Events

Although the "phenomenological period" (from the mid-1930s to the early 1940s) occupies a relatively small place in Sartre's extensive intellectual biography, it was at this time that his characteristic style of philosophizing and a fundamentally antinaturalistic approach to psychic reality developed. In the early philosophical essays of this period, such as "The Transcendence of the ego" ("La Transcendance de l'Ego", 1937), "A Sketch of the theory of emotions" (Esquisse d’une Théorie des Émotions, 1939), "The Imaginary" (L'Imaginaire, 1940), the basic concepts of Sartre anthropology are also formed, such as such as "facticity", "lack", "néantisation", "active passivity". An analysis of the key themes of these works, especially Sartre's theories of emotions and imagination, will help to understand the specifics of Sartre's approach to phenomenology and the pathos of his "rebellion" against Husserl's transcendentalism.

Ned Block of NYU in the mid 90s drew a distinction between two concepts of con-sciousness — between access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness — based on western philosophy and neuroscience.