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Sartre's first major [[work]], <i>The Transcendence of the Ego</i> (1936-1937) published in [[English]] in 1957, called into question the interiority of [[consciousness]] and, based on Edmund [[Husserl]]'s [[phenomenology]], he wrote that "the ego is neither formally nor materially in consciousness: it is [[outside]], in the [[world]]. It is a [[being]] of the world, like the ego of [[another]]." The [[subject]] does not possess himself and consciousness, "defined by [[intentionality]]," provides no privileged [[self]]-[[knowledge]] because, as Sartre writes, "My I, in effect, is no more certain for consciousness than the I of [[other]] men. It is only more intimate." These [[ideas]] formed the springboard for a radical critique of [[introspection]], self-knowledge, and inner [[life]].

Sartre developed his ideas further in <i>Being and Nothingness</i> (1943). In this [[text]] he suggested that Sigmund [[Freud]]'s work (which he characterizes as "empirical"), in his estimation, represents a provisional formulation, subject to critique, of what he calls (more by reference to Søren [[Kierkegaard]] than to Ludwig Binswanger) "existential" [[psychoanalysis]]. He postulates the [[principle]] that the [[human]] being is a [[totality]], expressed completely through fortuitous conduct. "In other [[words]] there is not a taste, a mannerism, or a human act which is not revealing" (p. 568). The [[goal]], to elucidate the actual [[behavior]] of human beings, is based on "the fundamental, preontological comprehension which man has of the human person" (p. 568). All conduct symbolizes and conceals, in various ways, the basic [[choice]] of every [[individual]] subject. Each person must be unveiled and revealed, as Sartre himself would attempt to do with Jean Genet (1952) and Gustave Flaubert (1971-72). With this as a starting point, Sartre moves on to discuss the similarities and differences between [[Freudian]] psychoanalysis and what he calls [[existential psychoanalysis]].

But there are also radical differences. Most decisive, according to Sartre, is that for Freud the [[libido]] is an irreducible psychobiological given. By contrast, Sartre suggested that the subject's own demarche is centered on choices that cannot be constituted in advance and which vary with each individual. "For human [[reality]] there is no [[difference]] between existing and choosing for itself" (p. 572) because "consciousness is a being, the [[nature]] of which is to be [[conscious]] of the nothingness of its being" (p. 47).

In sum, from a somewhat dated view of Freud's work, Sartre fashions a critique that views psychoanalysis as an acceptable albeit awkward and provisional expression of what will become existential psychoanalysis, while on a [[practical]] level it is more successful. "Empirical psychoanalysis, to the extent that its method is better than its principles, is often in [[sight]] of an existential discovery, but it always stops part way" (p. 573).

On Sartre and Heidegger

Despite [[Lacan]]'s criticisms of the absolute [[autonomy]] of the self assumed by [[existentialism]], he recognises in Sartre a fellow [[Hegelian]]. When Lacan wisHes to discuss problems of alternation and [[ambivalence]] he often turns towards the analysis of the [[dialectic]] of self and other, of [[seeing]] and being seen, of [[humiliation]] and domination to be found in Sartre's Being and Nothingness.

Lacan also has important things to say [[about]] this topic. The eyes, as one of the modes of access for libido to explore the world, become the [[instrument]] of the '[[scopic]] [[drive]]'. A drive, we must [[remember]], is not just [[pleasure]]-seeking, but is caught up in a signifying [[system]]. This signifying [[process]] comes to [[affect]] all [[looking]]. The eye is not merely an [[organ]] of [[perception]], but also an organ of pleasure. There is, of course, a difference between the eye and the look. The subject can, in a way, be seized by the object of its look. As Lacan points out, 'it is, rather, it that grasps me'.8

Lacan recommends Sartre's phenomenology as essential reading because it can contribute to our [[understanding]] of [[intersubjectivity]]. The latter's phenomenology of 'being in [[love]]' is judged 'irrefutable'; Sartre believes that the self remains irremediably opposed to the Other. Drawing on [[Hegel]]'s parable, of the [[master]]-[[slave]] relation, Sartre reinterprets the [[struggle]] for [[recognition]] and argues that the attempt by each self to reduce the other to an object is [[impossible]]. What happens is this: to the other person, who looks at me from the outside, I seem an object, a [[thing]]; my [[subjectivity]] with its inner [[freedom]] escapes his gaze. Hence his tendency is always to convert me into the object he sees. The gaze of the Other penetrates to the depths of my [[existence]], freezes and congeals it. It is this, according to Sartre, that turns

_be [[satisfied]]. This is what Lacan calls demand. It is out of this process that there emerges what Lacan terms desire. Desire is that which goes beyond demand and conveys the subject's [[wish]] for totality. It can never be fulfilled.

I mention this because there are close connections between Lacan's and Sartre's [[concept]] of desire. Lacan's term disir comes from Hegel, through [[Kojeve]], and phenomenology. Sartre speaks of man being torn between a 'desire to be' and a 'desire to have'. For both Sartre and Lacan desire is defined in terms of a '[[lack]] of being'.

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