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Single Idea 7106

[filed under theme 16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 6. Self as Higher Awareness ]

Full Idea

I should like to show here that the Ego is neither formally nor materially in consciousness; it is outside, in the world; it is a being in the world, like the Ego of another.

Clarification

The Ego is out in the world, not a formal or material part of consciousness

Gist of Idea

The Ego is not formally or materially part of consciousness, but is outside in the world

Source

Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], Intro)

Book Ref

Sartre,Jean-Paul: 'The Transcendence of the Ego' [Routledge 2004], p.1

A Reaction

This idea is the germ of what has got modern externalists about the mind (see quotations from Mark Rowlands) interested in Sartre. Personally I think he is wrong, and the Ego is a part of consciousness. It doesn't, though, have sharp boundaries.

The 57 ideas from Jean-Paul Sartre

22232 Authenticity is taking responsibility for a situation, with all its risks and emotions [Sartre]
20760 Sincerity is not authenticity, because it only commits to one particular identity [Sartre, by Aho]
22228 Sartre's freedom is not for whimsical action, but taking responsibility for our own values [Sartre, by Daigle]
22227 For Sartre there is only being for-itself, or being in-itself (which is beyond experience) [Sartre, by Daigle]
6151 Sartre says consciousness is just directedness towards external objects [Sartre, by Rowlands]
6164 Sartre rejects mental content, and the idea that the mind has hidden inner features [Sartre, by Rowlands]
7074 Man is a useless passion [Sartre]
20743 Appearances do not hide the essence; appearances are the essence [Sartre]
22233 Love is the demand to be loved [Sartre]
6687 Man is the desire to be God [Sartre]
20755 Fear concerns the world, but 'anguish' comes from confronting my self [Sartre]
22231 We flee from the anguish of freedom by seeing ourselves objectively, as determined [Sartre]
21240 The truth about events always comes from the oppressed and disadvantaged [Sartre, by Bakewell]
6868 'Existence precedes essence' means we have no pre-existing self, but create it through existence [Sartre, by Le Poidevin]
3842 Existence before essence (or begin with the subjective) [Sartre]
3844 Existentialism says man is whatever he makes of himself [Sartre]
3843 There is no human nature [Sartre]
20764 In becoming what we want to be we create what we think man ought to be [Sartre]
20762 There are no values to justify us, and no excuses [Sartre]
20754 It is dishonest to offer passions as an excuse [Sartre]
20763 When my personal freedom becomes involved, I must want freedom for everyone else [Sartre]
3845 Without God there is no intelligibility or value [Sartre]
3846 Man IS freedom [Sartre]
22229 Existentialists says that cowards and heroes make themselves [Sartre]
6571 When a man must choose between his mother and the Resistance, no theory can help [Sartre, by Fogelin]
3847 Man is nothing else but the sum of his actions [Sartre]
3848 Cowards are responsible for their cowardice [Sartre]
3851 If I do not choose, that is still a choice [Sartre]
3852 If values depend on us, freedom is the foundation of all values [Sartre]
20491 States have a monopoly of legitimate violence [Sartre, by Wolff,J]
24013 An emotion and its object form a unity, so emotion is a mode of apprehension [Sartre]
24017 Emotion is one of our modes of understanding our Being-in-the-World [Sartre]
24014 Emotions are a sort of bodily incantation which brings a magic to the world [Sartre]
24015 Emotions makes us believe in and live in a new world [Sartre]
24016 Consciousness always transcends itself [Sartre]
22226 Since we are a consciousness, Sartre entirely rejected the unconscious mind [Sartre, by Daigle]
7106 The Ego is not formally or materially part of consciousness, but is outside in the world [Sartre]
7125 A consciousness can conceive of no other consciousness than itself [Sartre]
7108 The eternal truth of 2+2=4 is what gives unity to the mind which regularly thinks it [Sartre]
7111 Consciousness exists as consciousness of itself [Sartre]
7107 Intentionality defines, transcends and unites consciousness [Sartre]
7109 If you think of '2+2=4' as the content of thought, the self must be united transcendentally [Sartre]
7110 If the 'I' is transcendental, it unnecessarily splits consciousness in two [Sartre]
7115 Maybe it is the act of reflection that brings 'me' into existence [Sartre]
7116 When we are unreflective (as when chasing a tram) there is no 'I' [Sartre]
7117 How could two I's, the reflective and the reflected, communicate with each other? [Sartre]
7113 Phenomenology assumes that all consciousness is of something [Sartre]
7114 The consciousness that says 'I think' is not the consciousness that thinks [Sartre]
7112 The Cogito depends on a second-order experience, of being conscious of consciousness [Sartre]
7119 Is the Cogito reporting an immediate experience of doubting, or the whole enterprise of doubting? [Sartre]
7122 We can never, even in principle, grasp other minds, because the Ego is self-conceiving [Sartre]
7123 Knowing yourself requires an exterior viewpoint, which is necessarily false [Sartre]
7124 The Ego never appears except when we are not looking for it [Sartre]
7121 The Ego only appears to reflection, so it is cut off from the World [Sartre]
7120 It is theoretically possible that the Ego consists entirely of false memories [Sartre]
22225 My ego is more intimate to me, but not more certain than other egos [Sartre]
22230 Sartre gradually realised that freedom is curtailed by the weight of situation [Sartre, by Daigle]