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.