There are three levels of consciousness, according to Sartre. But how are they discovered or realized?
In The Transcendence of the Ego, Sartre investigates the traditional rationalistic understanding of the human being and critically engages with Husserl’s phenomenology.
The importance of The Transcendence of the Ego lies in that it allows Sartre to affirm and situate his rejection of Descartes and to put forward his claims about the pre-reflective cogito in such a way that announces the ground of his own existential-phenomenological thinking-philosophizing.
In this essay, Sartre notices that self-discovery is the result of a process of observation and reflection, which consists of three steps. The first step is the realization that there is consciousness. The second step is discovering what is not consciousness, which is the world as that of which consciousness is conscious. The final step is discovering the self, which is not the world.
Although the first thing discovered or realized in this process is consciousness itself, Sartre argues that his view is different from traditional idealism in the sense that his argument does not suggest that reality arises from consciousness as idealism claims.
Sartre’s view is only that the first thing with which we come face to face is consciousness. The world itself is not put together or sustained by consciousness because consciousness itself needs the world and depends on the world’s existence so that it can exist and become possible in the first place.
In other words, the existence of consciousness depends on the existence of the world because consciousness exists as consciousness of something. Since consciousness exists as consciousness of something, a certain something must be already available there for consciousness to be conscious of it. Thus, according to Sartre in Being and Nothingness, “consciousness is born supported by a being which is not itself”.
Sartre’s process of discovery, again, is as follows: Consciousness is consciousness of a specific thing. This specific thing is the world, which informs consciousness that it is not the world itself, but rather that which is conscious of the world and its existence. Consciousness does not create the world from nothing. Consciousness creates the already existent and available world by interpreting and re-interpreting it. That is, the world is there in its availability so that consciousness can grasp and interpret it.
For Sartre, consciousness is always self-consciousness. This means that when one is conscious, one’s consciousness is, at the same time, conscious of itself as being conscious of something. That is, consciousness always involves and contains self-consciousness.
In this state of pre-reflective consciousness, there is no ego, there is nothing personal. In this state of pre-reflective consciousness, consciousness is only conscious that it is conscious of something. What this state involves is only the act of being conscious, of being turned toward the world, attempting to grasp it.
Against the Cartesian formula that “I think, therefore I am”, Sartre’s formula could be that “there is consciousness, therefore I am”. Yet this consciousness is still not an “I”; it still lacks the “I”. This is another difference between Sartre and Descartes and Husserl.
The Three Levels of Consciousness
According to Sartre, there are three levels of consciousness. The first level is the pre-reflective consciousness. In this level, consciousness is only conscious of something. In this level, consciousness is only an act; the act of being conscious, conscious of something.
The second level of consciousness is the reflective consciousness. And the third level is self-reflective consciousness. In the third level, consciousness becomes its own object.
The example of reading shows the difference between these three levels of consciousness. The pre-reflective level includes being conscious of the room in which one is reading, the chair on which one sits, the temperature of the room, the design of the room, etc.
The reflective level uses reflection in a different manner: Its aim is reading the book, understanding its meaning, and deciphering the words whilst attempting to put everything together. This level of consciousness involves and contains a certain degree of reflectivity.
The third level of consciousness is reached when one thinks of oneself as reading. In this way of thinking of and about oneself as a reading-self, one begins to read oneself and about oneself; that is, one starts to reflect upon oneself as taking part reflectively in the act of reading.
It is important to notice that, according to Sartre, such levels or moments of consciousness do not occur or appear in a sequence; that is, they do not follow one another. For Sartre, such levels happen at the same time; they are in one another.
Being engaged in this act of reading leads to the disappearance and annihilation of the ego. According to Sartre, when one is engaged in reading, “I am then plunged into the world of objects; it is they which constitute the unity of my consciousnesses… but me, I have disappeared; I have annihilated myself. There is no place for me on this level.”
This means that consciousness is formed and made up of the objects permeating the world, for consciousness is always conscious of something. The ego is not present in this process; it is not in charge; it is not there. There is no rational, central, and personal “I” in this process. There is only consciousness; there is only consciousness as conscious of something, whose three levels constantly occur simultaneously.
How Is the Ego Formed?
The “I” is transcendent. It belongs to this world and appears only when there is a world. Because it is in this world, it suffers from the same vulnerability constantly threatening all the objects of this world. According to Sartre:
Instead of expressing itself in effect as ‘I alone exist as absolute,’ it must assert that ‘absolute consciousness alone exists as absolute,’ which is obviously a truism. My I, in effect, is no more certain for consciousness than the I of other men. It is only more intimate.
Jean-Paul Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego
Both the world and the “I” are objects standing over against consciousness and for it. The “I” is neither the center nor the origin of our being. Consciousness is the heart of being and therefore brings about an ego for itself.
The ego is thus nothing but an object; it is removed from consciousness; it is created by consciousness as an object. My ego awaits me and depends on me so that it can be brought about and rendered possible.
Between the world and consciousness, there is also a relatedness. Consciousness makes the world, its world; it brings about the world in its encountering of what exists outside of itself by interpreting it.
In other words, consciousness gives its surroundings meanings and therefore turns these surroundings into a world. This coming face to face with what surrounds oneself is the origin of the ego. In this encounter with what surrounds oneself, one makes oneself and the world through one’s projects.
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