Sartre's proof of universal being
It seems that Sartre has proved a theorem which describes exactly the human condition - what it is to be conscious in fact. The problem is that the phenomenological proof is very complex and clever. It begins with these words:
"Modern thought has realised considerable progress by reducing the existent to the series of appearances which manifest it."
Wow - so much in one sentence and the claim is that this is true absolutely which I can see intuitively, but as for absolute proof, well that is more difficult.
He goes on to say in the next sentence:
"Its aim was to overcome a certain number of dualisms which have embarrassed philosophy and to replace them with the monism of the phenomenon."
So that's universal purpose and meaning sorted out on line 2!
I wonder why more people are not interested in this text which seems to contain the most profound truths that we are apparently all seeking.
"Modern thought has realised considerable progress by reducing the existent to the series of appearances which manifest it."
Wow - so much in one sentence and the claim is that this is true absolutely which I can see intuitively, but as for absolute proof, well that is more difficult.
He goes on to say in the next sentence:
"Its aim was to overcome a certain number of dualisms which have embarrassed philosophy and to replace them with the monism of the phenomenon."
So that's universal purpose and meaning sorted out on line 2!
I wonder why more people are not interested in this text which seems to contain the most profound truths that we are apparently all seeking.
Comments (42)
I don't recall it offhand. I'd have to look at it again to find what the "ontological proof" in the intro is supposed to be. Is it long? You could retype it here.
I haven't paid much attention to Being and Nothingness since I was in school, and that was a long time ago. I didn't care for it very much then. I'm not a big fan of most continental philosophy, especially due to the style of it (the writing style).
"Being has not been given its due. We believed we had dispensed with granting transphenomenality to the being of the phenomenon because we had discovered the transphenomenality of the being of consciousness."
I have a number of problems with especially the second sentence there.
First, I had to look up again what the heck "transphenomenality" is supposed to be. According to wiktionary, at least, "transphenomenal" is defined as "of or pertaining to a process, nature, or realm which cannot be directly experienced using such human faculties as conceptualization or perception by means of the five senses"--that's clear enough to me if that's how Sartre is using the term.
But then I get stuck on the phrase "the being of the phenomenon." What is "the being of the phenomenon" saying that simply "the phenomenon" wouldn't say? Is it a way of saying "the noumenal reality 'behind' the phenomenon"? I don't know. I read "being" as referring to existence (or we could say an existent), and so when we talk about the existence of a phenomenon as such we'd be talking about ontological facts of the phenomenon as a phenomenon. So "the being of" wouldn't be adding anything. But if we're saying "the noumenal reality 'behind' the phenomenon." then the phrase "the being of the phenomenon" seems like an awkward, misleading way to write that (and hence the sorts of stylistic problems I have with most continentalism).
At any rate, so I'd need to straighten that out.
Next, "the transphenomenality of consciousness" makes no sense to me if the definition of "transphenomenal" above is what Sartre had in mind. Also "The being of consciousness" doesn't make much sense to me if the phrase "the being of" refers to "the noumenal reality 'behind'."
And finally, what would discovering the "transphenomenality of the being of consciousness" have to do with the transphenomenality of the being of the phenomenon, implicationally (so that it suggests dispensing with granting the latter) or not?
Sartre was much more complex than your questions implicate. His transphenomenal being of consciousness was the post-modernist denial by the dualists of the monoism of Hegelian materialism on one hand, and a transgressed hypophoid existentialist dasein connected via deontological supernaturalization of the self, on the other, which he calls, luckily, "self" for short.
There. That should clear up some things for you, I hope.
Remember we are applying systematic doubt at all points and making no assumptions but that which is not an assumption is that being appears or rather a being, i.e. there is something, a totality, appearing as a fact to me at any particular time, like a cup.
So the first word we can use without any controversy is "it".
What describes it in the first instant? Well that is that it is manifest, i.e. it presents itself as being.
But at the same time there is the flip side of the phenomenon which is that it is an appearance to a subject so we can talk about "modern thought" which is what I am doing to manifest it.
How does one manifest something? Well it has to be by way of an appearance, i.e. something that is arriving and has some sort of content. There is a series of appearances which manifest it and that is exactly the content of your memory, the existent.
It goes on like this until we have constructed our first sentence which i listed before, and we know for sure that it is correct while it appears as a fact, whatever it is.
I know i haven't got this fully correct but would love to have some help in putting this together.
:lol:
So am I supposed to not worry about what's actually written by Sartre in too much detail, or?
I am not sure if it's "truth" that philosophy ever provides. It is more like "search for the truth", or "You must accept my views, and I can prove it to you that you must", or "you have no language comprehension", in the same progression in any debate.
But seriously speaking, I stick to my guns that no philosophy has ever even got near to the truth.
(And that stands also including trying to get at what the condept of truth is, in and by itself; truth being an affirmable relationship between two said things, one of which allegedly refers to reality.)
not really
Obviously you never seen my family physician's prescriptions.
That is unfortunate. And it was avoidable.
Yeah, that has been proven to me in another thread. But it is not possible to change monikers, apparently.
i would disagree with that, i think b+n is pure truth, it's called the phenomenological method and it describes existence
here's something that definitely true : "it is there"
I don't know about that. I think that Heidegger, Derrida, etc. are worse.
I also think it's because they're awful writers.
At any rate, so if we're not supposed to just not bother in too much detail with what they wrote, why are we ignoring the questions/issues I had with the part you want to discuss?
They make sense, and mastering them would help you avoid consternations like that experssed by @I like sushi when you hopelessly mixed up the quote with the intended to-respond-to person.
I am asking you to upgrade your TPF forum-specific skills as a gesture: with good will and good intentions.
how to define it? is it simply the implication of any action or does it require a series of actions which all point in the same direction? that is my problem with getting from the first sentence to the second one (Its aim was to overcome etc...)
I'm lost. What are we defining, first off?
In fact the next sentence specifies what the aim was, apparently the reducing of the series was the means by which that was achieved
so we have
what: modern thought has realised considerable progress
how: by reducing the existent to the series of appearances which manifest it
why: to overcome the dualisms which have embarrassed philosophy and to replace them with the monism of the phenomenon
I’m curious what other reading you’ve done to put so much weight behind Sartre. Thanks
?? I quoted the beginning of the "Ontological Proof" section, and I asked specific questions about what I quoted from Sartre in that section. I wasn't asking about what you quoted from the very beginning of the book.
I literally :lol: That was one of the funniest posts I've seen in a long time.
Thanks but no thanks. Bye
He asked about your familiarity with Husserl.
You don't think makes sense that we construct our own intentions? (Or are you thinking that it just doesn't make sense that we intentionally construct our own intentions?)
Oh god, this is going to be another one of those threads where the OP cannot understand the simple self-evident fact that what seems intuitively obvious to one person does not necessarily seem intuitively obvious to others.
Your intuition is just a set of thinking shortcuts your particular mix of genetic and environmental influences have made. It doesn't give you magic insight into reality.
This is saying that appearances in the mind are all that we ever 'see'.
Doooood YES. Effin' amen! :clap: :sweat: