The Transcendence of The Ego - Overview

Overview

'Intentional objects' are objects of consciousness; that is to say physical objects, numbers, value, the psyche, and psycho-physical person that Sartre agreed should be studied in their own right. It was also Sartre's view, that differed from Husserl's, that 'intentional objects' are consciousness, and that the value of intended stuffs was in consciousness of them. 'Intentional objects' are therefore both objects of consciousness and consciousness, and this is because consciousness is both itself and reflection of it. Sartre describes the cogito by noting that 'the consciousness which says I think'—this is to the consciousness that can reflect on the mental concept of thinking—is not 'the consciousness which thinks'. So one can think of ones own thinking, like the idea that a painting of a pipe is not an actual pipe. And so consciousness is of its own properties, transcendental as there is inclusive in it, itself and reflection of it.

For Sartre 'intentional objects' are objects for consciousness and consciousness itself just as consciousness itself is both consciousness and reflecting consciousness. Moreover, consciousness is in the world as we are conscious of things, but we are also conscious of ourselves being conscious of things, so things and our own consciousness of the things evoke our own reflective consciousness, unfortunately there exists no easier or any less mundane sounding explanation of what is meant here. It remains to be pointed out that the consciousness of reflection is not able to be reflected on.

In light of this for Sartre, the constitution of the ego is 'states and actions it supports'. This is to say that the material presence of things in turn proves the ontology of the object contemplating them. Ego is then nothing without something in which to contemplate but is reliant on itself and its being. Further, the flexibility of consciousness for Sartre is the ability to contemplate something in its absence, this being special for his idea of reflection.