22 March 2023 at 2:57 pm

To assert an ego behind all reflection and phenomenological reduction is like avoiding the problem of the self or presuming it as something we already know, like Heidegger’s ontically close but ontologically furthest, we’re ignoring the ontological structure of the ego itself. Sartre thinks that there is no ego that is transcendental? Nothing behind the reflections, nothing behind the consciousness of the object, just simple the ‘conscious of’. It is not the ‘I’ that is conscious of the chair, it’s just consciousness of the chair. But for what is this consciousness intended by? “There is consciousness of ..” The claim only stands because Sartre is the one saying it, or I am the one saying it. If there is nothing behind the consciousness at all then, what is to conceive the consciousness of? 

But I am the consciousness, the consciousness is itself and not a consciousness of something else. It doesn’t have to be conceivable to an agent because it itself is an agent, but it’s relational, as an agent can’t be on its own without perceiving anything, and the object in perception can’t be perceived without the consciousness perceiving

So is Sartre essentially saying that the Ego is not transcendental, but there is one, but it’s not an ego because it is in relation to the world. The self is one with the world, embedded, infused and always involved in the world, like Dasein?

Consciousness first, then the ‘I’? Therefore ‘I’ would be an expression intended by consciousness?

Then can I just call this consciousness ‘I’?

I can’t because:

• There would be too many subjects in me if the ‘I’ is to be the subject

• Being conscious is a happening, becoming, transcending, not a thing like an ego

• The ‘I’ is discovered by being conscious of it

• The self is a self because there is a consciousness of the self

Is existence a consciousness of one’s self? The self is in the world, the consciousness exists in relation to the world and therefore the self, becoming conscious of things is transcending, the for-itself?

The reflecting/reflective consciousness is not reflected? Consciousness is the reflecting consciousness conscious of the reflected consciousness 

But how do we cross into the transcendental, the for-itself? What is being? Is a being just a consciousness? 

Would he deny something like, a drive, or a will, which its form in the world of representation is human?