“possibles” (as whatever was conceivable as not self-contradictory) was a
common argument against “idealist” philosophy over the years. Though
Sartre was critical of the idealism of his professors such as Brunschvicg,
this last argument betrays a certain ambivalence by claiming that
“only consciousness gives being.” On the face of it, that is an argument
worthy of George Berkeley. Not until Sartre discovers the Husserlian
phenomenological “reduction” will he be able to distinguish the “being”
that consciousness “gives” as “phenomenal” from the being that resists
our consciousness, or the brute fact of being that one encounters in such
experiences as Angst or Nausea. Granted, phenomenological conscious-
ness will bring it about that “there is” (il y a) being, but it “constitutes”
it as phenomena and doesn’t “create” it as being. That distinction
between constitution and creation is presumed to guard phenomenology
from slipping into idealism. Sartre relied on this distinction in his attack
on idealism, even as he questioned Husserl’s success in avoiding this
hazard inIdeas I.^16
A phenomenologistavant la lettre?
It is clear that Sartre is raising issues that invite a phenomenological
treatment, but doing so prior to any first-hand experience with Husserl’s
thought. The earliest indication of his awareness of Husserl occurs in his
thesis for theDiploˆme d’e ́tudes supe ́rieures(DES), written during his final
year at the E ́cole. He cites approvingly a third-person reference to
Husserlian signification or “Bedeutung” regarding the cognitive role of
“symbolic Schemata” from the work of the German psychologist
Auguste Flach.^17 Sartre’s thesis, entitled “L’Image dans la vie psycho-
logique, roˆle et nature,” confirms his early interest in image and the
“ontological” argument for the existence of God as relevant to this claim. A few lines later,
Sartre asks “What would it mean to be a possible without formal reality?” and responds,
“Nothing. A possible does not exist in itself. It exists in a thought” (OR 1685 ). In effect, it is
an idea. If we take these notes to be points for arguments to be introduced in class, it is likely
that Sartre has in mind Descartes’sMeditations on First Philosophy, since this had long been16 and remains today a standard text for introducing students to philosophy.
See Edmund Husserl,Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological
Philosophy, First Book, trans. F. Kersten (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1983 ), §§ 48 – 55 ;
17 hereafterIdeas.
Auguste Flach, “Ueber symbolische Schemata in productiven Denkprozesse,”Archiv fuer
die gesamte Psychologie, vol.lii( 1925 ). SeePPS 391 and 397 , or Franc ̧ois Noudelmann,
56 Teaching in the lyce ́e, 1931–1939