Quotation:

“Phenomenology is a scientific and non-critical study of consciousness. Its essential process is

intuition. Intuition puts us in the presence of the thing. We must therefore understand that
phenomenology is a science of fact and that the problems it poses are problems of fact, as, moreover,
we can still understand by considering that Husserl calls it a descriptive science.”

Jean-Paul Satre, The Transcendence of Ego

1 An brief introduction to Sartre
This set of determinations of phenomenology was brought by Satre in his The Transcendence

of the Ego, an early philosophical work of him first published in the French academic journal,

Recherches Philosophiques in 1937. Actually, a part of this article was finished earlier in the 1930s

when Satre was closely studying Husserl’s writings as a scholar in Berlin’s French Institute. Satre,

nearly known to all, was definitely one of the most famous philosophers, playwrights, political

activists and literary critics in the twentieth century. Philosophically talking, he was best known for

his great contributions to the thought movements of phenomenology and existentialism, and also

for his practice as a Marxist. His open relationship with the prominent feminist Simone de Beauvoir,

his radical critique on the ‘bad faith’ with searching of an authentic way of being, his powerful

assertion of “existence precedes essence” and the “existentialism is a humanism”, his rejection to

the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature, and his other endless anecdotes, arguments and actions,

altogether showed us a strong, positive, fantastic, even legendary figure of him.1

This article, The Transcendence of the Ego, was considered as one of his first fruitful and

influential explorations around problems of phenomenology. In this article appeared many themes

that would be concentrated in his later major work, Being and Nothingness, such as the nature of

consciousness, the problem of self-knowledge, other minds and anguish.

2 A summary of the book

The book is divided into two parts. The first part severely criticizes Husserl's transcendental

self or pure self. The second part discusses how the real self is constructed in Satre’s view. According

to him, the real self is not in the consciousness, and the true transcendental self is “outside, in the

world”. In the first part, the key question is whether the transcendental self is appropriate in

phenomenology, and Sartre was excellent for he could criticize the concept of transcendental self

from the interior of Husserl's system. By sticking to the “epoche” method to the end, Sartre found

Husserl's self-contradiction, that was, if Husserl adopted a phenomenological attitude to suspend

the world and the empirical subjectivity, then Husserl's so-called “pure self” left as a residuum - a

priori self - would be considered as the content presented to consciousness, just like the empirical

1 The introduction to Jean-Paul Sartre is in reference with “Jean-Paul Sartre” in the website Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy. from: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/
or psychological self, it would be transcendent and in consciousness, so it must also be put in

brackets. Sartre's unique understanding of epoche plays a key role in this criticism. He believes that

the core of epoche is that it limits an area where we can obtain certain knowledge. He puts more

emphasis on the Cartesian tendency in Husserl's thought, that is, an apodictic evidence. Furthermore,

Sartre believes that this evidence can only extend to those things that are completely given, inherent

in the moment of consciousness and can only be captured through reflective activities - and Husserl's

pure self, as the remaining “identity” after epoche, It is incompatible with this evidence requirement.

By criticizing Husserl with Husserl's method, Sartre abandoned the transcendental self and

continued to adhere to the absoluteness or translucency of consciousness, but the problems caused

by the reliability of reflective behavior, the division introduced by impure reflection in

consciousness, and the strong tension of evidence principle itself remain unresolved.

In the second part, Sartre focuses on how to construct a transcendental self that really meets

the requirements of phenomenology in his view. This self is constructed through pure reflection and

becomes the transcendental pole for the unity of experience in its connection with consciousness.

However, what is the relationship between self and consciousness? How is the self is constructed

from consciousness? Sartre continues to adhere to the spontaneity and absoluteness of

consciousness, abandoning causal correlation and conceptual framework, finally gives us a “magical”

answer, an answer full of theological meaning, which is emanation. Through emanation, a self is

constituted by consciousness. At the end of the second part, Sartre moves from the absoluteness of

consciousness, the evidence of phenomenon, the purity of reflection and the transcendentality of

self to a new phenomenology with existentialist tendency: under this new vision, the problems of

other minds and solipsism are no longer problems; pain is the driving force of the phenomenological

attitude of epoche; and phenomenology is no longer a kind of idealism because it puts the self back

into the world and regards the self as "outside, in the world". (Sartre, 2004).

3 The problem we face

The introduction to the problem awareness and solutions of the entire book provides an overall

background for understanding the quoted paragraph. Combining this book with the teacher’s

introduction to phenomenology in class, how can we understand Sartre's determinations on

phenomenology in the above quotation? The meaning of this paragraph cannot be clearly given at
the beginning, and reading the paragraph with the concepts presented to us in various ways alone

without reference will lead to ambiguity and misunderstanding. “Phenomenology is the scientific

and non-critical study of consciousness", how do we understand consciousness as the object of

phenomenology? What are the “scientific” and “non critical” determinations on the study of

consciousness in phenomenology? And why, “the essential process of consciousness is intuitive"?

In what sense does intuition make consciousness become consciousness? Sartre further says that the

function or effect of intuition lies in “putting us in the presence of things”, how does intuition bring

us into the presence of things, and what does the “presence” of things or the “things” in presence

mean? By stating that phenomenology is defined as the scientific and non-critical study of

consciousness, by defining the essence of consciousness as the intuitive process, and by defining

the intuitive effect through the presence or presence of things, Sartre understands phenomenology

as the science of facts, which means that, the science of consciousness, the intuitive process and the

presence of things define what we call “facts”. The problem raised by phenomenology is about facts.

In addition, in Sartre's view, phenomenology as a factual science is the same as Husserl's definition

of phenomenology as a descriptive science. How to understand the “facts” here? How does

consciousness, intuition and the presence of things lead us to “facts”? In what kind of

epistemological tradition does this “fact” become a new object, and what is the relationship between

this fact or its factuality and Husserl's “return to the thing itself”? Furthermore, how to understand

phenomenology as Husserl's descriptive science from the perspective of phenomenology as the

science of fact?

These problems above forces and urges us to go back to the tradition of phenomenology and

philosophy and grasp the essence of phenomenology through the concepts of science, critical,

consciousness, intuition, fact and descriptive. But at the same time, we obviously cannot forget

Sartre's purpose of putting these definitions here, and his goal of criticizing and surpassing

phenomenology in the whole article. The background of the text will even play a more important

role in understanding this paragraph. Therefore, in order to catch the more true meaning of the

quotation and make its meaning interpretation possible, a more feasible way is to go back to Sartre's

text and find out what kind of problem he tries to respond to here, what attitude and position he

takes, what solution he offers, in a direct context. More importantly, only by putting this paragraph

back into the text can we really see Sartre's dialogue with philosophical tradition or phenomenology,
then we can join this conversation, pass through and deconstruct the obstacles to the understanding

due to various concepts, and interpret the meaning of this paragraph more closely. Of course, the

understanding of the history of philosophy will directly affect our view of how Sartre deals with his

philosophical background under his own problem consciousness. Unfortunately, because of my

lacking sufficient professional training, I will try my best in this paper to read and explain the

quotation mainly based on Sartre’s original text, the introduction in the book and some notes from

class.

4 The explanation of the quotation

Apparently, Sartre puts forward Husserl's phenomenology in this part of the text and makes a

series of essential definitions and explanations for it, in order to highlight the core differences

between phenomenology and previous philosophy, especially around the problem of "I". This

problem is also the core problem that Sartre focuses onto in the whole article – we should not forget

that the purpose of this article is to criticize the transcendental self in Husserl's phenomenology.

Therefore, firstly, he makes a rudimentary determination for Husserl's phenomenology. These

determinations themselves, as the determinations of phenomenology as a new philosophy, are

relative to the philosophical tradition. Therefore, if we want to understand Sartre's understanding of

the science, consciousness, intuition, facts and description, we must primarily return to the previous

text to see how Sartre understands such concepts in the philosophy tradition. Sartre closely follows

the theme of I as the subject to locate the differences of Husserl's phenomenology in the tradition of

philosophy. In Sartre's view, on this “I” issue the tradition as the reference of Phenomenology is

Kant's transcendental self and the attempts in contemporary philosophy to solve problems caused

by this transcendental self, such as Neo Kantism, empirical criticism, intellectualism, Neo Platonism

and even psychoanalysis. The problem of Kant's transcendental self is that it is only the

transcendental constitutive conditions for empirical self or experienced self in consciousness, which

are purely formal or de jure, while its de facto problem is still to be solved. Post Kantian

philosophers try to turn this “I” problem into an ontological status problem of the transcendental

self. They try their best to turn the transcendental self into a real entity in order to make a factual

judgment. Of course, such an approach obviously deviates from Kant's original intention, that is, to

only regard the transcendental self as formal constitutive conditions that make the experience or
conscious content unified. However, even if we stick to Kant's view, we still cannot avoid the

problem faced by post Kantian philosophers: is the representation of “I think” “in fact” with all our

representations or just "possible" with them? When “I think” moves from the statue that it is with

our representations to the status that it is not, will these representations change? Furthermore, is it

the unity of representations that makes the “I” in consciousness possible, or on the contrary, the “I”

“in fact” unifies all these representations? The last question is a question of de facto, which, as what

those post Kantians had been fully aware, asks whether or not the transcendental self is a actual,

factual and active force that unites all representations or conscious experiences.

Around this key problem, that is, the factual problem of the transcendental self and the de facto

existence of the transcendental self in consciousness, Husserl's phenomenology gives a different

answer from other philosophies, which is also where this paragraph enters our vision.

“Phenomenology is a scientific but not ‘critical’ study of consciousness”, here the “critical”

distinguishes phenomenology from Kant's philosophy, while “science” and “study of consciousness”

place both phenomenology and Kant's philosophy into the “I think” tradition since Descartes, which

has always tried to provide scientific and systematic knowledge with the most solid and apodictic

subjective foundation. More specifically, as mentioned above, both Kant and Husserl are faced with

the problem of the relationship between “I think” or “I” and consciousness. This “I” is closely

related to the comprehensive unity of thinking or consciousness content, but this connection still

needs to be found - in Kant, this “I” becomes the conditions for the comprehensive unity of all

representations or appearances to be possible, and also for phenomena to be formed and recognized.

These conditions are constitutive, formal and de jure, possible but not necessary. Therefore, when

Sartre used “critical” to describe Kant's transcendental self, he emphasized the formality of Kant's

critical work of “I”. In contrast, the non-critical nature of Husserl's phenomenology directly leads

to a “factual” exploration - phenomenology is the factual study of consciousness and the study of

consciousness in fact, which will lead us to go beyond the transcendental self only as formal

conditions.

Except the “non-critical” aspect, there is also the “scientific” determination for phenomenology

that should not be neglected. But according to what our teacher had said in class, I think “scientific

consciousness study” mentioned here has a more important meaning in the phenomenological

tradition itself, because this definition significantly distinguishes Husserl's phenomenology from
Heidegger's phenomenology. From the perspective of Heidegger, not only science and

phenomenology are incompatible with each other, but the focus on consciousness also limits

phenomenology to a great extent2. Emphasizing this point may not be important to understand how

Sartre defines phenomenology in this text, but as the background of such a historical philosophical

movement, it helps us to be keenly aware of Sartre's critical attitude towards phenomenology

(especially on the aspect of consciousness) and even his tendency to turn to Heidegger's

phenomenology and existentialism.

“The essential process of it (consciousness) is intuition; intuition puts us into the presence of

the thing.” the key words here are “intuition” and “the presence of the things”. Sartre clearly realizes

that the consciousness discussed by Husserl is truly and completely revolutionary: when Kant or

other post Kantians are still tangled in the substantiality of the transcendental self and confused

about how to interact between the transcendental self (the side of subject) and the conscious

experience (the side of object), Husserl has transcended the absolute separation and opposition

between consciousness and experience. Consciousness does not passively accept sensory

experience. Consciousness is not only an active intellectual construction. Consciousness is intuitive,

and it can bring us into the presence of things, which is very important because it directly negates a

traditional intuitive theory and gives intuition to activity, directivity and intentionality, so that

intuition can give things to itself; The core of this intuition does not lie in the reason faculty

emphasized by “intellectual intuition” - although it does not exclude it- according to Sartre, the key

is that it puts “us” into “the presence of the thing”. The intuition of consciousness is procedural,

constitutive and a priori. Before intuition, we can't even talk about “us” and “things”. The intuition

of consciousness is now, immediate and present. What intuition brings is the "presence" of things.

In this way, intuition is real and de facto, which means the absoluteness of consciousness in its

process of bringing things to us, putting us into the presence of things and making us "return to

things themselves" - this kind of conscious or intuitive absoluteness will be further understood with

Husserl's method of epoche, and insisted by Sartre in the following text.

Fully aware of it, it is not difficult to understand why Sartre defines Husserl's phenomenology

as “the science of facts”. The so-called “science of facts” depends on the self-givenness of such an

2 This point refers to the notes of session 3 from class.

intuitive process of absolute consciousness. The fact is to be given and to give itself, which is

absolutely evident and clear. It is necessary to understand the factuality in the sense of evidence, or

in other words, the evidence makes the factuality possible. “Descriptive science” is another name

of “factual science”, because only absolutely reliable and evident conscious intuition makes

description possible. However, it should be noted here that the description of the presence of the

given things means that explanation, causality and foundations confined by the conceptual

framework will be put in phenomenological brackets. There is no explanation here, only intuition

or intentionality, only the giving of consciousness, only the presence of things constructed in

themselves, only the descriptive process. Things themselves are their own basis, and consciousness

itself is its own basis. In phenomenology, there are only facts, and the way towards the facts

themselves cannot be explanation – which means to find its essence from somewhere else like other

things or a causal network - but can only be description which return to things themselves.

Reference:
“Jean-Paul Sartre”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 12 November 2021. from:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/
Sartre, J.P.. (2004). The Transcendence of the Ego: A Sketch for a Phenomenological Description.
trans. Andrew Brown. Routledge.