O mundo para além do “em-si”

The world beyond the “being-in-itself.” Sartre on the tightrope of phenomenological correlation

Abstract

In this paper, I attempt to problematize Sartre's contribution to phenomenology based on the theoretical positions he takes in Being and Nothingness, his essay on phenomenological ontology. To this end, I revisit critiques that pointed to Sartre's notion of “being-in-itself” as a ‘realistic’ conception of being, which would break with Husserl's fundamental “phenomenological correlation,” thus distancing the work from a legitimate belonging to this current. However, although Sartre constantly vacillates on the verge of exceeding phenomenological limits, in the chapter “Transcendence” he carries out a meticulous work that seems to rehabilitate the correlation—now between a knowing subject and an “it” (no longer equivalent to being-in-itself)—by presenting us with a wealth of structures for unveiling a world. Starting from this hypothesis, we will examine the initial problems related to being-in-itself, in order to then understand Sartre's proposal of the field of “there is” of the world, with a view to situating a properly phenomenological reading of his work.

Keywords: being-in-itself; phenomenological correlation; Sartre; world, Being and Nothingness.