Sartre and Marion on Intentionality and Phenomenality

King-Ho Leung

doi:10.1177/02632764211024349

Abstract

This article offers a reading of Jean-Paul Sartre’s phenomenology in light of Jean-Luc Marion’s more recent phenomenology. It may seem odd to compare Sartre to Marion, given that Sartre is well-known for his avowed atheism and his account of intentionality while Marion is primarily known for his work on religious phenomena and counter-intentionality. However, this article shows that there are many ways in which Sartre anticipates Marion’s work on phenomenological reduction and excessive phenomenality. By reading Sartre’s phenomenology in light of Marion’s, and particularly Sartre’s analysis of the viscous slime in Being and Nothingness in relation to Marion’s account of ‘saturated phenomena’, this article presents a fresh interpretation of Sartre as a phenomenologist who has invaluable insights not only on the structures of consciousness and phenomenality, but also for the contemporary theoretical interest in the relationship between human and nonhuman entities.

Highlights

This article offers a reading of Jean-Paul Sartre’s phenomenology in light of Jean-Luc Marion’s more recent phenomenology
The article argues that the ambiguous figure of the viscous slime which Sartre analyses in the final chapter of Being and Nothingness is an instance of what Marion would call a saturated phenomenon insofar as it epitomizes the character of phenomenality as pure ‘givenness’ (Section III)
By Marion’s own definition of the saturated phenomenon, the perceiver who is overwhelmed by the excessive phenomenality of the saturated phenomenon she encounters can never be exactly sure whether what she has encountered is a human, nonhuman, or even supernatural phenomenon

Summary

Intentionality

In his landmark critique of the ‘theological turn’ in French phenomenology, Janicaud (2000: 18) argues that ‘the most significant text [in the original reception of Husserlian phenomenology in France] is brief, but dazzling It is signed ‘‘Sartre’’ and entitled ‘‘Intentionality: A Fundamental Idea of Husserl’s Phenomenology’’.’. For Sartre, the for-itself’s desire to fully grasp and comprehend being in-itself is inherently futile Such a desire to become ‘God’ or ‘in-itselffor-itself’ is, in Sartre’s (2020: 797) famous words, ‘a useless passion’ for ‘man loses himself as man’ in order to become God. Because for Sartre, it is ontologically impossible for there to be a complete unity or coincidence of the for-itself and in-itself: For if the for-itself could fully grasp the in-itself, it would by definition no longer be for-itself – as there will no longer be a transcendent being in-itself for it be conscious of. Without anything to be conscious of, the for-itself can no longer exist as consciousness – it is no longer intentional: ‘it destroys itself’ (Sartre, 1970: 5, original emphasis). Before further examining Marion’s much discussed notion of saturated phenomena and its ‘counter-intentional’ features, a few words ought to be said about Marion’s broader understanding of the task of phenomenology

Phenomenality

Viscosity

Concluding Remarks