Perseus

Thanks for the detailed reply Thomas! My misunderstanding of Phenomenology, "consciousness being conscious of being conscious of existents," led me to question whether the primacy of consciousness could then be possible. However, it seems pretty clear now that before one can reflect on one's own consciousness (positional consciousness), which in turn perceives existence, there still must be existence first; upholding the primacy of existence.

Hello Everybody, First forum post here, just found this website and am looking forward to participating in the discussion. In any case, I would like to get feedback on the Existential view of consciousness vs. that of Objectivism. I recently started reading Sartre's "Being and Nothingness" and the very first section has really thrown me for a loop regarding my current understanding of consciousness. According to the Objectivism, consciousness is the faculty of perceiving that which exists. That consciousness is inherent in one's grasp of existence; inherent in saying, "There is something of which I am aware." Thus, a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of, is contradictory and absurd. Now, from reading Sartre, it seems he accepts this faculty of consciousness but takes it in a different direction. To quote from Being and Nothingness, "All consciousness is consciousness of something. This means that there is no consciousness which is not a positing of a transcendent object, or if you prefer, that consciousness has no content." This statement leads me to assume he agrees with Objectivism's basic stance on consciousness at face value. However, he goes on to state the following, "The first procedure of a philosophy ought to be to expel things from consciousness and to reestablish its true connection with the world, to know that consciousness is a positional consciousness of the world. All consciousness is positional in that it transcends itself in order to reach an object, and it exhausts itself in the same positing." "However, the necessary and sufficient condition for a knowing consciousness to be knowledge of its object, is that it be consciousness of itself as being that knowledge. This is a necessary condition, for if my consciousness were not consciousness of being consciousness of that table, it would then be consciousness of that table without consciousness of being so. In other words, it would be a consciousness ignorant of itself, an unconscious - which is absurd." This last part (in bold) is what I find particularly confounding. If, in the Objectivist's point of view, consciousness is merely the faculty of perceiving existents, would it not have to be conscious of that fact it was consciousness being conscious of existents? I do understand that this statement leads to an infinite regress. Sartre himself even pointed this out, which is why he comes to the conclusion that there must be an immediate, non-cognitive relation of the self to itself. He states, "Every positional consciousness of an object is at the same time a non-positional consciousness of itself." Thus, preventing the known, the knower known, the knower known by the knower, etc and so on into infinity. My questions for the forum would be: do you believe this stance of the non-positional consciousness of itself makes cognitive sense? and if so, how does it stand up or conflict to the primacy of existence? is Sartre correct in expounding upon consciousness of the self non-positionally a-priori to that of a particular existent? I'm really looking forward to feedback on this puzzling issue. Appreciate any responses. Thanks!