Comparing Kant and Sartre

Sorin Baiasu, Sorin Baiasu

• Éditeur: Palgrave Macmillan
• Année: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781137454539
• Sujet: Filosofía
• Sous-sujet: Historia y teoría filosóficas

This is the first edited collection comparing the philosophies of Kant and Sartre, an area which has received considerable attention of late. Including 10 newly written comparative essays and an introduction, focusing on metaphysics, metaethics and metaphilosophy; chapters are written by an international cast of authors specialising in the topic.

Part I

Introduction

1

Kant and Sartre: Existentialism and Critical Philosophy

Jonathan Head, Anna Tomaszewska, Jochen Bojanowski, Alberto Vanzo and Sorin Baiasu

1 Kant and Sartre so far

Kant and Sartre are two of the most significant figures in modern philosophy, and yet there has, until very recently, been little comparative research undertaken on them. Despite dealing with many shared philosophical issues, they have traditionally been taken to be too opposed to each other to render any search for possible parallels between their works a useful enterprise. Indeed, Sartre is often taken to be one of Kant’s most vocal critics in the literature, and as rather indebted to other major figures, such as Husserl and Heidegger. As a consequence, often, where comparative analysis has been done upon Kant and Sartre, the emphasis has been on their differences, rather than on their similarities. However, as recent research has begun to show, the story is not that straightforward and there is much to be explored with regard to parallels between Kant and Sartre. Baiasu (2003) has characterized Sartre’s relation to Kant as one of an “anxiety of influence” – Sartre desires to explicitly distance himself from Kant, but this obscures some deeper underlying parallels between them.¹ Such parallels can form a foundation for productive dialogue, more widely, between the schools of Kantian “Critical philosophy” and existentialism.²

Recent research has demonstrated the possibility of such a dialogue between the philosophies of Kant and Sartre. A natural starting point for comparative analysis of both philosophers is that of their ethical theories, which has sparked differences of opinion among scholars. Linsenbard (2007), for example, has argued that Sartre’s use of Kantian notions (such as a principle of universalizability) masks more fundamental differences between the two that place them far apart:

[I]t would be a mistake, I think, to interpret Sartre’s views on morality as ‘Kantian’ or as even marginally endorsing Kant’s views. Indeed, Sartre’s continuing preoccupation (one might even say ‘obsession’) with Kant suggests … a path he did not wish to take with respect to the most promising moral terrain. (2007: 65)

Due to having radically different ethical theories, despite much talk of Kant and use of familiarly Kantian language, Sartre “cannot … be interpreted as invoking Kant’s meaning” (2007: 80). Painter (1999), on the other hand, finds deep similarities between Kant and Sartre on the questions of ethics, identifying a shared inheritance in the tradition of Protestant ethics. Describing Sartre’s relationship with Kant as “flirtatious”, he writes that

[b]oth find a common ground in a fundamental aspect of the Protestant ethic, characterized by Lutheranism and Calvinism, wherein the everyday takes on great moral significance, and great deeds, or high moral principles that direct actions based on the actualization of virtuous ends become hubristic, impious and immoral … how we approach the simply given in life, the concrete everyday situation, has far more moral significance than any moral principle whose content defines what is right or what is wrong. (1999: 211)

Given this shared inheritance, we can see Sartre’s use of Kant’s language and various concepts as an opportunity to illuminate ethical insights from the Protestant ethical tradition, alongside his own idiosyncratic developments, and Sartre himself as unable to escape from shared parallels with Kant on the question of ethics: “Sartre’s critique of Kant’s ethics, and his attempt to develop his own, burns down, like a crucible, the essence of both approaches: a secular Protestantism” (1999: 217).

As part of the project of a comparative analysis on Kant’s and Sartre’s ethical works, Sweeney (1985) has also noted that, in his short story “The Wall”, Sartre uses examples similar to those of Kant’s famous essay “On a Supposed Right to Lie From Philanthropy”, which illuminate the ethical theses that he is attempting to illustrate through the narrative.³ We see, in this story, Sartre potentially using Kantian resources to argue against Husserl; as Sweeney writes, “Sartre seeks to argue against Husserl by presenting through his use of Kant’s example a counter-example to Husserl’s view” (1985: 15). Though, of course, this in itself does not show that Sartre is adopting a Kantian ethical theory, it does illustrate at least that he was aware of the philosophical resources made available to him by Kant for use in describing and elaborating his own ethical theory.

Lieberman (1997) has also added to this literature by comparing Kant and Sartre’s accounts of freedom, particularly taking into account the impact that radical evil has upon freedom in Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason. An interesting parallel can perhaps be seen between the choice of a fundamental ethical disposition as an original act of will (which, as far as Kant is concerned, makes all human beings radically evil) and Sartre’s notion of ‘choosing oneself’ – both are choices which are independent of the individual’s environment, are “outside of time”, and serve as an intelligible ground for individual choices, seeing them as part of a “total choice” (1997: 210–12).

However, Lieberman is keen to note that the parallels between Kant and Sartre on the notion of a kind of fundamental ethical choice only go so far; ultimately they differ insofar as “first, Sartre lacks the world view that accepts common (and perhaps unquestionable) knowledge of the moral law; and second, Sartre lacks the theoretical orientation in which an a priori awareness of the moral law is possible – in which a fact about our essence as rational beings precedes, or is at least independent of, our existence – thereby reversing the existential canon that existence precedes essence” (1997: 215). Nevertheless, he speaks of the comparative analysis of Kant and Sartre on this issue as “fruitful” in “revealing in the residue of analysis an historical trace that connects Kant to Sartre in some aspects of their thought”, as well as “[bringing] to light fundamental problems within their theories and [suggesting] avenues of interpretation and possible solutions” (1997: 216).

Other recent research has focused on issues in the theoretical philosophies of Kant and Sartre. Deep parallels and dissimilarities have both been noted. As an example, Jopling (1986) has discussed their accounts of self-knowledge (a topic that will recur in this volume). A deep affinity can be found in the sense in which the attempt to gain self-knowledge, for both philosophers, is a very difficult endeavour indeed:

Kant and Sartre, I believe, are calling attention to the existence of a blind spot which unavoidably insinuates itself into all our attempts to know ourselves. The activities necessary for self-knowledge … are always one logical step behind themselves, and are blind to the very agency constitutive of and contemporaneous with them. We are unable to know ourselves in the very act of knowing … We know ourselves through the categories, or through the ‘Other’ – and not as absolutely proximate and self-present. (1986: 74)

Sartre follows Kant’s approach in seeking “to correct the strong tendency towards reification and substantialization which infects … both philosophical and pre-philosophical self-knowing activities” (1986: 75) and holding a “radicalized version of the concept of constituting activity” (1986: 73) that ultimately denies straightforward knowledge of the self. More recently, Darnell (2005 – a contributor to this volume) has also published a monograph on the notion of self in Kant and Sartre, noting the complex relations between the two on this topic, and that Sartre’s misreading of Kant may have led him to distance himself from Kantian thought more than he needed to; for example, “he most likely fell victim to Kant’s characterization of the I of apperception as not only a unity, but also as a ground of identity” (2005: 27). Also as part of this body of research on theoretical philosophy, Gardner has recently considered the extent to which Sartre can be labelled a “transcendental philosopher”. He paints a complex picture of the position of Sartre in the post-Kantian tradition, but nevertheless argues that in a substantial sense Sartre can be seen as following a Kantian line in some of his theoretical thinking. As an example, Gardner points to Sartre’s “anti-naturalist strategy” as being “at least in substantial part, transcendental” (2011: 54) due to the use of recognizably transcendental argumentation.

Of course, there is much more literature now available as part of the growing body of research on Kant and Sartre – these have been merely examples to give at least a limited sense of the wealth of research opportunities available in comparing these two philosophers. This volume of original essays is intended to be a significant addition to the growing body of comparative research on Kant and Sartre, encompassing in an unprecedented manner a number of original papers that embrace many philosophical topics of interest shared between the two thinkers. Many of the papers stem from a conference on Kant and Sartre held at Keele University in November 2012. The volume, split into three major parts, addresses issues in metaphysics, metaethics and metaphilosophy. Philosophical notions central to both Kant and Sartre, including autonomy, happiness, self-consciousness, self-knowledge, evil, temporality and the imagination are explored in great detail to give us a clearer picture of the theoretical and practical philosophies of both thinkers. In addition to giving us new insights, the papers also leave many unanswered questions and thus give us promising prospects for future comparative research on Kant and Sartre. The rest of this Introduction will discuss some of the key points of the papers in the order in which they appear in the volume, as well as the issues and difficulties they raise for future research.

2 Comparing Kant and Sartre

2.1 Metaphysics

The volume proper begins with a contribution by Sorin Baiasu, who considers two objections generated by his claim that Kant’s transcendental unity of apperception is deeply similar to Sartre’s (self-)consciousness or pre-reflective consciousness of self. Both objections are prompted by Baiasu’s claim that Sartrean pre-reflective consciousness of self and Kantian transcendental unity of apperception play the role of a weak epistemological condition of experience. The first objection indirectly challenges the weakness of such a condition, whereas the second disputes its epistemological nature. The first objection is said to have implications for the current debate concerning non-conceptual content, whereas the second is regarded as linked to traditional debates concerning the kind of idealism that Critical philosophy and phenomenology offer. After a brief discussion concerning some methodological problems for comparative philosophical studies, the chapter answers the two objections and examines their implications.

However, the weak sense of personality important to Baiasu’s argument here, that is, the epistemological condition offered by the transcendental unity of apperception, which is necessary in a practical, moral sense, raises questions. We can reflect, for example, upon a shift in Kant’s thought between the first and second editions of the first Critique; in the former, Kant denies knowledge of substance in a thick sense, although he seems to allow that we may be substances in a thin, logical sense, whereas in the latter, he denies even this sort of thin knowledge of ourselves as substances. It would perhaps be an interesting line of future research to evaluate how a comparison with Sartre might shift if we concentrate on the differing first and second editions of the first Critique. Furthermore, questions can be raised as to whether there is in fact a notion of a weak sense of personality in the A edition.⁴ Such uncertainty regarding Kant’s position further complicates the issue of how we compare his commitments in the first Critique with Sartre’s pre-reflective consciousness of self.

Continuing on the theme of the conditions of our experience, Daniel Herbert’s chapter focuses on the topic of temporality. He argues that a fundamental misunderstanding of transcendental idealism as involving an ontological commitment to a supersensible reality leads Sartre to make unfair criticisms of Kant’s treatment of temporality. If we opt for an Allison-style ‘methodological’ or ‘two-aspects’ reading of transcendental idealism (where we refrain from stating that the objects of experience are ideal, even if space and time are), we can see that Sartre’s criticisms regarding the linking of temporality to the perspective of a transcendental subject are perhaps ill-founded. However, it is not clear that traditional worries concerning the Kantian use of the thing-in-itself are avoided under the two-aspects model, for if the forms of intuition are ideal, and intuition is supposed to provide evidence for the reality of sensible objects, then we have the worry that sensible intuitions themselves and the ‘reality’ of the objects are ideal too.

Nevertheless, Herbert further reflects upon where the two philosophers diverge with regard to temporality; whereas Kant’s account is more impersonal, Sartre desires to ground his understanding of temporality in everyday experience, in particular through our capacity for spontaneity, and not making a distinction between a transcendental ‘extra-mundane’ subjectivity and its empirical counterpart. Kant’s overemphasis on the mathematical sciences leads him, in Sartre’s view, to posit an unacceptably strong distinction between the empirical and the noumenal. Whilst Sartre recognizes the relevance of temporality in all domains of human activity, Kant seems to limit this to the domain of science alone.

The discussion opens up further directions for research; for instance, we can examine whether Sartre’s interpretation of Kant on temporality, the foundation on which he forms his objections, is accurate. What seems objectionable is that Sartre sees Kant’s theory of time as relevant to a theory of science but not at the same time to a theory of mind and human cognition. Yet, in fact, Kant’s transcendental philosophy and his account of time can be read as (part of) a theory of the conditions of the possibility of science (e.g. De Vleeschauwer 1962) or a theory of mind and cognition (e.g. Kitcher 1990) or a theory of experience (e.g. Aquila 1983). The point is that Kant’s account of time has been read in more “phenomenological” ways too, and that for comparing him with Sartre this could prove fruitful.

With Thomas R. Flynn’s contribution, we turn from temporality to the imaginary. His chapter reflects upon Kant’s influence on Sartre’s psychology, with a particular emphasis on the imagination. Flynn works through a number of Sartre’s works, noting potentially illuminating parallels between the two philosophers. As an example, the young Sartre seemed to have been enamoured with the role that the imagination has to play in the Critique of Judgement, along with Kant’s use of symbolic schematism. Flynn also notes points where Sartre seems to have been spurred by Kant to develop certain aspects of his own philosophy, such as the notion of an ‘egoless’ consciousness, the placing of the imaging consciousness at the very centre of his philosophical psychology, and the appeal to the ‘as if’ in expanding our imaginary reflections upon philosophical issues (in a parallel with Kantian regulative ideas). The chapter concludes with reflections upon the parallels and tensions between Sartre’s later ethics and Kantian moral theory.

There are open questions here regarding the distance between Kant and Sartre, and indeed whether the latter sees himself as attacking the former. Flynn argues that the ‘egoless’ consciousness forms part of Sartre’s attack on Kant, alongside intentionality and a realist epistemology, posed against Kant’s constitutive character of consciousness. Is Sartre simply interested in different questions than Kant, and can we construe Kant along Sartrean lines, with himself adopting intentionality and a realist epistemology? Is the Kantian constitutive character of consciousness so unamenable to Sartre?

The part of the volume on metaphysics concludes with a chapter by Christian Onof on the key metaphysical notions of freedom and the self in Kant and Sartre. More specifically, Onof attempts to use philosophical resources from Sartre to aid Kant with his problem of reconciling transcendental freedom with causal determinism in the Third Antinomy. This account appears to leave us with something of a dilemma with regards to the possibili...