Idealism and transparency in Sartre’s ontological proof

ABSTRACT

The Introduction to Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (B&N) contains a condensed, cryptic argument – the ‘ontological proof’ – that is meant to establish a position ‘beyond realism and idealism’. Despite its role in establishing the fundamental ontological distinction of B&N – the distinction between being-for-itself and being-in-itself – the ontological proof has received very little scholarly attention. My goal is to fill this lacuna. I begin by clarifying the idealist position Sartre attacks in the Introduction to B&N: Husserl’s idealism as interpreted by Aron Gurwitsch and Roman Ingarden. I then propose a new interpretation of the ontological proof that gives a central role to the transparency of experience. On this interpretation, Sartre argues from the ‘emptiness’ of consciousness – its purely relational nature – to the existence of mind-independent substance (being-in-itself). In assessing the strengths and weaknesses of Sartre’s case against idealism, I put him in critical dialogue with contemporary work in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind.

KEYWORDS:

• Sartre
• idealism
• transparency
• Husserl
• phenomenology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For an interpretation of Berkeley that might eliminate this difference, see Sethi (2021). On Sethi’s interpretation, ‘for a sensible accident to be “in the mind” is just for the mind to secure the existence of the accident through an act of perception’ (665).

2 Another view that goes by the label ‘transparency’ concerns self-knowledge. On this view (advocated in different ways by Evans 1982; Moran 2001; Byrne 2011, and Boyle 2019), one attains self-knowledge not by looking inward, but by directing one’s attention outward, toward the world. Transparency about self-knowledge has phenomenological affinities: Matthew Boyle has defended transparency about self-knowledge (2019) and bodily awareness (2018) by appeal to Sartre’s notion of pre-reflective self-consciousness and Amie Thomasson (2003) has argued that Husserlian phenomenology employs an ‘extrospectionist’ method for obtaining self-knowledge (see also Kidd 2019 for a critique of Thomasson’s reading).

3 On Husserl’s view, intuitive consciousness (e.g., perception) is distinguished from empty consciousness (mere thought) by the presence of what he calls ‘representative content’ (in the Logical Investigations) or ‘hyletic data’ (in Ideas). Hyletic data are intrinsically non-intentional parts of intuitive acts (e.g., perceptual or imaginative experiences) that present transcendent objects and properties in virtue of undergoing an ‘interpretation’ (Husserl 1970, Vol. 2, §§22, 26). Hyletic data play a number of important roles for Husserl. First, they provide the ‘fulness’ of perception in virtue of which it plays a role in knowledge (Husserl 1970, Vol. 2, §28). Second, they explain perceptual constancy: the same sensations can present a white wall under dim illumination and a gray wall under bright illumination in virtue of different interpretations (see Hopp 2008 for critical discussion). According to Sartre’s reading of Husserl, they explain the passivity of perception (Sartre 2018, 19).

4 Sartre also takes the relational nature of consciousness to imply that it is characterized by ‘internal negation’ (see the ‘Transcendence’ chapter of B&N). Sartre goes on to flesh out this characterization of BFI as internally negative (i.e., that it is essentially characterized in terms of what it is not) in terms of the three ‘ekstases’ of transcendence, reflection, and being-for-others (Sartre 2018, 404). The analysis of the intentionality of consciousness in the Introduction is the first pass at characterizing the internal negation of the ekstasis of transcendence, insofar as intentionality presents its object as distinct from itself. The contrast between the positive nature of BII and the negative nature of BFI leads to one of the most puzzling claims of the Introduction – namely, that the principle of identity is not a law of logic but a ‘contingent principle of being in itself’ (Sartre 2018, 28).

5 See Hopp (2020), 10–15 for a Husserlian argument against the transparency thesis.

6 Thanks to Andrew Butler, Zach Joachim, Gözde Yıldırım, and two anonymous referees for valuable discussion and feedback that greatly improved the quality of this article.