion of metaphysics, Sartre very briefly alludes to 'Gestalt form' as possibly relevant to the efficacy of Consciousness. Now, Formaterialism, as has been previously discussed here, presents Mind as the Formal Cause of Conduct. But, it is complemented by a different function of Mind in that respect, namely, as the Material Cause, which, as has been discussed, is not to be confused with any of the traditional senses of 'material'. The distinction in Formaterialism between Material and Formal Cause suggests that Sartre has conflated two functions of Consciousness--Consciousness as nihilation is Material Causality, while Consciousness as revelatory is Formal Causality. So, if Sartre had ever pursued conceiving Consciousness as Formally efficacious, he might have encountered some further complications. In any case, it is difficult to grant that his theory of the freedom of Consciousness, as is, qualifies as 'Freedom' in the Kantian sense.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Sartre and Ethics

At the end of Being and Nothingness, Sartre previews a prospective Ethical Theory that would be based on the results of that work. He briefly indicates that one main problem to be resolved is whether Freedom or the God of Freedom has a higher value. Appearing in the course of the discussion, his expression 'spirit of seriousness', used to describe the thesis that values are independent of human existence, is a likely allusion to Nietzsche, who sometimes uses the phrase 'spirit of gravity' for a similar purpose. On that analogy, Sartre might be questioning whether Nietzsche's Dionysian can dispense with such hypostasizations as Will to Power, Eternal Recurrence, and even Dionysus himself, some of which Nietzsche seems to ponder at the beginning of The Gay Science. In any case, Sartre's Ethical Theory arguably never appears, because, according to Barnes, as has been previously discussed, such presupposes the realization of the far from achieved goals presented in the Critique of Dialectical Reason. But, granting that Sartre does defer his interest in Ethics, what it might await is something other than that realization. Rather, by subordinating Freedom to Need in the Critique, Sartre not only signals a complete revision of his earlier theory of human nature, but also undermines the fundamental premise, i. e. Freedom, of the projected Ethical Theory. Furthermore, his advocacy of Marxism seems to entail a commitment to an Evolutionary Materialism, that would be constituted by a contiguity between inorganic nature, organic nature, and conscious nature, a theory that Marxism has hitherto failed to produce. Hence, what Sartre's mature Ethical Theory might await, first, and foremost, is the full development of a Marxist theory of human nature, in which it cannot be ruled out either that the nature of Ethics itself would be radically redefined, or even that Ethics would be rendered obsolete, i. e. as an Historically specific problem.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Existentialism and History

In her preface to Search for a Method, Barnes suggests that despite his seeming assertions to the contrary, Sartre, in at least some respects, maintains a priority of Existentialism over Marxism. In particular, on that interpretation, Being and Nothingness presents an account of absolute individual Freedom, a goal to which Marxism offers a means, namely the Dialectical process of eliminating Freedom-constraining Need. Entailed by this account is that the scheme of interpersonal relationships described in the earlier work is likewise a goal of Marxism. However, those relationships, according to Being and Nothingness, are fundamentally antagonistic, which, to resolve, if resolvable at all, would require another Dialectical cycle. So, that Sartre advocates Marxism as a means to that concept of society seems difficult for Barnes to defend. Indeed, Sartre explicitly asserts that the achievement of a classless society would entail interpersonal dynamics that are, under current conditions, inconceivable, which surely implies that Being and Nothingness has not conceived them. More generally, he commits himself to the Marxist thesis that every Philosophy, even itself, is an historically specific program, not an eternal truth about human nature. Accordingly, he is committed to situating the Existential structures of Being and Nothingness as a specific phase of Marxism, and to systematize the relationship between Existentialism and Marxism in terms of the latter, not in terms of the former.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Sartre: From I to We

Sartre's transition from Existentialism to Marxism may have a simple explanation--in Critique of Dialectical Reason he arrives at a solution to what in Being and Nothingness is a potentially fatal flaw for Marxism. The general problem for the connection of Existentialism to Marxism is how to derive a 'We' from an 'I'. On Sartre's earlier theory, the fundamental relationship of I's to one another is Hobbesian, a war of all against all. The formation of alliances is possible, but only given the presence of an excluded Other. Accordingly, an economic class, either suppressed or suppressor, presupposes the existence of the other. Ultimately, on Sartre's analysis, even the Marxist goal of a universal classless We-subject is impossible without the Other which the doctrine rejects, i. e. God. And, since he himself remains ambivalent about God by the end of Being and Nothingness, Sartre is there unprepared to commit to Marxism. However, by the Critique, he has conceived a configuration which facilitates the formation of a universal We, without recourse to God. Briefly, his solution entails the stabilization, within the We, of interpersonal relations via triangulation, such that each I also serves as a neutralizing Other to a pair of naturally antagonistic I's. So, while Capitalism lacks a concept of We, and orthodox Marxism one of I, Sartre's System supplies both. Formaterialism also presents both, but on the basis of a decidedly non-Hobbesian concept of Personhood, which, as has been discussed, transforms the traditional approaches to Psychology, Ethics, and Socio-Economics.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Playing at Being

Being and Nothingness may not be the Hamlet-like meditation on suicide that some take it to be, but it is Shakespearean in another respect. It agrees with the bard that all the world's a stage, and all the men and women are merely players at being. Sartre would go further to insist that even 'playwright' and 'director' are roles. Roles for him are more than socially-defined, e. g. 'job', 'parent' etc.--even emotions, such as sadness, are only performed activities, not passively born qualities. Because even the latter are freely chosen, behavior is, according to Sartre, 'autonomous', as it has been defined here, no less autonomous than the Kantian choosing to be rational. Furthermore, Sartre occasionally gives inklings of a recognition of Idionomy--chosen roles may be socially-defined, but how they can be played may be idiosyncratic. Though he never carries out his stated intention towards the end of the book to develop a full Existentialist Theory of Ethics, what he has presented already suggests striking contrasts with some significant predecessors. First, what is given is the makings of a character-based Theory, as opposed to Mill's act-based Utilitarianism. Second, while Schopenhauer's Moral Theory, too, is character-based, it has character as being completely pre-determined, and, hence, as opposed to Sartre's, entirely unfree. Which of the two Nietzsche is closer to is open to debate, but Sartre would almost certainly argue that Schopenhauer chooses to be Pessimistic, and that Nietzsche freely chooses to be a yea-sayer long before he announces it in Thus Spake Zarathustra.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Sartre, Nothingness, and Difference

It can be wondered why Sartre did not write a book called 'Sameness and Difference', rather than Being and Nothingness. After all, Plato demonstrates that Nothing is no more than an abstraction from Difference, the correlate of which is Sameness. However, it is unclear that Plato's passively borne idea of Difference can account for either Sartre's dynamic Nothingness or the Freedom that is one of its modes. On the other hand, Deleuze and Derrida have shown how Difference can be dynamic, and Formaterialism, here, has derived Freedom from Difference. So, Sartre's inattention to Difference, seems, at minimum, Philosophically negligent. But, perhaps a clue to justifying the exclusivity of his focus on Nothingness might be that his Marxist orientation, as a matter of biographical fact, precedes his acquaintance with Phenomenology and Existentialism. On that basis, in contrast with the common interpretation that after Being and Nothingness, he surprisingly morphs from an Existentialist to a Marxist, that work can be understood as a Marxist project, wittingly or otherwise, all along. As such, it is less surprising that one of the targets of Being and Nothingness is a traditional Marxist target, namely 'idealist' Hegelianism, in which case one of its specific targets is the Hegelian 'idealist' notion of 'Nothingness'. Being and Nothingness can thus be understood as presenting an anti-Hegelian 'materialist' theory of Nothingness, with respect to which even Platonic Difference is a peripheral issue.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Individual and Person

Formaterialism has hitherto been showcasing the distinction, generally ignored in the Philosophical tradition, between the literal meaning of 'individual', i. e. 'undivided', and its common usage, i. e. meaning 'separate', which are not equivalent. As applied to behavor, the difference is significant--while the former type of 'individual' is one who freely seeks consistency in conduct, i. e. acts according to a Principle, the latter is one who does the opposite of some prevailing behavorial pattern. The latter might be considered 'principled', but the range of its freedom is constrained by its being no more than a function of what it opposes. Furthermore, it precludes any association with others. The relevance of the distinction is that the predominant type of American 'individuality' is the latter, which, from the perspective of the Formaterial notion, is an underdeveloped stage of Individuality, in danger of being an arrested development where it is idealized by some 'individualistic' and 'libertarian' doctrines. Unfortunately, the conventional meaning is too ingrained for confusion to be avoided in the proper use of term, so what has previously been called here 'Individual', will now be termed 'Person'. Thus, a 'Person' is one whose conduct is based on a freely chosen Principle, either an 'Autonomous' Person, whose Principle has an external origin, e. g. the Kantian Principle, or an 'Idionomic' Person, whose Principle promotes self-creativity, e. g. the Evolvemental Principle, a distinction which has been previously explained. Accordingly, any conditioned behavior lacks 'Personality', while conventional 'individuality' constitutes a transition from conditioned behavior to free conduct, which is nascent Personhood where it is not stunted. This notion of Person is not to be confused with the legal definition of it. Indeed, that a corporation qualifies as a legal 'person', on the sole basis of its status as a self-interested economic entity, demonstrates the de jure status in America of immature Personhood.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Nothingness and Individuation

Sartre cites, as among the evidence of the existence of a self-negating entity, one's capacity to withdraw from the world at any moment. Now, there is no disputing the occurrence of such a process, but his analysis of it is arbitrary. It is performed by a 'Nothing' only insofar as what is withdrawn from is characterized as 'Being', e. g. only in e. g. an Hegelian scheme. That, in his later work, Sartre refers to the locus of Freedom as a productive 'individual' is not merely an indication of the availability of alternative positive characterizations, but, furthermore, is a symptom of a deeper problem. That an 'individual' is also a 'nothing' reflects the chronic Philosophical lack of a Principle of Individuation which also qualifies as a Principle of Sufficient Reason. In other words, there seems to have traditionally been no explanation as to why a given unity, e. g. God, substance, Will, Being, species, etc. individuates, e. g. produces people, modes, objects, beings, etc., thereby necessitating recourse to either denying the reality of the latter, or affirming it, but only as an absurdity. From that perspective, Sartre is, hence, correct to characterize a particular human as a 'nothingness'. In contrast, the Formaterial System, that has been presented here, supplies such a Principle of Individuation--as has been previously discussed, it is a mode of the System's Material Principle, Becoming-Diverse, that emerges at a specific Evolvemental stage--thereby demonstrating that human Individuality has significance to both the species and the Individual. On the basis of Formaterialism's Evolvemental scheme, the transition from Sartre's earlier self-negating Being to his later productive individual is analogous to a maturation from a rebellious adolescent to an adult beginning to freely assume a social role.