Is Sartre's deferring to immaterialism legitimate grounds on which to criticise his philosophy?
Regarding how the mind considers actions, Sartre said that (at that moment of consideration) 'consciousness has withdrawn itself from the full world [...] to consider that of non-being'. My reading of this is that he is saying that the mind is withdrawing from the material world.
My first question is - have I assumed correctly here?
If I have assumed correctly, and he indeed is seeking refuge in immaterialism, I have a second question. Can one criticise Sartre for doing so? Can one say that his philosophy is undermined by science? For example, 'non-being' considerations are not immaterial. They show up as the firing of neurons in the brain, as we actively discount possible courses of action.
Or is that being unfair to Sartre? With its roots in phenomenology, could Sartre just say that he never claimed that his philosophy modelled the world in a materially accurate way?
My first question is - have I assumed correctly here?
If I have assumed correctly, and he indeed is seeking refuge in immaterialism, I have a second question. Can one criticise Sartre for doing so? Can one say that his philosophy is undermined by science? For example, 'non-being' considerations are not immaterial. They show up as the firing of neurons in the brain, as we actively discount possible courses of action.
Or is that being unfair to Sartre? With its roots in phenomenology, could Sartre just say that he never claimed that his philosophy modelled the world in a materially accurate way?
Comments (4)
The way I understand it is different. Suppose I am considering what to have for lunch. Maybe beans on toast, or maybe omelette. Neither of these is part of the material world - there are eggs in the kitchen, but no omelette. To consider acting is not to act. So it is not a claim that thoughts themselves are immaterial but that what they are about is immaterial, rather as an architect draws plans for a building that does not (yet) exist. The plans are as material as anything, but there is no building and may never be one. Yet oddly, one doesn't complain about how the architect models the world on these grounds.
Quoting unenlightened
Is it not? Considering is a verb; does that not make it (and thus considering to act) an act in itself? It requires the passage of time. Time in which material changes take place. This probably highlights my misunderstanding of Sartre's philosophy. I'll try to reply with a better example in future, once I've reflected on your examples a little longer.
Yes you're right. I sacrificed exactitude to brevity there. Allow me to correct myself. To consider acting is not the act under consideration except on rare occasions such as this, when it's philosophy, and other occasions when it is prevarication.
But I think Sartre would also posit a condition of presence, say of an artist looking, acting, considering, deciding, responding moment to moment a creative wholeness. In a sense it is almost universal to conceive the scholar as habitually absent- minded, absent from the full world, and contemplating an abstraction. I think Sartre, living through war, occupation and so on, found the material world interrupting that life of philosophical withdrawal in ways that he could not ignore, and it is thus the necessity to 'get real' that he tries to incorporate into his ethics. He would much prefer to drink coffee and chain-smoke while pontificating in a pavement cafe, bur finds himself obliged to actually man the barricades, or or else betray himself.