ABSTRACT
Sartre draws a sharp distinction between consciousness, on the one hand, and inner sense or knowledge of (it)self, on the other: ‘La conscience n’est pas un mode de connaisance particullier, appelé sens intime ou connaisance de soi’ (B&N: 7). I would like to explore the meaning of the terms involved in that distinction with a view to highlight its significance. My analysis ‘departs’ from Sartre’s argumentation, in both senses of that verb: it takes Sartre’s own thesis as the guiding principle of the ensuing analysis, yet it employs that analysis on a set of views that are not addressed in Sartre’s own corpus. What makes those views relevant to our discussion is that they model consciousness on knowledge of (it)self, and they think of the latter as delivered by the exercise of inner sense. My discussion will be brief and, I hope, to the point. I will argue that contemporary attempts to revive an inner sense approach to knowledge of (it)self encounter serious difficulties; they thus fail to articulate a viable alternative to the Sartrean approach to consciousness. But first, let me clarify a few terminological issues.
