By qualifying the phenomenon of being as noncognitive (likeAngst
or boredom, for example) and by giving ontological primacy to the
prereflectiveCogitoover the reflectiveCogito(understanding over know-
ledge), Sartre joins Heidegger in opposition to Husserl by moving
phenomenology from the primarily epistemological to the appetitive,
from the theoretical to the practical. But, unlike Heidegger, Sartre does
so by appeal to consciousness and its intentionality.
Intentionality at Sartre’s hands is not merely a defining characteristic
of consciousness and a bulwark of epistemological realism, it plays
an ontological role in warranting the transphenomenal character of the
phenomenon itself. He has already pointed out our nonconceptual
experience of the being of the phenomenon. Now he undertakes to link
that experience with his earlier account of the intentional nature of
consciousness itself. Sartre rather loosely calls this justification “the
ontological proof.” An argument favored by philosophical idealists like
Descartes and Hegel, he intends to employ it in favor of the “extra-
mental” and transphenomenal character of the object of our conscious
acts. It purports to be more than simply another stipulative definition
such as Anselm’s famous definition of God as “that than which nothing
greater can be conceived,” which on further examination seems to have
“launched” God into extra-mental existence by force of definition.
Some have dismissed Sartre’s version as a mere stipulation that the
“Other” of our intentionality possesses more than a merely mental
existence, as many idealists would maintain. And the fact that Sartre
appeals to such an argument does cast suspicion on the thoroughness of
his own break with Husserlian idealism. In contrast with Descartes’
version, Sartre’s “argument” is derived not from the reflectiveCogito
but from the prereflective being of the one perceiving, the percipiens
(BNlx). In effect, it is a feature of the immediate and pretheoretical
relation of consciousness with its object.
Here is how he simplifies the case: “Consciousness is consciousof
something. This means that transcendence is the constitutive structure
of consciousness; that is, that consciousness is bornoriented towards
a being which is not itself. This is what we call the ontological proof ”
(BNlxi;EN 28 ). He defends himself against the accusation of merely
conferring a transphenomenal status on the object of consciousness
by a definition. The nub of his argument is that consciousness as
essentially intentional must be conceived as “in some way” a “revealing
180 The war years, 1939–1944