Introduction of a substance into consciousness, Sartre believes, is an
invitation either to theorize an “unconscious,” that is, a shadowy realm
unavailable to our critical reflection, or to slide into an endless series of
reflections on reflectionsa`laSpinoza (an argument Sartre will develop
in BN). To avoid that potentially infinite regress of reflections on
reflections, Sartre employs an argument that was used by Fichte against
Kant in a similar context, namely, the thesis that consciousness insofar as
it is explicitly aware of an other (as “intentional”) is implicitly self-
aware.^39 Sartre adopts the Husserlian terms “positional” (“thetic”)
and “nonpositional” (“nonthetic”) for what I have called “explicit” and
“implicit” awareness respectively. In a phrase central toBeing and
Nothingness, he insists that “every positional awareness of an object is
nonpositional awareness (of) itself ” (BNliii). Sartre introduces the
parenthesis to exclude any reflective self-awareness, which would indeed
generate the regress. Without the parenthesis, the French “conscience de
soi” would invite such a move.
In place of the transcendental ego, Sartre points to a “prereflective”
consciousness that enjoys the immediacy, clarity and indubitability of
our lived awareness (which he will later callle ve ́cu). Such awareness is
“impersonal” or “prepersonal” in the sense that it is free of the subject–
object distinction that emerges with reflection, and thus is unencum-
bered by an empirical ego. Already inThe Legend of Truth, Sartre had
cited our “deep engagement in some problem” as an example of egoless
consciousness. Prereflective consciousness is the awareness that we enjoy
before we reflect on the fact that we are (have been) aware. It is unfet-
tered conscious involvement (into) the world. For example, it is the “bus
to be caught” or the “task being performed.” But it is not unconscious
like, say, the condition of someone undergoing an operation under total
anaesthetic. In the latter case, we saw there was nothing to be reflected
on, which is the point of giving the anaesthetic. The prereflective, on the
contrary, is fully conscious and so can sustain subsequent reflection that
(^39) Johann FichteIntroduction to the Wissenschaftslehre, trans. and ed. Daniel Breazeale (Indian-
apolis, MA: Hackett, 1994 ), 20. This can be taken as an instance of what philosophers call
the “Ubiquity Thesis,” which claims that “an awareness of self accompanies all conscious
states, at least those through which one refers to something.” It is ascribed to Manfred Frank
and Dieter Henrich in their respective versions and certainly applies to Sartre. (See Tomis
Kaptan, “The Ubiquity of Self-Awareness,”Grazer Philosophische Studien 57 [ 1999 ]: 17 .)
The first fruit of Sartre’s Berlin efforts 71