This paper articulates a new understanding of Sartre’s philosophical methodology in his early publications up to and including Being and Nothingness. Through his critique of Husserl across these works, Sartre develops an original and sophisticated variety of transcendental phenomenology. He was attracted to Husserl’s philosophy for its promise to establish the foundations of empirical psychology but ultimately concluded that it could not fulfil this promise. Through the analyses that led him to this conclusion, Sartre formulated a new kind of phenomenological (...) reduction and a distinctive kind of transcendental argument to draw conclusions about mind-independent reality from phenomenological premises. His aims were to dissolve the traditional distinction between mind and world, to establish that the mind is accessible to empirical study, and to formulate the conceptual framework required to study the mind systematically. Sartre’s philosophy of psychology, therefore, drove the philosophical development of the methodological foundation of his philosophical project. (shrink)

This paper sketches a phenomenological analysis of visual mental imagery and uses it to criticize representationalism and the internalist-versus-externalist framework for understanding consciousness. Contrary to internalist views of mental imagery imagery experience is not the experience of a phenomenal mental picture inspected by the mind’s eye, but rather the mental simulation of perceptual experience. Furthermore, there are experiential differences in perceiving and imagining that are not differences in the properties represented by these experiences. Therefore, externalist representationalism, which maintains that the (...) properties of experience are the external properties represented by experience, is an inadequate account of conscious experience. (shrink)

We ordinarily think that self and other coexist as subjects with mutually exclusive mental lives. The conceptual problem of other minds challenges this common thought by raising doubts that coexistence and mutual exclusivity come together in a coherent idea of others. Existential phenomenology is usually taken to be exempt from skeptical worries of this sort because it conceives of subjects as situated or embodied, offering an inclusive account of coexistence. I submit that this well-entrenched view faces a serious dilemma: either (...) the ordinary distinction between self and other has to be given up, or accounts of situated and embodied coexistence presuppose a non-phenomenological solution to (a close relative of) the conceptual problem of other minds. I then propose a way out for existential phenomenology by sketching a Sartre-inspired phenomenological response to the problem. (shrink)

A central problem for any truthmaker theory is the problem of negative truths. In this paper, I develop a novel, piecemeal strategy for solving this problem. The strategy puts central focus on a truth-relevant notion of aboutness within a metaphysically modest version of truthmaker theory and uses key conceptual tools gained by taking a deeper look at the best attempts to solve the problem of intentionality. I begin this task by critically discussing past proposed solutions to P-NEG in light of (...) Russell’s debate with Demos. This reveals a central difficulty with addressing the problem, specifically that one cannot be committed to incompatibility facts in one’s account of negation and of the truth of negative truths. I then present an aboutness-based version of truthmaker theory. Utilising what I call the strict and full account of aboutness, I extract aboutness-based theories of truth and falsity. I use this machinery to present a promising new strategy for solving P-NEG which does not have the problems of alternative approaches. Finally, I present and respond to some potential objections. (shrink)

This paper considers how the experience of illness fits within Sartre’s account of embodiment in Being and Nothingness. Sartre makes some remarks about illness, but does not develop a full account. I show that the anti‐naturalistic ontological framework in which Sartre’s discussion of the body is placed, which opposes my ‘being‐for‐Others’ to my ‘being‐for‐myself’, imposes a revisionary account of illness, and how Sartre’s model of interpersonal relations affects his view of doctors, and their role in the illness experience. I note (...) and discuss the connection Sartre draws between illness and bad faith. I also point out that recent phenomenologically inspired criticisms of the medical establishment that draw on Sartre’s account of the body are limited by their failure to engage with Sartre’s ontology. (shrink)

The question of nothingness occupies the thinking of a number of philosophers in the first half of the twentieth-century, with three of the most important responses being those of Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Surprisingly, however, there has been little discussion of their specific comments on nothingness either individually or comparatively. This paper starts to remedy this by suggesting that, while Bergson dismisses nothingness as a pseudo-problem based in a flawed metaphysical understanding, Heidegger, in What is Metaphysics?, claims (...) that metaphysics entails a covering of being meaning that Bergson’s analysis actually depends on and so brings thinking to a questioning of being. In turn, Heidegger’s insight acts as the transitional point for Sartre who criticizes Bergson’s description of nothingness to show that, following Heidegger, nothingness is a real ontological problem. From this insight, Sartre distinguishes between negativity, nothingness, and nihilation to show that the issue of nothingness is intimately connected to the freedom of human consciousness, which, by distinguishing between ontological and practical freedom, reveals that nothingness has ethical and political significance. By way of conclusion, a number of problems in Sartre’s account are identified. (shrink)

Certain of our traits are thought more central to who we are: they comprise our individual identity. What makes these traits privileged in this way? What accounts for their identity centrality? Although considerations of identity play a key role in many different areas of moral philosophy, I argue that we currently have no satisfactory account of the basis of identity centrality. Nor should we expect one. Rather, we should adopt an error theory: we should concede that there is nothing in (...) reality corresponding to the perceived distinction between the central and peripheral traits of a person. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

It is often said that to love someone we must love her for her own sake. But what does this mean? Various answers have been offered up by philosophers. Alan Soble's ‘aggregate’ view of identity focuses on properties of the beloved as key to understanding love's basis and, in a less direct way, its object. This view does not give us a clear distinction between persons and properties. David Velleman's view makes this distinction more clearly but creates a gap between (...) properties and personhood. Jean-Paul Sartre's view which emphasizes embodiment, addresses the main deficiencies of both of these former views. (shrink)

This paper suggests that design ethics can be enriched by considering ethics beyond the traditional approaches of deontology, teleology, and virtue ethics. Design practice and design ethics literature tend to frame ethics in design according to these approaches. The paper argues that a fundamental and concrete ethical understanding of design ethics can also be found in Sartrean Existentialism, a philosophy centered on the individual and his/her absolute freedom. Through the analysis of four core concepts of Sartrean Existentialism that define a (...) specific ethics, the paper illustrates why such philosophical approach is relevant to design ethics. The paper also shows how Sartrean Existentialism and its ethics apply to critical issues of professional practice in design such as professional engagement and design decision-making. The paper finally argues that Sartre’s philosophy and ethics is a perspective that offers the designer in design practice a solid ground to engage his/her ethical dilemma. (shrink)

Husserl’s phenomenology was particularly influential for a number of French philosophers and their theories. Two of the most prominent French thinkers, Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, turned to the instruments offered by phenomenology in their attempts to understand the notions of the body, consciousness, imagination, human being, world and many others. Both philosophers also provided their definitions of perception, but they understood this notion in very different ways. The paper describes selected aspects of Husserl’s phenomenology that were adopted by Sartre (...) and Merleau-Ponty and depicts the presumptions of their respective theories of perception, as well as the differences between them. The main thesis presented here is that theories as different as those proposed by Sartre and Merleau-Ponty may, and indeed do, lead to the same conclusion, i.e. that perception represents a different form of cognition. Despite the differences between these theories, they can both be placed in the contemporary context of phenomenological research carried out by cognitive philosophers Dan Zahavi and Shaun Gallagher, as well as by the proponent of the enactive theory of perception, Alva Noë. (shrink)

Paradigmatically led by existential phenomenological premises, as formulated by Jean-Paul Sartre and Edmund Husserl specifically, this paper aims at a deconstruction of the value of psychiatric labelling in terms of the implications of such labelling for the labelled individual’s experience of freedom as a conscious imperative. This work has as its intention the destabilisation of labelling as a stubborn and inexorable mechanism for social propriety and regularity, which in its unyielding classificatory brandings is Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 2, (...) Edition 1, April 2002. (shrink)

This thesis examines the relation between self-deception and self-consciousness. It has been argued that, if we follow the literalist and take self-deception at face value – as a deception that is intended by, and imposed on, one and the same self-conscious subject – then self-deception is impossible. It will incur the Dynamic Problem that, being aware of my intention to self-deceive, I shall see through my projected self-deceit from the outset, thereby precluding its possibility. And it will incur the following (...) Static Problem. Qua self-deceiver, I shall believe not-P, but – qua self-deceived – I shall believe P. We shall then have to explain how I can sustain contradictory beliefs in full self-awareness. I argue that this rejection of literalism about self-deception rests on error. First, it misunderstands what literalism holds. Properly understood, literalism does not require the simultaneous commitment to contradictory beliefs. Second, it misunderstands the relation between self-deception and self-consciousness – and that is my primary focus. The phenomenology of self-deception reveals that the self-deceiver experiences the following tension. She is somehow aware of her self-deception as such. Yet also, she misrepresents that self-deception to herself as being a sincere commitment to the truth – so, in that sense, she is not aware of her self-deceit as such. To capture this tension, we require a theory of self-consciousness – independently defensible in its own right – that will meet this twofold requirement, of permitting the self-deceiver not to see what is right before her gaze. The rejection of literalism presupposes that no theory of self-consciousness can meet this twofold requirement.I argue that this twofold requirement can be met. The first part of this thesis offers a detailed defence of a theory of self-consciousness. The second part shows how this theory of self-consciousness can faithfully capture the tension of self-deception, while eschewing the Dynamic and Static Problems. It thereby claims to vindicate the literalist's position. (shrink)