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.