now ascribes the action to an empirical ego: “Imissed that bus!” or
“That’s happening tome.”
Yet this prereflective awareness is not totally impersonal. It ismine,
after all. That “myness,” which Heidegger calls “jemeinichkeit” and
which Sartre translates with the neologism “moiı ̈te ́,”^40 is “in the wings,”
as it were, waiting to come on stage with reflection. And it is in this
respect that Sartre can speak of the “intimacy” we enjoy with the ego we
call “I” or “me” depending on its function as subject or object of actions
or events. But if the empirical ego is a thing in the world like (almost) any
other, it is no more certain than any object. Sartre calls it a “psychic”
object. Though it is not identical with the body, he insists that “the
psycho-physical self (moi) is a synthetic enrichment of the psychic
Ego...that can certainly exist in a free state.” For example, “when
one says ‘I am indecisive,’ one is not directly referring to the psycho-
physical self ” (TE 114 ). By distinguishing these two aspects of the
empirical ego, Sartre places more emphasis on the “psyche” than on
the physical body at this stage of his argument, but without slipping into
mind–body dualism. He will see this “synthetic enrichment” as a kind of
“compromising” of the purity of consciousness that the phenomeno-
logical reduction preserves, but at too high a price.^41 In other words, can
one “purify” consciousness from its “inner life,” as intentionality claims,
without appealing to a transcendental ego to hold the experience
together? Sartre’s response to both Kant and Husserl is an
unqualified yes.
The unity of consciousness
The (transcendental) ego is accredited for the unity of our experiences.^42 It
seems that the “I think” that accompanies our conscious acts is the
functional equivalent of Bergson’s “deep subject” of those thoughts and
actions. Without such a unifying subject, it is asserted, we would be devoid
of the identity that gives order to our lives and anchors our responsibility.
Questioning this thesis, Sartre asks: “The Ego (Je) which we encounter in
(^40) It seems that the neologismmoiı ̈te ́was coined by Swiss psychologist E ́duard Clapare`de
41 (^1873 –^1940 ) (see below,Chapter^8 , note^56 ).
In the following chapter we shall witness Sartre’s characterization of emotional and imaging
42 consciousness as a “degraded” form, but as consciousness (intentional) nonetheless.
SeeTE 96 – 98.
72 Teaching in the lyce ́e, 1931–1939