part0009

Hopefully the previous chapter, if you’ve read it, has allowed you to get a reasonable grasp on the initially weird sounding claim that consciousness, the consciousness of each human being, is essentially a nothingness, negativity or non-being in relation to the world.

Consciousness does not exist as a thing, it is not any kind of object. It is not a mental substance, as the philosopher Descartes supposed, existing in its own right and then entertaining thoughts. In fact, it is nothing in itself. It exists only in relation to what it is consciousness of . If it were not conscious of anything it would not exist. Existentialists sum this view up with the maxim: consciousness is consciousness of __. As Sartre writes in Being and Nothingness , ‘To say that consciousness is consciousness of something means that for consciousness there is no being outside of that precise obligation to be a revealing intuition of something’ (Being and Nothingness , p. 17).

The theory that consciousness exists only in so far as it intends something or is about something is known, not surprisingly, as the theory of intentionality or aboutness . This theory, one of the philosophical cornerstones of existentialism, was first put forward by the German philosopher and psychologist, Franz Brentano, who introduced the idea in his book, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint . Brentano writes:

Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself, although they do not all do so in the same way. In presentation something is presented, in judgement something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on. This intentional inexistence is characteristic exclusively of mental phenomena. No physical phenomena exhibit anything like it. We can, therefore, define mental phenomena by saying that they are those phenomena which contain an object intentionally within themselves. (Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint , pp. 88–89)

The theory of intentionality implies that because consciousness is always of or about something and nothing beyond that, any attempt by philosophers to investigate consciousness and say what it is must always lead immediately to an investigation and a certain kind of description of whatever consciousness is of or about. The philosophy of Brentano, Husserl, Sartre and others, formally known as phenomenology , seeks to understand consciousness by investigating and describing the way in which different phenomena , different intentional objects , appear to consciousness. An intentional object is whatever consciousness is about , be it seen, imagined, believed or felt.

Jealousy, for example, is an intentional object, a collection of appearances to consciousness. Nick’s jealousy of David, for example, does not exist as such. It is an intentional object (in this case an intentional psychic object) comprised of Nick’s resentment when he sees David, his unacknowledged sense of inferiority when he thinks of David, the negative things he says about David, his wish or intention to get the better of David and so on. These appearances are not manifestations of an underlying jealousy, they are the jealousy. There is no jealousy in itself beyond the various appearances that we collectively describe as Nick’s jealousy of David.

A physical object is also an intentional object, a collection of appearances to consciousness. Just as jealousy is comprised of various appearances, so a physical object is comprised of various appearances too. We like to think that the physical object itself exists beneath the appearances, but really a physical object is nothing more than a collection of appearances that emerge, alter and disappear according to distance, point of view, light and so on.

Close up a cup appears large. If the cup is turned about different sides appear successively. Its shape appears differently as its orientation changes and its colour appears to alter with the light. The cup makes a sound as it is placed back on its saucer. Far away the cup appears small. When reduced to its appearances in this way the physical object does not appear, but rather a succession of aspects. Really, there are no physical objects in themselves. There is nothing beyond the various shifting appearances that we collectively describe as this or that physical object other than undifferentiated being-in-itself.

Many existentialists argue for a featureless, undifferentiated being-in-itself that is differentiated into distinct phenomena by consciousness. Consciousness, they argue, is a negation that places particular negations or negativities into being that, so to speak, slice being up into particular phenomena. Basic distinctions, divisions and differences arise that always involve nothingness or negation – here is not there, this is not that and so on. Earlier, we said that being-in-itself is not temporal or spatial, which is to say, it is not in time and space. Amazingly, time and space only exist from the point of view of consciousness. Or, to put it another way, there is no time and space apart from consciousness. It is consciousness that imposes time and space on undifferentiated being in order to differentiate it.

In his great work, The Critique of Pure Reason , one of the most influential works of philosophy ever written, Immanuel Kant describes time and space as pure a priori forms of intuition, arguing that we do not actually experience time and space, but rather that we experience in terms of time and space. A priori means prior to experience . Kant’s pure intuitions are a priori because they are prior to experience. We do not experience them. Rather, they are the basic organisational framework of each person’s experience of the world. Time and space are the way consciousness organises the world. Believe it or not, just as you have never experienced ‘to the left of’ in itself, only particular things being to the left of other things, you have never experienced time in itself or space in itself, only a world structured and organised spatio-temporally.

Sartre, who is very much a post-Kantian in a lot of his thinking, argues that being-for-itself or consciousness is grounded upon being-in-itself, while differentiated being, the richly varied world of phenomena we all inhabit, is grounded upon consciousness, or at least, upon the negations that consciousness places into being. Sartre argues that phenomena (what appears) are not grounded upon being but upon particular privations or lacks of being. Particular privations of being occur when, for example, being is questioned.

The relationship of consciousness to the world is primarily characterised by a questioning attitude. This attitude is not just the capacity to judge that something is lacking but the constant expectation of a discovery of non-being. If I look to see if my pie is cooked, for example, it is because I consider it possible that it is not cooked. Even supposing there are pies apart from consciousness of them, a pie can only be ‘not cooked’ for a consciousness that experiences the pie in the mode of not yet being what it will be in future. The pie does not lack being cooked for itself, it lacks being cooked for a consciousness that has desires and expectations with regard to pies.

Consciousness constantly introduces non-being, negation, negativities, lack, absence into the world in order to make sense of it and to act purposefully within it. In abstract, technical terms we might say phenomena are grounded not upon being but upon non-being. They arise for being-for-itself when being-for-itself places particular negativities into undifferentiated being thus giving rise to differentiated being.

In slightly more down to earth terms we might say a situation is always understood not in terms of what it is but in terms of what it lacks for the consciousness encountering it. In itself a situation is a fullness of being, it lacks nothing, but in itself it is precisely not a situation because to be a situation it must be a situation for someone, the situation of someone. The lacks that make it a situation, that give it future possibilities and so on, are given to it by the consciousness, the person, for whom it is a situation.

Existentialists insist that a person interprets every situation according to her desires, hopes, expectations and intentions. Every situation a person encounters is understood as presently lacking something desired, expected, intended or anticipated. As said, the situation in itself does not lack anything; it lacks something for the person whose situation it is. Consciousness is always predisposed to find something lacking. Indeed, lack is intrinsic to the very meaning of every situation for any particular consciousness.

Every situation is a situation for consciousness. Consciousness, as that which exists by negating the situation, must be situated in order to be. Consciousness, for which the situation is a situation, is not a part of the situation but rather the negation of the situation. It transcends the situation in order to realise the situation. Every situation is understood not in terms of what it is but in terms of what it lacks, and what every situation lacks is precisely consciousness or being-for-itself. Consciousness is those particular lacks that determine the situation as a situation.

You go into a pub and order a pint of beer. To your annoyance the slack barman pours you less than a pint. What is called in the trade, a short measure. Now, in itself a short measure is neither complete nor incomplete, it is simply what it is. In order to understand it as the partial appearance of a pint it must be judged in terms of the pint of beer that is presently lacking. The meaning of the short measured beer is founded upon the non-being of the full pint of beer which the short measured beer lacks. The short measured beer does not lack the full pint of beer for itself. The short measured beer lacks the full pint of beer for an expectant consciousness that is the surpassing of the existence of the short measure towards the non-existence of the full pint. It is the non-being of the full pint that gives the short measure its meaning for consciousness as a short measure. For consciousness, the short measure exists in the mode of being the non-being of the full measure. As that which is given, the short measure is what it is. As a meaningful phenomenon, the short measure is understood as what it is by virtue of what it lacks.

In so far as consciousness is those particular lacks that determine the situation, it is itself a lack. It is not a being in its own right but the negation of being. It is a nothingness, but not a passive nothingness. If it was simply and passively its own nothingness it would instantly vanish. It would be nothing at all. So it must endlessly strive to overcome its nothingness by trying to become a being in its own right. But if it became a being in its own right it would cease to exist as the negation of being and would merge into the world rather than be consciousness of the world. It is always caught, and must always be caught if it is to have any reality at all, between total nothingness and total being. In order to be, it must always be ambiguous and paradoxical. It must incessantly be what it is not and not be what it is.

Consciousness constantly strives to become a being that is identical with itself yet still conscious. This is impossible because consciousness must always be constituted as a negation. The first rule of all consciousness is ‘I am not this’. That is to say, in order to be consciousness of a thing I must not be that thing or any kind of thing. Only a nothingness can ‘stand back’ from the world in order to be aware of the world.

As was said in the previous chapter, the impossible state of being that consciousness strives to achieve is what Sartre and others call being-for-itself-in-itself. Consciousness yearns to be fulfilled and at one with itself, to be a being-in-itself rather than a lack, yet somehow a being-in-itself that is still conscious. All human desire aims at this godlike state of self-identity and self-fulfilment. Alas, as any existentialist will tell you, although it is possible to satisfy a particular desire, to overcome a particular lack, it is not possible to satisfy desire as such, to overcome lack as such.

The fact that being-for-itself is always constituted as a lack led Sartre to conclude that ‘Man is a useless passion’ (Being and Nothingness , p. 636). ‘If I could get that guy,’ sighs the lover, ‘I would never want anything again,’ fooling herself that by getting the guy she would achieve the impossible and become a permanently fulfilled lack. Establishing a relationship with the guy might briefly enchant her into thinking she has achieved complete and lasting fulfilment, but she will soon come to have various desires with regard to their relationship: the desire for him to treat her in a certain way, to remain faithful, to get on with her friends. The desire for marriage and children or the unforeseen, gradually emerging desire for an end to their relationship.

Constituted as the lack that it has to be, being-for-itself cannot be completely fulfilled. As the negation of being it must surpass any particular obtained object of desire towards a further un-obtained object of desire. When we are completely satisfied with a particular thing we soon refocus our attention on something else we are not satisfied with. When I am satisfied with this paragraph I will move on to the next. Satisfied or not with today’s writing, other desires will draw me away from my desk. The desire to clear my head, the desire to eat, to exercise, to mow the lawn. Ever onward, seeking an unobtainable fulfilment somewhere in the future until there is no more future to come. It is sometimes said that sleep offers a temporary escape from the incessant parade of desires, but surely our dreams heave with longing and the imagined satisfaction of some of our deepest yearnings.

Closely linked to the phenomenon of existential lack is the phenomenon of existential absence. Your best friend, Angela, is absent from Starbucks where you arranged to meet her. The network is down so unusually you can’t phone her to find out where she is. As you look high and low for her, everything in Starbucks becomes background with her absence as a kind of foreground. She is perpetually about to appear against this background but doesn’t. Angela, as the person you expect to find, is existentially absent from Starbucks.

This existential absence is distinct from an abstract and purely formal absence that is merely thought. Michael Jackson is not in Starbucks either, but he is not lacking in the way Angela is. The distinction between existential and formal absence emphasises that non-being does not arise through judgements made by consciousness after encountering the world, but that non-being belongs to the very nature of the world as it is for consciousness. Angela’s absence from Starbucks is not merely thought by you. Her absence is an actual event for you that characterises this branch of Starbucks as the place from which Angela is absent.

A person’s entire world can exist in the mode of the negative; in the mode of not being the presence of whatever or whoever is desired. The misery of missing someone or something is rooted in this negating of the world. The misery of losing a lover, for example, lies not so much in the loss of the pleasure the lover gave, but in the reduction of the whole world to a dull background that has no other significance or value than to be the perpetual affirmation of the lover’s absence. In the fine words of the poet, William Wordsworth:

As one further way of showing that the world is shaped by consciousness, consider the phenomenon of destruction . Tornados and earthquakes do not destroy, they simply redistribute matter. It is only for a consciousness, for a witness, that entities are destroyed. An earthquake, for example, destroys a city for us , because only we can experience the loss of the city as significant. The city has not been destroyed for itself. Human values aside, nothing has been destroyed, in the sense that there is as much matter remaining after an earthquake as there was before.

Destruction requires that there be a witness that is capable of positing the non-being – the no-longer -being – of a particular entity. For example, when a cup breaks there is as much china as there was before. Nonetheless, the cup has ceased to be. The requisite cup shape has gone, its capacity to fulfil a certain function has gone. It is these qualities – qualities that have meaning for a consciousness whose projects include drinking – that constitute the being of the cup, not the stuff of which it is made. This is not to say that the qualities can be separated from the stuff. Rearrange the stuff and the qualities become nothing, except, that is, for a consciousness that can ‘retain’ them in their nothingness in the mode of was . A consciousness that can recall the past, compare it to the present and recognise that a particular arrangement no longer exists.