Single Idea 7112

[catalogued under 11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 5. Cogito Critique]

Full Idea

We must remember that all authors who have described the Cogito have presented it as a reflective operation, i.e. as second-order. This Cogito is performed by a consciousness directed towards consciousness, which takes consciousness as its object.

Gist of Idea

The Cogito depends on a second-order experience, of being conscious of consciousness

Source

Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (B))

Book Reference

Sartre,Jean-Paul: 'The Transcendence of the Ego' [Routledge 2004], p.10


A Reaction

Sartre is raising the nice question of whether the Cogito still works for first-order consciousness, which attends totally to external objects. He claims that it doesn't. Contrast Russell, who says (Idea 5380) that it only works when it is first-order!

Related Idea

Idea 5380 In perceiving the sun, I am aware of sun sense-data, and of the perceiver of the data [Russell]