Gone is the principle of “immanence,” the tap-root of idealism,
which insists that all knowledge is “immanent” in the knowing subject.
On this view, what we know are (at most) representations of the external
world, of the tree, for example, not the tree itself in its existential
singularity. Hence the problem of the “bridge” and the skepticism
which it inevitably engenders. What Husserl is giving us, on Sartre’s
reading, is a philosophy of “Transcendence” in the sense that the
intentional nature of consciousness places us immediately in the realm
that is “other” than consciousness; that “transcends” it as does the real
tree. In a remark that makes the early dating of this essay problematic,
Sartre then quotes Heidegger’s analogous contention that Being is
“being-in-the-world.”^31 But he gives Heidegger’s expression a vectorial
translation that accords with the dynamic of consciousness just
described – when he insists that, thanks to intentionality, our being is
“being-into-the-world.”^32
By adding this Heideggerian nuance, Sartre is, in fact, repeating a
basic objection against Husserlian phenomenology leveled by Heidegger
and others: namely, that it conceives of our initial relation to the world in
a theoretical rather than a practical manner. Sartre’s dynamic “into”
seems to respond to this objection in advance. He will raise an analogous
objection to Husserl’s thought in Transcendence of the Egowhen he
remarks that Husserl fails to give us a motive for performing the
phenomenological reduction and will confirm the practical orientation
of consciousness a decade later inBeing and Nothingnesswhen he insists
(^31) Heidegger’s expression here translated as “L’Eˆtre” is presumably “Seiende,” which is a
mistranslation that probably comes from Corbin’s rendition of Heidegger’s lecture
“Qu’est-ce que la me ́taphysique?” There “Seiende” is translated both as “l’existent” and as
“l’Eˆtre(ens)” (Bifurno. 8 [July 1931 ]: 20 and 24 respectively). Recall that this piece appeared
in the same issue ofBifurthat carried Sartre’sThe Legend of Truth. As Janicaud remarks,
Corbin does well with the literary portions of Heidegger’s lecture but seems overwhelmed by
the philosophical technicalities of a language that was unfamiliar to most people at that time
(seeHFi: 42 – 43 ;ET 31 ). Another hypothesis is that Sartre takes this mistranslation from
A. Bessey’s rendition of Heidegger’sVom Wesen des Grundes, published in the 1931 / 1932
volume ofRecherches Philosophiques, a journal that Sartre regularly followed (seeCDG-F
32407 andHFi:^34 ,n.^34 ).
What makes the Heidegger inclusion problematic is that it suggests that the essay was
written closer to its 1939 publication date, when Heidegger was very much on Sartre’s
mind, rather than in the Berlin period when he was still a stranger to Sartre. De Coorebyter’s
explanation is that this represents a later addition, when the essay was revised for publication
(seeTE 7 – 26 ).
64 Teaching in the lyce ́e, 1931–1939