Sartre on the Self-Deceiver's Translucent Consciousness
Phyllis Sutton Morris
Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 1992 DOI: 10.1080/00071773.1992.11006980 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 6 |
| Key points | Argues that Sartre's notion of translucent consciousness, understood through its non-positional/positional, prereflective/reflective, temporal, and first-/third-person dimensions, can accommodate self-deception and thus answers critics like Haight who treat translucency as transparency. The author further contends that bodily purposive activity beyond non-positional awareness challenges Sartre's existentialist claim of total responsibility. |
Abstract
Sartre posed a problem for himself in his discussion of bad faith: how is it possible to deceive oneself, given the unity and translucency of consciousness? Many critics of Sartre interpret translucency as transparency; some, such as M.R. Haight, conclude that Sartre's account of consciousness makes self-deception impossible.A reply to those critics takes the form of showing that translucent consciousness has a number of dimensions: (a) non-positional versus positional aspects; (b) prereflective versus reflective levels; (c) temporally synthetic flux; and (d) the first-person perspective versus the third-person perspective. These dimensions enable Sartre to succeed in describing subtle and varied patterns of self-deception, based on such strategies as obscuring, evasion, distraction, misdescription and disavowal. The translucency of consciousness is not a barrier to self-deception.However, there is another problem in Sartre's claim that all purposive activity is conscious, including our practice of self-deception. The bodily subject of consciousness performs important purposive activities beyond the range of the most obscure non-positional consciousness. This calls into question Sartre's existentialist claim that we are wholly responsible for all we do.