The relation between phenomena of being and being of phenomena: The anti-idealism of Sartre in the introduction of Being and Nothingness

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to show in what way Jean-Paul Sartre copes with the hypothesis of the idealism, which is revealed in the introduction of Being and Nothingness, and his strategies of avoiding it as well. When proposing a phenomenology theory, Sartre sees himself compelled to look into an old question, though essential to the course of his project: would it be possible to reduce the things that appear to us to their apparition? To deal with phenomena and objects is to deal with the same being? Having the clarification of this question as an end, the text is divided in seven sections: the first intends to provide a familiarization with the phenomenological background that Sartre is inserted; the second points to an apparent necessity of the being of the phenomena, viz., to be transphenomenal; the third focuses in a flaw of the berkelenian principle, esse est percipi; the fourth discusses the role of the percipere/percipiens in the perception; the fifth illustrates the way that the percipi refers to the percipiens and the impact of such relation; the sixth is about Sartre’s ontological proof; the seventh makes some final considerations and puts forward the result of the analysis.