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.