This Seminar aims to cover two short but monumentally important phenomenological works of the existential writer Jean-Paul Sartre. The texts that will be discussed are “The Transcendence of the Ego” and “Sketch for a Theory of Emotion”. Both texts represented two essential milestones in phenomenological debates concerning the nature of what has been historically defined as the “Ego” and the dynamic and world-oriented nature of emotions.
While reading the “Transcendence of the Ego” students will be introduced to some of the most important philosophical themes that are going then developed by Sartre in “Being and Nothingness,” such as the notion of transcendence, non-reflective experience, and pure reflection. In addition, this text represents an excellent resource for those instead interested in contemporary discussion in philosophy of mind and phenomenology since its affinities with contemporary embodied and ecological theories of consciousness. The non-egological conception of consciousness developed by Sartre represents a strong challenge to Cartesian, Neo-Kantians and contemporary representationalist philosophers that have traditionally thought of a “transcendental self” as necessary to experience the world in a meaningful manner. However, if we reflect on our experiences (as phenomenologists are supposed to do), all of them seem to contradict the necessity of assuming the existence of a transcendental self at all. As Sartre noticed with his famous example:
“When I run after a streetcar, when I look at the time, when I am absorbed in contemplating a portrait, there is no I. […] In fact I am plunged in the world of objects; it is they which constitute the unity of my consciousness; […] but me, I have disappeared; I have annihilated myself. There is no place for me on this level. (Sartre 1936, p. 46)
The “Sketch for a Theory of Emotion” represents instead an essential text for students interested in the relationship between phenomenology, existentialism and psychoanalysis. Similarly to the previous work, Sartre’s theory of emotion is an important antecedent of contemporary embodied-friendy and ecological theories of emotions, in which affective states are described as world and action-oriented phenomena that solicit us to perform certain actions instead of others. The role that Sartre assigned to emotion can potentially have other overlaps with further philosophical and scientific topics since they had been understood as primary forces or “motifs” that human beings rely on to modify reality.
In addition to Sartre’s texts, further literature and contemporary interpretations will be read. The Seminar will be in English and the lecturer will fully furnish the reading material. This Seminar is highly not recommended for Neo-Kantians.