reveal both the “certain” and the “probable” conclusions about the
nature of the image that a careful eidetic reduction will warrant. While
the descriptive analyses inSketch for a Theory of the Emotionsare less
protracted, they too exemplify successful eidetic reductions.The Imagin-
ationalso makes extensive use of counterexamples and arguments from
experience that question the adequacy of classical and contemporary
theories about the nature of the image. These could be labeled incipient
or informal eidetic reductions, though they do not explicitly claim the
features of certainty and probability championed inThe Imaginaryand
Emotions.InThe Imagination(Ion), the eidetic method is not expressly
adopted. But it is the start of a mode of argument via example that
benefits greatly from Sartre’s exceptional descriptive (and literary)
powers.
Nowhere does the relation between philosophy and literature come
more clearly into focus than in the eidetic reduction. Arguments of
great literature often fashion moral paradigms, which resemble eidetic
reductions by their imaginative construction and contrast with
other models that lead the viewer to say, if only to himself, “That’s
how it is alright.” In the book that reportedly introduced Sartre to
Husserlian phenomenology, Emmanuel Levinas quotes Husserl as
saying: “‘Feigning [Fiktion] makes up the vital element of phenomen-
ology as of every other eidetic science;...feigning is the source from
which the cognition of ‘eternal truths’ is fed.”^9 Roquentin’s experience
of contingency inNauseais described with a precision and emotional
bite that, when successful, leaves the reader with the uncomfortable
sense of his own chance existence.^10
(^9) Ideas§ 79 , 160. Cited in Emmanuel Levinas,The Theory of Intuition in Husserl’s Phenomen-
ology, trans. Andre ́Orianne (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973 ), 140 , using
the earlier W. R. Boyce Gibson translation (New York: Macmillan, 1931 ).
(^10) Already in the 1920 s, Sartre was aware of the need to complement a sterile conceptualism
with appeal to the “feelings” (sentiments). In his first published “philosophical” essay, “The
Theory of the State in Modern French Thought,” (January 1927 ), he contrasted “realist”
with “idealist” approaches to issues of sovereignty and respect for rights in terms of an
exclusively “factual” argument versus one that regarded “the national feelings (sentiments)
aroused by the Great War.” His conclusion suggests sympathy with the latter even as he
recognizes the current victory of the former: “And so it seems that the future lies with those
who will resign themselves in these matters to expecting only realistic consequences from
realist methods, and who will recognize that he who sets out from facts will never end up
with anything but facts” (Contat and Rybalkaii: 36 ).
82 First triumph:The Imagination