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
