dimension and “retentions” of its antecedents. Husserl confirms Sartre’s
opinion that time consciousness is a “whole” that cannot be analyzed
into discrete “moments” (a view already criticized in Arisotle’sPhysics).
But what Husserl adds is reference to time-consciousnessand hence to
“intentionality.” Specifically, he speaks of “longitudinal” intentionalities
(protentions and retentions) by which consciousness unifies itself, and he
makes no mention of a transcendental ego performing that function.^45
The “reduction” reveals temporality as the horizon for our every con-
scious act, not unlike the “I think” of transcendental consciousness. But
this leads Sartre to see it both as ego-free and as serving a complementary
unifying function with regard to our empirical ego as that played by the
“synthetic unityof our representations.” In other words, where the Kantian
transcendental consciousness was a “formal” or “de jure”or“logical”
condition, the “reduced” consciousness, in Sartre’s words, is “existential”
(TE 95 ). It is a real, not an ideal, consciousness available to anyone who
performs the “reduction.” Free of a transcendental Ego, this reduced
consciousness “constitutes” our empirical consciousness, our conscious
being-in-the world with its psychic and psycho-physical self (moi)(TE 95 ).
Sartre summarizes this point briefly: “the phenomenological concep-
tion of consciousness renders the unifying and individualizing role of the
Ego (Je) completely useless. It is consciousness, on the contrary, that
makes possible the unity and the personality of my Ego. So in effect, the
transcendental Ego has noraison d’eˆtre”(TE 97 ).
The motivation of the reduction
One of the most remarkable claims of this small study occurs in its
concluding pages. It criticizes Husserlian phenomenology for failing to
offer a motive for performing the phenomenological reduction. In a
move that will open the door to properly existentialist categories, Sartre
(^45) Actually, Sartre confuses Husserl’s “transverse” intentions, mentioned inTE, with “longi-
tudinal” intentions, which Sartre is actually describing. The longitudinal intentionality
accounts for the auto-unification of the flux of consciousness whereas transverse intention-
ality constitutes the unity of temporal objects. De Coorebyter points this out inTE 175 ,
n. 15 ; (see Husserl,Internal Time Consciousness,§ 39 ). He also remarks Sartre’s failure to
elaborate on “protentions” in this work but allows that Sartre does discuss this dimension of
temporal consciousness inThe Imaginary (L’Imaginaire[Paris: Gallimard/Collection folio,
2005 ], 149 – 150 ; hereafterIre). Given thatInternal Time Consciousnessis not even mentioned
in Sartre’s discussion and critique of Husserl inBN, De Coorebyter takes Sartre to be
favoring Kant’s approach to time in this respect.
74 Teaching in the lyce ́e, 1931–1939