The empty and desolate consciousness E-Book

Lawrence Pih

• Herausgeber: Primavera Editorial
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 199

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

In this book we attempt to examine critically and develop systematically Sartre's theory of consciousness as it appears principally in his major philosophical work, Being and Nothingness. We do not intend to cover the entire scope of Sartre's existential thought. Our primary interest is focused on the interpretation of his theory of consciousness as developed in his Sartre's aim in his Being and Nothingness is to describe, by means of a phenomenological approach, the failure of the "Being-for-it- self" (human consciousness) in its relentless attempt to identify itself with "Being-in-self" (reality other than human consciousness; the "massive" and "full" being as Sartre calls it).

Leseprobe

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

June, 1966

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Dr. Leonard Ehrlich for reading the manuscript and making many valuable criticisms, comments and suggestions for its improvement. I also wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mrs. Helen Mottla who devoted considerable time and energy to proofreading and typing the manuscript.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

| PART I | Phenomenology and analytical philosophy

The Limitations of Analytical Philosophy

The Applicability of a Phenomenological Approach to the Problem of Consciousness

| PART II | The phenomenological background of Sartre

Husserl and the Theory of Intentionality

Heidegger and His Phenomenology of the Dasein

| PART III | The hiatus between the “being-for-itself” and “being-in–intself”

Sartre’s Point of Departure

The Two Regions of Being

| PART IV | Criticisms

Footnotes

Bibliography

Introduction

Inthis treatise we attempt to examine critically and develop systematically Sartre’s theory of consciousness as it appears principally in his major philosophical work, Being and Nothingness. We do not intend to cover the entire scope of Sartre’s existential thought. Our primary interest is focused on the interpretation of his theory of consciousness as developed in his phenomenological ontology. More specifically, we will show that Sartre’s aim in his Being and Nothingness is to describe, by means of a phenomenological approach, the failure of the “Being-for-itself” (human consciousness) in its relentless attempt to identify itself with “Being-in-self” (reality other than human consciousness; the “massive” and “full” being as Sartre calls it).

All the theories of consciousness are at least to some extend speculative and hence must confront the challenge of that formidable foe which is none other than the challenge of analytical philosophy. And since, in contemporary philosophy, the schism between analytical and existential philosophies appears almost irreparable, it is imperative that all philosophers who concern themselves with existential thought meet this challenge rather than simply dismiss it as mere “unimportant nonsense”(to borrow one of Wittgenstein’s favorite expressions). To this end, then, we commence our treatise by confronting this challenge. In this first part of this paper, we provide a brief discussion of the limitations of analytical philosophy which render it inadequate to provide a careful and detailed description of the human consciousness. Moreover, it appears to us that the methodological limitations and the restricted and fragmentary manner of philosophizing, which is characteristic of analytical philosophy, prevent it from accommodating an adequate theory of consciousness.

Phenomenology, in contrast to analytical philosophy, is geared toward the investigation of consciousness. Indeed, phenomenology is a discipline whose primary concern is to provide a description of the human consciousness and the objects of consciousness as they appear to consciousness. Phenomenology, therefore, seems to be a particularly appropriate method for the formulation of a theory of consciousness. Moreover, since Sartre sought to resolve the problem of consciousness from a phenomenological basis, we provide an adumbrative exposition on the phenomenological method in the latter section of the first part.

For a clear understanding of Sartre’s phenomenological ontology, it is imperative to recognize the influence of two phenomenologists, namely Husserl and Heidegger, on Sartre. The theories of these two philosophers form the basis of Sartre’s phenomenological ontology. Our second part is, therefore, devoted to the explication of some of the theories of these philosophers that are particularly relevant to Sartre’s phenomenological ontology and his theory of consciousness.

In the third part, our main purpose is to develop systematically Sartre’s phenomenological description of the two regions of Being: “Being-for-itself” and “Being-in-itself”, their characteristics, relations, interactions and activities. Through detailed discussions of Sartre’s phenomenological approach, his initial postulates, his theories of negation and Nothingness, his concept of “bad faith” and his characterizations of “Being-for-itself” and “Being-in-itself”, we show, Sartre, first, methodically empties the “Being-for-itself” of most of its being; second,fills the “Being-in-itself” with being; and, third, thus creates an hiatus between the two regions of Being, only to demonstrate that a synthesis between the two regions of Being is unattainable. In the last section of this part we recapitulate the main points of the previous section to substantiate our conclusion that, for Sartre, the unification of the two regions of Being into synthetic whole is an impossibility.

In the final part of this treatise, we seek to show that Sartre’s initial postulates upon which his entire system is based are unwarranted and untenable. Moreover, his “phenomenological method” cannot justifiably be described as phenomenological, at least not in the strict Husserlian sense of the term. Here we also challenge his characterization of the “Being-for-itself” as an empty and impersonal non-being. From our criticisms, it would appear that Sartre fails in his project to show the impossibility of a synthesis between the two regions of Being. However, despite this apparent failure, he makes a measurable contribution to the problem of Being, and above all he succeeds in indicating the limitations of phenomenology in resolving the problem of consciousness and the problem of Being.

| PART I |

Phenomenology and analytical philosophy

The Limitations of Analytical Philosophy

The philosophical attitude prevalent in the English-speaking countries exhibits a profound distrust for all “Speculative philosophies” that dominated the German thought in the nineteenth century. This distrust soon resulted in an almost complete disregard for all speculative systems, including its more recent mode, that of Sartrean “phenomenological ontology.” This skepticism is at least partially justified by the extravagances of German speculative thought, which indeed, in some instances, is both obscure and incoherent. From this attitude, then, emerged a new philosophical movement, commonly known as the analytical movement.

The group of philosophers known as the analytical philosophers, contrary to the popular impression, does not constitute a school. Although they share the common belief that philosophy must be approached from a scientific viewpoint, and indeed it is their claim that they have succeeded where Kant had failed, namely, in finding a way “to set philosophy upon the sure path of science,” which is dubious claim, they hold no distinctive common thesis. Some have thought, erroneously, that the unifying thesis can be found in the verifiability theory of meaning. But this theory, although of prime importance, has many different formulations, of which not one is commonly agreed upon. Moreover, even the interests of these philosophers are at variance; the earlier positivists were interested in the empirical verification of propositions which would, in turn, determine the meaningfulness of such sentences, whereas the later linguistic analysts were primarily concerned with the study of language as the tool of knowledge. The vast profusion of literature that has been published in the past five decades, and the rapidity with which the movement evolved render it impossible to provide a comprehensive and detailed review of the entire analytical movement. However, it will be fruitful here to critically evaluate a few theories of its major exponents that are particularly relevant and to show their methodological limitations in providing a theory of consciousness.

It is generally recognized by philosophy students that logical positivism is the root from which later movements grew. Thus, an exposition on analytical philosophy will do well to begin with this movement and attempt to fix on some of its central points. In this regard, there seem to be at least four major theses which are central to all positivists; these are (1) logical atomism, more specifically, the theory that all complex statements of fact are in fact compound statements which depend for their truth on simple statements about sense experience, and, furthermore, these are independent statements which do not entail any other; (2) the verifiability theory of meaning, which claims that a statement means precisely what would verify it in sense experience, or “the meaning of a proposition is the method of its verification;” (3) the analytical character of a priori knowledge, i.e., that all necessary statements unfold the contents of our ideas rather than report truths about nature; (4) the emotive theory of value, i.e., that statements of value are neither true nor false, but expressions of attitude.1 Of these four theses, the verifiability theory of meaning is the most important and interesting for our purposes, considering that, if this theory is true, then any general speculative theory concerning the human consciousness would be, in principle, impossible. This theory implies the assumption that everything that could be said could be expressed in terms of elementary statements, i.e., the theory of logical atomism. The theory on the character of a priori knowledge and the emotive theory of value are not particularly relevant, since they do not have any important bearing on the question of the possibility of a theory of consciousness. We shall thus confine ourselves primarily to an investigation of the verifiability theory of meaning, and any mention of the theory of logical atomism will be purely incidental, in that it will serve only to implement our understanding of the verifiability principle.

The common exaltation of science and the aversion to metaphysics have been of fundamental importance in shaping the course of investigation ventured by the logical positivists. Closely related to these attitudes is their stress of sense experience as the terminus a quo and ad quem of our thinking, and their deep suspicion of any talk of universals or necessary connections outside the fields of logic and mathematics. Their attitude of disdain for all noncognitive enterprises, such as the formulation of universal value theories, which they believe, strictly speaking, are not the concern of the philosopher, since his task is limited to clearing up the theoretical puzzles about methods and meanings left behind by the scientists, led them to brand as emotive and, consequently, unworthy of serious attention. If this conception of philosophy prevails, then the business of philosophy must be degraded to that of a handmaiden of science. Philosophy thus regarded is indeed a dreary and bleak matter. It would seem from this that all that is left for the philosopher is a universe of sense contents. It is true, that no positivist ever maintained this explicitly; however, it is nevertheless tacitly implied in their claim that when a remark about what is not sensible is ventured, this remark, although not false, is meaningless. Implicit in this unverifiable claim is the argument that an assertion, is a statement of fact; and if we are clear as to what is asserted, we must be able to recognize that experience or those experiences that will verify this assertion. Thus, when making an assertion, we must always refer to the relevant experience, namely, sense experience. If this theory is true, the implications that it entails are devastating to our present project, because it would not only render any theory about the human consciousness implausible, but it would prima facie rule it out as unthinkable and meaningless. We must now inquire in what sense, if any, this theory is true.

In attempting to make their investigations appear “scientific”, the positivists chose to restrict their discussions of meaning in such a manner that they would not include any mention of the noetic process, for such a process would clearly entail in it the problem of consciousness, which, as it were, is not publicly verifiable, let alone conclusively verifiable. From this, it becomes obvious why the positivists designed the verifiability principle to be an empirical test, which admits only sense experience as evidence, to determine the object meant. This resulted in their emphasis on the sensory rather than the introspective or any other mode of verification. Formulated in this restricted manner, this principle has proved incapable of accommodating the vast profusion of facts, which clearly is not limited to sense experience alone. Thus, there has not been a single empiricist theory of meaning commonly accepted among the positivists; instead, there has been a succession of theories, each subsequent one benefiting from the errors of the preceding one. Our most feasible approach, then, would appear to be to systematically analyze the main phase in the development of the verifiability theory, and to show how each successive one fails to cover those experiences which are necessary for the formulation of a theory of consciousness.

The first stage of the verifiability principle was formulated by Wittgenstein in the Tractatus of 1922 2. Here he argued that “everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly,”3 and, “everything that can be said can be said clearly.”4 For Wittgenstein, the criterion of meaningful statements is their coincidence with facts, and this coincidence is verified through these very facts of “my world”, and what “my world” consists of is the realm of sensibly and instantaneously given atomic facts, to which only I have access. Strictly speaking, we cannot refer to this “my world” as the field of consciousness or even as immediate experience, for these would imply an experiencing agent, and this is not permissible in Wittgensteinian language, since any reference to a “self” would be vacuous talk, for there could be no empirical verification that would sustain this “self.”5

For two reasons this theory would clearly cripple any attempt to establish a theory of consciousness. First, all communication with other minds – which is presupposed in every theory of consciousness- would be impossible, owing to the privacy of access to the atomic facts which all meaningful statements must, in the end, refer. Furthermore, there is no reason to suppose that objects are anything other than groups of atomic facts which, because they are simple, are not subject to further analysis nor, therefore, to definition or description. If the atomic facts are incapable of definition or description, what could serve as the common denominators through which communication is made possible? The objects themselves? Indeed no, for these objects are merely aggregates of atomic facts, and atomic facts are private and incommunicable. If communication with other minds is impossible, then any theory that purports to generalize certain characteristics about consciousness is no more than a string of meaningless words.

Secondly, this theory would remove any talk about other minds and would relegate such conjecture to the category of vacuous talk. Let us take, for example, the sentence “Peter believes that there is leprechaun inside his watch.” Now for two reasons this sentence is meaningless in Wittgensteinian language. (1) In accordance with Wittgenstein’s extentionalist logic, it was maintained that all compound propositions are truth functions of the propositions they contained,6 but in our example, “Peter believes that there is a leprechaun inside his watch”, it does not depend for its truth upon the truth of its subordinate proposition, namely, “there is a leprechaun inside the watch.” Hence, such sentence is not a proposition asserting a state of affairs. (2) Since it is obviously the case that Peter’s belief is not directly verifiable, this sentence makes no claim beyond the empirically verifiable one that Peter uttered a sequence of sounds. In this regard, all sentences that purport to tell of the consciousness of other minds must be discarded as “unimportant nonsense,”7 but when a positivist stands in a communicative relation with another Subject, he is not merely apprehending a sequence of perceptible sounds uttered by this Subject. He understands the meaning of the sounds which are but the expression by means of which another autonomous consciousness, with the capacity to organize, to construct, and so on, manifest itself. Repudiating the postulation of another consciousness like my own seems to be, at best, an arbitrary choice. There are other weakness with this theory, but suffice here to say that such a theory is incompatible with any and all theories of consciousness.

We have seen from the above discussion of this theory that Wittgenstein had remained unwaveringly faithful to two of Schlick’s original and fundamental theses: first, “that a factual proposition refers to empirical fact alone,”8 and second, “that this fact was always what its assertor would regard as the best warrant for the truth of his assertion.”9 These theses were reverentially adhered to by the positivists through all their later variations of the verifiability principle.10

Now we come to the second stage. Here those positivists who felt Wittgenstein’s theory too cramping to be borne, sought to loosen the verification principle, but nevertheless they retained the important position that which a person refers to must, in some sense, be verified by that particular person, so the theory has here acquired a new appearance which, centers around the phrase “what might be verified by me.” Moreover, this revised version was able to cover many statements in its net of meaningful statements that have been ostracized as verbal waste by Wittgenstein’s rather extraordinary criterion of meaningfulness. Unfortunately, even in this new dressing the theory still obviates any hope for a meaningful inspection of consciousness other than my own.

The third stage again attempted a more inclusive theory by extending the range of the verifiable. A new qualification was added: in sum, it stipulated that the net of meaningful statements in inclusive of all those statements that I might inprinciple verify.11 However, there is a drawback to this seemingly plausible theory, and that is, it demands the verification to be conclusive.12 The covert assumption underlying this theory is that ultimately meaning must make reference to ostensive definitions, and nothing less will serve. Furthermore, Schlick held that “the statement that two experiences of different subjects not only occupy corresponding places in a systematic order, but also resemble each other qualitatively, has for us no sense. Note that it is not false, but senseless (sinnlos); we have no idea what it means.”13 Conjointly, in these two theses, the meaning must ultimately refer to ostensive definitions, and the equipollence of experiences of different subjects, lead either to the elimination of all statements about the experiences of other people, since such statements cannot be ostensively sustained nor is the equipollence of experiences of different subjects conclusively verifiable, or else to the reduction of other people’s experience to one’s own, namely to redefine the experience of other people in terms of their empirical manifestations- that is, in terms of the overt behavior of their bodies and ultimately in terms of my sense contents. Strictly speaking, of course, it is meaningless to speak of experience of “other people”, unless we define this experience in terms of my sense contents.

While positivists such as Ayer adhered closely to this form of dogmatic behaviorism, others like Carnap and Lempel preferred the even more radical form of “physicalism.”14>

In this peculiar brand of physicalism, it was maintained that whenever a person makes a statement suchas “I am angry”, and we accept this statement to be true, what we in effect accept are the physical manifestations of the person’s body, i.e., his verbalizations, his clenching of his fist, his facial contortions, and ultimately the changes in his neurones. What is meant here is that there is not only a “logical equivalence” between the “physical” and the “mental”, but there is also an “identity of content” between the two; and this process was known as the translation of the “mental” into the “physical.”15 What the physicalists have actually done was to make a leap from the logical equivalence, which demands that both the statement about consciousness and about the overt behavioral manifestations must be true or false simultaneously, to the claim of identity of the content. Resolving one content into the other in this manner is clearly unacceptable, for “uniform accompaniment is not identity.”16 This view was soon abandoned by Carnap, who admitted with candor the untenability of this theory. He writes:” A person sometimes knows he is angry without applying any of those procedures which another would have to apply…”17 “Anger is not the same as the movements by which an angry organism reacts to his environment…”18 It is, in short, an experience and not a bodily reaction. Later Carnap reformulated this theory into a milder version; here he replaces “translatable” by “reducible”. However, the logical equivalence was still maintained, but now the observable bodily reactions are referred to as “symptons”19 (Carnap) or “test conditions”20 (Hempel) of anger, and we are to verify our judgements by these alone. Although his modification was aimed at a compromise, it fell short of its goals. If “reducibility” implies that the mental assertion can be reducible to the physical in meaning or content asserted, then we have physicalism all over again. Furthermore, if it means that the mental assertion refers to a state of consciousness, then it has succumbed to common sense.

Let us now examine a few of the difficulties inherent in this theory. (1) If the “physical symptoms” are parallel to the state of consciousness of other people, then this uniform accompaniment must be observable, but no state of consciousness belonging to another person is, in principle, observable by another person. How, then, are we justified in drawing a parallel? (2) In the present form this theory assumes that for every conscious event there is a physical correlate; however, even if this is true, there is no way of maintaining it. The positivists allow for only two kinds of statements, analytic and synthetic. The above assertion, however, is not analytic, for the identity of the state of consciousness and the physical manifestations is no longer maintained. Nor, for that matter, is it synthetic statements, for states of consciousness are not verifiable by the other subjects. Thus the theory here is not only unestablished but meaningless. Moreover, even if we allow for the verification of conscious events by other subjects, this verification can never be exhaustive and, consequently, never conclusive.

Let us here recapitulate some of the main points of this view and assess its plausibility in providing an adequate theory of consciousness. We have seen how the first version of Carnap’s physicalism is inacceptable, as was later recognized by Carnap himself. The modified version, however, which could be an intelligible and natural view as urged by the positivists, becomes rampant with contradictions and incoherences, for their methodology does not permit such a theory. If we accept the physicalists’ view that the consciousness of men, in the rich proliferation, is not, as distinct from its physical manifestations, a true object of knowledge at all, then any philosopher who chooses not to speak of the consciousness in physical terms must remain silent. The untenable consequences of physicalism would seem to suggest that we should search for a theory of consciousness elsewhere.

The inadequacies of the third interpretation made it necessary to once again reformulate the verifiability principle. According to the forth interpretation, a statement is meaningful if it might, in principle, be verified by anyone at all. Yet according to Professor Schlick, the stipulation that the verification must be conclusive must still be retained here. Such is the emphasis on the conclusiveness of verification that we are persuaded to regard it as nothing less than a central doctrine for the positivists.

When I speak of the consciousness of other people, how can I conclusively verify their existence? No finite number of instances will enable me to have conclusive evidence that other people possess consciousness, for this would necessitate nothing short of completing an infinite series, and it is always conceivable that in the future a contrary instance might appear.

It is evident that this theory, as urged by Schlick, must now be abandoned. As Professor Ayer pointed out very forcefully, no statement of fact is conclusively verifiable. He further maintained that “if this is correct, the principle that a sentence is factually significant only if it expresses what is conclusively verifiable is self-stultifying as a criterion of significance. For it leads to the conclusion that it is impossible to make a statement of fact at all.”21

In a fifth attempt, the positivists were finally convinced that the insistence on conclusiveness proved to be liability rather than an asset, and this demand was abandoned in Professor Ayer’s new proposal in the second edition of his Language Truth and Logic. Here he distinguished between strong, or conclusive, and weak verification. He writes: “A proposition is said to be verified in the strong sense of the term if, and only if, its truth could be conclusively established in experience. But it is verifiable in the weak sense if it is possible for experience to render it problable.”22