PROCEDIMIENTOS DE HANDOVER

Sartre claims to be searching for a theory of reality and our awareness of it which is ‘other than realism or idealism’ (B&N: xl), and describes his resulting position as ‘a radical reversal of the idealist position’ (B&N: 216). Commentators are divided over where to situate Sartre’s ontology in the debate between realism and idealism. McCulloch (1994, 83-120), for example, argues that Sartre is a realist who occasionally but insignificantly lapses into idealistic terminology. Sprigge (1983, xi), on the other hand, describes Sartre as an idealist, though as less idealistic than either Husserl or Heidegger. Wider (1990) is more circumspect, delineating three types of realism and three corresponding types of idealism, and argues that Sartre is a realist in one sense and an idealist in the other two senses. One of the aims of this thesis is to clarify the ontology Sartre arrives at through phenomenology in relation to forms of realism and idealism.

There are three ways in which theories of the relation between mind and world can deserve the label ‘realism’. The denials of each of these forms of realism are the forms of ‘idealism’. The first form of realism is ‘ontological realism’. Ontological realists claim that reality is mind-independent. The

existence of reality, on this view, is independent of our awareness of it and

thought about it. Sartre is clearly committed to ontological realism: reality for him is mind-independent as it consists in ‘being-in-itself’ (être-en-soi). Ontological idealism construes reality as dependent on our awareness of it or thought about it for its existence. Reality is constructed of actual and possible appearances, on this view, which in turn are subjective mental entities or events that depend for their existence or occurrence on being experienced. Perception is apprehension of the world, but that world is dependent on the apprehension. This is Berkeley’s form of idealism (1975), and is also known as phenomenalism. Sartre’s opposition to phenomenalism, which he ascribes to Husserl, forms part of his argument for his claim that experience is apprehension of mind-independent reality, and is discussed in chapter 2.

The second form of realism is what I call ‘structural realism’. According to this view, the world is structured in a certain way independently of anyone's awareness of it or thought about it. The ancient atomists and seventeenth century corpuscularians, for example, held that reality consists in a void populated by atomic particles instantiating certain properties. Not only is the existence of reality mind-independent on this view, its structure is too: the atoms are individuated and have properties independently of any human thought about them. Berkeley was also a structural realist even though he was an ontological idealist. The actual and possible mind-dependent appearances that reality consists in, for Berkeley, follow rules created and sustained by God. The structure of the universe is independent of our awareness of it or thought about it, since it is held in the mind of God. Danto (1991, ch. 1) and Baldwin (1996, 86) read Sartre as denying structural realism, as holding a structural idealist theory that being in-itself is unstructured, containing no basic entities, no natural kinds, and no natural

properties. The apparent structure of reality, on this reading, is a result of the structures of consciousness, of the ways in which reality appears. Wider (1990) seems to propose a variant of this reading, according to which being in-itself actually gains structures from the way in which I am aware of it. I will argue, on the contrary, that aspects of Sartre’s theory of the relationship between consciousness and being in-itself discussed in this thesis require being in-itself to be structured prior to there being consciousness of it (see 5.2). Although Danto and Baldwin are right to point out that the world of everyday experience gains its structure and sense partly from the ways in which we are aware of it and the projects we are engaged in (see 1.3), and so

the world has to some extent an idealistic structure, Sartre’s distinction

between being in-itself and the world must be borne in mind. The world is the result of the ways in which we are aware of being in-itself, and its structure, as we will see, is partly provided by the structure of being in-itself and partly provided by the ways in which we are aware of it.

The third form of realism is what I call ‘semantic realism’. This view presupposes structural realism, and adds that statements about reality are true only if they adequately capture its structure. The ancient atomists and seventeenth-century corpuscularians, for example, claimed that the language of atoms and their qualities adequately mirrors the structure of reality. Semantic realists may differ over whether or not the basic ontology of the world is reflected in our ordinary experience, or whether the objects and properties of experience are merely apparent and no part of the real world. Berkeley takes the former option: the very ideas that we are aware of in perception are parts of the real world. Atomists and corpuscularians, on the other hand, take the latter option: ordinary experience does not reveal the real world of atoms and their properties. Although semantic realism requires structural realism, the converse is not the case. It is not incoherent to hold that reality has a structure, but due to some fact about the nature of language that structure cannot be codified in words. I argue that Sartre must be construed as a semantic realist with respect to being in-itself: in applying certain

ontological principles to mind-independent reality, I argue (5.2), he is claiming to have codified the structure of reality in the language in which those principles are expressed. This semantic realism with respect to being in-itself, I argue (5.2), is matched by a semantic realism with respect to the world. The structures of the world that result from the ways in which we are aware of being in-itself can be captured, and generally are captured, in the language we use of the world. The world, that is, really does contain blue things and red things and chairs and tables, so statements involving the terms 'blue', ‘red’, ‘chair’, and ‘table’ can capture the structure of the world.

Sartre, then, affirms ontological realism, the view that the world exists independently of consciousness of it or thought about it, rather than the Berkeleian view that reality is constructed out of m ind-dependent appearances. And, as we shall see, he holds that being in-itself has some mind-independent structure, even though the world of everyday experience partly gains its structure and its sense from the ways in which we are aware of it and engage with it. And since he attempts to describe this structure in language, he must be construed as a semantic realist with respect to mind- independent reality. The structures of the world that is constructed from the interplay of consciousness and being in-itself can also be captured in language, for Sartre, and so Sartre should be construed as a semantic realist with respect to the world as well.