ABSTRACT
According to Jean-Paul Sartre, “that which should be called subjectivity properly speaking is consciousness (of) consciousness” (BN, p. 17). 1 Various reasons account for the philosophical significance of this claim. 2 First, Sartre’s claim concerns subjectivity and consciousness, two concepts that philosophers since Descartes have taken to be central in a philosophical understanding of reality and which, more contemporarily, philosophers in the analytic tradition have taken to be central in philosophy of mind. 3 Second, Sartre’s claim relates subjectivity to consciousness; Sartre doesn’t make a claim about subjectivity that, additionally, happens to be also about consciousness: Sartre relates the former to the latter in a prima facie philosophically interesting way. Third, more strongly, Sartre’s claim identifies subjectivity with consciousness (i.e., a mode thereof): Sartre says that subjectivity is consciousness. Assuming that Sartre has a philosophically interesting way to unpack this identification, the fact that what is being identified is two concepts that philosophers since Descartes have taken to be central in a philosophical understanding of reality makes this identification philosophically interesting, whatever our ultimate assessment of it turns out to be. 4 Since in this chapter I will examine Sartre’s claim in some detail, it will be helpful to have a name for it. Let’s stipulate that in what follows “the S = Cc thesis” or (for short) “S = Cc” refers to the claim: “That which should be called subjectivity properly speaking is consciousness (of) consciousness” or (ironing out emphasis and grammar) “Subjectivity is consciousness (of) consciousness.” 5
