The Magic of the Other

Sartre on Our Relation with Others

in Ontology and Experience

JULIE VAN DER WIELEN

Abstract: Sartre’s analysis of intersubjective relations through his

concept of the look seems unable to give an account of intersubjec-
tivity. By distinguishing the look as an ontological conflict from our
relation with others in experience, we will see that actually intersub-
jectivity is not incompatible with this theory. Furthermore, we will
see that the ontological conflict with the Other always erupts in
experience in the form of an emotion, and thus always involves
magic, and we will look into what the presence of the Other adds to
such emotion. Emotions I have in front of the Other are directed
toward my being-for-others, which escapes me by definition. This
has a peculiar consequence when the imaginary is involved, which
could help explain complexes such as narcissism and paranoia.
Keywords: anthropology, being-for-others, emotions, imaginary,
magic, ontology, The Other

I n Being and Nothingness, “The look” analyzes our ontological rela-

tion with others. For Sartre the look is the archetype of our relation
to others, meaning the experience of being seen by another, is the
most fundamental relation we have to others. It is an experience in
which the “object-other” I normally see is replaced by a subject for
whom I am now an object which it sees. Only through this experi-
ence am I really aware of another free subject who constitutes a
world of objects. Because this reversal between subject-me and
object-other is the necessary condition for the apprehension of
another subject, and because it is impossible, for Sartre, for one to
be a subject and an object at the same time, I can never relate to a
subject while being one too.

Sartre Studies International Volume 20, Issue 2, 2014: 58-75

doi:10.3167/ssi.2014.200205 ISSN 1357-1559 (Print), ISSN 1558-5476 (Online)
 The Magic of the Other

Sartre’s analysis of the look thus seems problematic because it

appears unable to give an account of intersubjectivity. Indeed, it
seems that according to Sartre, in relating to others we are con-
demned either to struggle for the position of subject or to lose the
battle against the other and be merely an object for another subject,
as is dramatically illustrated in the following passage:
[T]he Other-as-object is an explosive instrument which I handle with
care because I foresee around him the permanent possibility that they are
going to make it explode and that with this explosion I shall suddenly
experience the flight of the world away from me and the alienation of my
being. Therefore my constant concern is to contain the Other within his
objectivity, and my relations with the Other-as-object are essentially made
up of ruses designed to make him remain an object. But one look on the
part of the Other is sufficient to make all these schemes collapse and to
make me experience once more the transfiguration of the Other. Thus I
am referred from transfiguration to degradation and from degradation to
transfiguration (Sartre 2003: 320–321).

By looking at Sartre’s analysis more closely and by distinguishing

the ontological conflict with the Other from its instantiation in expe-
rience, we will see that intersubjectivity is actually not incompatible
with this theory. Therefore, although this distinction is not ontologi-
cally relevant, we believe it is important in order to avoid confusion
between ontology and anthropology. This confusion often produces
uneasiness regarding Sartre’s theory that may be cleared up when we
think of a scenario in which intersubjectivity is in fact possible for
Sartre. This path will allow us to discover that our ontological con-
flict with the Other always makes its irruption in experience in the
form of an emotion, but one that can also be experienced positively.
Further we will see what the Other adds to emotions, and that they
can lead to a captivation that is present in some pathologies (for
example narcissism).

The Other in ontology and anthropology

According to Sartre, our ontological relation with the Other is by

definition a conflict (Sartre 2003: 306). But our conflict is with the
“prenumerical” Other that depends on our being-for-others, a struc-
ture of our own consciousness that corresponds to the fact that there
are others. After delineating this ontological conflict, we will see why
this is not necessarily an ontical conflict with another person as a
“special object”.

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For Sartre, the for-itself always determines itself negatively in rela-

tion to being-in-itself, which explains why another person first of all
appears to me as an object I am not. That the for-itself is the nega-
tion of the in-itself also explains why my relation to the Other is
always one of conflict: the Other makes me an in-itself, an object.
Indeed, I apprehend the Other through the look by becoming an
object for him. This must be so because I cannot be a subject consti-
tuting the world, and perceive the Other as a subject that constitutes
the world (and me) at the same time. Because of this, I am an in-
itself for the Other, and that is exactly what I as a for-itself am not.
In this theory my relation with the Other is thus always a conflict:
firstly it makes me in-itself, that which a for-itself is not by definition;
and secondly it founds my being-for-others outside myself, while
consciousness is that which seeks to be its own foundation through
nihilation of the in-itself.
All of this results from the ontological analysis laid out in Being
and Nothingness. When we distinguish ontological considerations
from ontic reality, however, this conflict is not problematic for inter-
subjective relations. Here we must ask: what is the relation between
the Other on the ontological level and another person on the level of
experience?
Sartre uses the experience of shame1 to reveal an ontological
structure of our consciousness beside that of the for-itself: being-for-
others, the inaccessible object I am for others and of which I am
ashamed. This experience shows that the Other constitutes me in my
being by making me into an object of which I cannot deny that it is
me, although I am not an object. Sartre thus uses experience as
something that exemplifies ontology. He extracts our being-for-oth-
ers from it, the structure of consciousness that corresponds to the
following fact belonging to human reality: there are other free
human subjects like me, and like me they can perceive other persons
as objects.
Our being-for-others is that which makes it possible for us to see
another person as another for-itself, and not as an object. This possi-
bility is always there, as there are always other free subjects in the
world. This is why “[b]eing-for-others is a constant fact of my
human reality” (Sartre 2003: 303) and thus “[a]t each instant the
Other is looking at me” (281). When I experience the existence of
the Other, the concrete other person is not an object for me any
longer: he represents the Other or the they (the prenumerical Other).
In other words, he represents the fact that there are other free sub-
jects that can see me as an object I cannot know. This structure is
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 The Magic of the Other

not dependent on any particular instantiation or person: it is rather

my being-for-others and the fact that there are others that make it
possible for me to experience the look. This has two consequences
that show my ontological conflict is not with the particular other.
First of all, there is a great variety of things that can make us
apprehend the look (Sartre 2003: 281). We can even be wrong,
think someone was looking when they were not, without this chang-
ing our experience of being-looked-at (300). This is because the
look depends on the fact that there are others; an original fact that
the absence of a particular presence in one moment does not alter.
That which ‘supports’ the look can thus be almost anything: a
rustling bush; or a window; a noise I hear on the staircase while
looking through a keyhole. Thus anything that insinuates a presence
can trigger the look, even if no one is there. As a result, I may hear
noises in the hall while looking through a keyhole, feel shame, and
turn around to see that it was a false alarm: the hall is empty and the
noise must have come from something else (300). Yet, I still feel
shame and noticing no one is there does not necessarily make this
feeling go away. Hence when I experience the look it is possible that
it is triggered by something that actually does not support a physical
look (281).
Secondly, while apprehending the look one ceases to perceive the
concrete reality that represents it because we cannot perceive and
apprehend the look at the same time. The perception of the eyes or
the reality that manifests the look is nihilated and replaced by a refer-
ence to oneself. In Sartre’s words, “[t]he look which the eyes mani-
fest, no matter what kind of eyes they are is a pure reference to
myself” (Sartre 2003: 282). Indeed, what I apprehend in shame is
myself, more precisely my being-for-others as shameful. The same
happens when I experience fear: a soldier apprehending the look
because he hears noise behind him on the battlefield actually appre-
hends a reflection upon himself as a vulnerable for-others (282). As a
result, even if the look can be triggered by a particular person, it is
not the ontological correlate of a conflict with this person, since I
cease to perceive this person and start being conscious of my being-
for-others. From these two observations we can conclude that the
apprehension of the look does not depend on the particular person
or thing that manifests it (300)—rather, the concrete other merely
occasions the Other.
In brief, experience can show the Other to a consciousness for
which it is always already ontologically present. Although I am
always ontologically looked-at, I am not always actually looked at by
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someone (299). It is possible that I think I am seen by the Other

while no one is there, but it is also possible that someone looks at
me without me experiencing this as a look of the Other. In other
words, since I can see another person as an object without them
noticing, I can be physically looked at without apprehending the
look; just as I can apprehend the look without there being someone
there. Moreover, we have seen that the particular other disappears
when the other manifests the Other. As a result, my ontological con-
flict with the Other does not mean my relation with another person
always is experienced as a conflict. Moreover, even when the onto-
logical conflict is experienced in the look, this can be experienced in
a positive way. Pride, for instance, is an apprehension of the look in
which I am satisfied with my objectivity for others.
Despite all this, it seems we still cannot talk of an intersubjective
relation between me and the other. Indeed, when we do not see the
other as the Other, we see him as an object. Nonetheless, this is only
an apparent problem due to Sartre’s terminology and interest. Even
if Sartre calls the other person an object when we are not experienc-
ing the ontological conflict, this actually corresponds to what we
normally call a subject. Actually, what Sartre calls a special object is
that which has normally been seen as a subject in philosophy (Sartre
2003: 277). This is because previously the Other was approached
through the model of perception and knowledge. Due to Sartre’s
focus on our ontological relation with the Other, which is to say
how the Other constitutes me in my being, “subject” has for him a
much more specific meaning.
As a result, intersubjective relations in the normal sense are possi-
ble in this view too: two “subjects” can be talking, both seeing each
other as special objects. It is true that the special object sees the
world differently from me and is therefore the cause of a “disintegra-
tion” of my world, a flight toward his consciousness to which I have
no access; but since I still perceive the other as an object, the flight
of the world is still contained within the world I constitute (Sartre
2003: 278-279). The view of this person on me and the world is
therefore like an object within his consciousness, and his conscious-
ness appears to me as the hollow interior of a box (313). This is
exactly how we perceive the other in the scenario of a serious conver-
sation between two subjects: to know the point of view of the other
about me or the world is the reason why I have a conversation with
him. Here the other’s interiority is something like a quality of the
other, which makes me able to see the other as a special object and
not as a subject possibly judging me. It is necessary for a conversa-
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 The Magic of the Other

tion that the two parties perceive each other as special objects in
Sartre’s ontological terms because I must have a conversation with
another conscious being without losing my subjectivity and becom-
ing self-aware, since conversation can break down when alienation
enters the picture. In a conversation both persons thus act like sub-
jects and neither of them feels objectified in Sartre’s sense. In short,
they see each other as special objects even if the other is still onto-
logically “an explosive instrument” (320) because he can manifest
the look at any moment.
We can thus conclude that the ontological conflict does not nec-
essarily produce an ontical one. We also have every reason to
believe that people normally do not experience the look that often
in their relations with others. Therefore, although shame is onto-
logically the paradigmatic relation with the Other, it is not so in
experience: one does not at all experience shame each time some-
one is looking. On the other hand, if one would never apprehend
the look, it would mean one is not aware of the fact that there are
other people. Human reality is thus a balance between these two
extremes: experiencing shame too often or not at all, between for-
others and for-itself.2
Such a balancing-act, however, does not interest Sartre in Being
and Nothingness; here he is interested in ontology, not in what he
would call anthropology: “[o]f course, our human reality must of
necessity be simultaneously for-itself and for-others, but our present
investigation does not aim at constituting an anthropology” (Sartre
2003: 306). These considerations, however, explain the uneasiness
one could experience reading Sartre’s analysis of the look, and why it
is actually only due to an apparent problem.

The look and emotion

We have seen that the ontological conflict with the Other is not nec-
essarily experienced as a conflict when we relate to others. It is rather
an ontological conflict between two aspects in our own being: our
being-for-itself and being-for-others. This ontological conflict is
always there as the permanent possibility for me to be alienated from
my world as well as my own being. We will see that it is emotion that
shows this conflict in experience; that the object of this emotion is
my being-for-others, which I can only imagine; and how this can
lead to captive consciousness (possibly to a pathological degree, gen-
erating narcissism or paranoia for instance).
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What makes me apprehend the look seems to be first of all my

own consciousness (my consciousness of being seen by someone or
my belief that someone has seen me). But how exactly is the look
triggered and what does it mean? Sartre himself seems to suggest my
being-looked-at is always apprehended through an emotion: “I
determine myself to apprehend—through shame, anguish, etc.—my
being-looked-at” (Sartre 2003: 304, my emphasis). Two other indi-
cations show the apprehension of the look is always an emotion. We
find the first indication in the nature of the experience of the look,
and the other one in Sartre’s description of emotions. First, the
experience of the existence of another for-itself cannot be found,
according to Sartre, on the level of abstract knowledge or perception
(Sartre 2003: 276): the Other has to interest my being ontically and
in the context of my experience. Now what besides thought and per-
ception can reveal something to consciousness in experience? In
other words, how can the Other define our being in experience if it
is not through knowledge or perception?
This must be through emotion. According to Sartre, emotions
confer affective meaning to things (thereby changing the world), or
receive affective meanings from the world (Sartre 1962: 77–78).
Emotion is thus experienced, lived, and it changes the world.
Indeed, we see that the following description of emotions agrees
with what happens in the apprehension of the look: “Consciousness
does not limit itself to the projection of affective meaning upon the
world around it [in emotions]; it lives the new world it has thereby
constituted – lives it directly, commits itself to it, and suffers from
the qualities that the concomitant behavior has assigned to it”
(Sartre 1962: 77–78). In both the look and emotions a new world is
constituted; in the case of the look this means a world of which I am
no longer the center. Emotive consciousness lives this new world,
suffers it and is changed by it radically; in the case of the look con-
sciousness changes radically because it becomes an object.
The question how emotions arise will bring us to the second
indication for the concomitance of the look and emotions. Accord-
ing to Sartre, emotions essentially involve magic. Magic is an exis-
tential structure of reality that shows a synthesis between activity
and passivity, thereby suggesting something psychic in inert things
(Sartre 1962: 84 ff.). Magic can give rise to emotions in two ways,
the first of which originates from the side of my consciousness mak-
ing the world magical as a response to a situation; and the second
originates from the world that reveals itself as magical while I
expected it to be deterministic (Sartre 1962: 84, 86).3 Magical real-
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 The Magic of the Other

ity is contrary to the deterministic or rational point of view, in

which my world, full of objects, is governed by my means and aims,
my possibilities. It is therefore always a surprise when magic sud-
denly appears in the pragmatic attitude and transforms it into a
magical reality.
When an emotion arises because I constitute the world as magic,
it is always in the context of tension with the pragmatic attitude.
Since my world is replete with objects that demand things from me,
with possibilities to achieve ends etc., it automatically gives rise to
values and projects I think I should realize. Such a world of projects
and values can be compared to a pinball game in which I have to
realize things but which is at the same time full of obstacles, traps
and holes. In any particular situation, it is with this world that I am
confronted, and this confrontation can give rise to emotion. The
emotive reaction to the situation is not effective, as we would say
practical action is; the former changes the world or an object magi-
cally, giving it a meaning or certain qualities that actually overflow
the object. By doing this, emotion enables us to relieve tension or to
respond to the difficult world when the pragmatic attitude does not
or cannot (Sartre 1962: 62 ff.).
Let us take the example of a card game. A card game is to be
won, and there are different possibilities to achieve this end. If I win,
it is possible that I am rather indifferent in front of this achievement,
but I could also be pleased or even delighted. If winning the game
gives me joy, it could be because I did not expect to win, or perhaps
because I really wanted to win. In any case, I could call it a very
enjoyable card game now, while maybe before I did not find it par-
ticularly special. This joy and the projection of qualities onto the
game, according to Sartre’s theory of emotions, would be a result of
the fact that nothing in reality has properly changed, while for me
something did because I won the game. The cards are still on the
table, completely inanimate; the other players do not react as I want
them to, etc. In order to affirm my achievement thus I cannot rely
on them and I let my own joy, which actually overflows reality, com-
pensate for this. Since my emotion does not actually or causally alter
the concrete situation, it is not effective; it is ‘magical’ because my
consciousness confers qualities onto things that do not actually have
them from an in-itself perspective.
We can also imagine that I lose the game. In this case I feel a ten-
sion between what I wanted to realize and what I actually did. As a
reaction I could say the game is “stupid” or “boring” in order to
relieve the tension magically. I could also become angry and start
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shouting and abusing my opponents, calling them “cheats”, “arro-

gant”, “bad winners”, etc.
When it is the world that reveals itself as magical, it is also the sit-
uation that triggers the emotion, this time because of an unexpected
appearance of the psychic in the world. Tempting consciousness and
suggesting the magical, the world with psychic aspects can appear as
disquieting, suspicious or intriguing. Where there is a sudden shift
toward a magical world feelings of horror or, if it is agreeable, admi-
ration, can arise (Sartre 1962: 86). If an emotion arises this way, it
inevitably occurs when the Other appears, since he is precisely such
an appearance. The presence of the Other is magical because, when I
apprehend another person as for-itself, my pragmatic world disap-
pears and I do not know what to expect any longer. The other, when
becoming the Other, makes the determinations of my world evapo-
rate because he overflows them.
Because of this constant possibility of people turning my world
upside down, “man is always a sorcerer to man” (Sartre 1962: 85)
and the appearance of a man in my situation corresponds with
Sartre’s definition of the magical: the appearance of the psychic in
things. This is why, according to Sartre, “the category of ‘magic’
governs […] interpsychic relations between men in society and,
more precisely, our perception of others” (Sartre 1962: 84–85).
Of course, it can also be the case that I keep another person
within my pragmatic frame, which means I do not experience the
look but go on perceiving the other as a special object. When the
appearance of something psychic in my situation is too vivid and
unpredictable or unexpected, however, this turns my deterministic
world upside down and gives rise to emotion. We have mentioned
earlier that Sartre sees intersubjective relations as situations that can
suddenly explode because of the look. We now see that such explo-
sions are emotive and are due to the fact that the rational structure,
conferred upon the inter-psychological world, does not hold any
longer because it is overthrown by an unpredictable psyche it can-
not contain. In this manner, the Other as the sorcerer overflows my
rational understanding or expectations and turns the world into a
magical reality (Sartre 1962: 85). Consequently the presence of the
Other (but not necessarily the other), whether it is imagined or
real, is an event that always involves magic, and thus emotion too.4
The relation of the look with magic explains Sartre’s descriptions of
the look: there are no causal determinations, no distances between
me and the person that sees me, and I cease to perceive (Sartre
2003: 282).
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 The Magic of the Other

Now what does it mean for an emotion to be an apprehension of

the look? Since all emotions are magical, a difference between an
emotion that apprehends the look and one that does not is that I am
the main object the former concentrates upon. For example, when a
grimacing face suddenly appears at the window (Sartre 1962: 84),
this can produce a kind of terror that makes me fear for myself; but it
can also trigger a kind of terror in which the face remains the focus
and perhaps makes the whole world terrifying and enchanted too. In
the second instance I am not referred back to myself, but captivated
by a terrifying reality. In the first case, however, the introduction of
the psychic makes me fear for myself by making the world terrifying
and thus dangerous for me. This emotion thus seems to involve the
look: I am the object of the emotion, and the emotion is triggered
by the presence of the psychic changing the world. In this way we
can say the terror that makes me fear for myself has the same struc-
ture as shame, the paradigmatic emotion of the look.
But the fact that emotions involving the look refer to me in front
of the Other changes their nature. Although these emotions seem-
ingly have the same object as other self-referential emotions (myself),
they are nonetheless radically different from the latter. In other
words, that the object of the emotion is not just myself but me as I
am for others, changes the emotion completely; some emotions do
not even exist without the Other. I cannot feel shame or pride, for
instance, without at least a reference to the Other. When I am satis-
fied about my image in the mirror, we cannot call this pride without
at least a reference to the Other as either interiorized or expected to
come later. The same can be said about shame: if I am alone and I
catch myself picking my nose, I might be surprised or indifferent;
while shame could only arise with some reference to the Other. Even
further, many acts become shameful or praiseworthy only once
someone else knows.
Why is it that, when I catch myself picking my nose, I would prefer
that no one saw me? And why is it that people sometimes do not
mind conferring a judgment upon themselves, for instance that they
are fat, while they do not feel the same when someone else calls them
fat, and would be angry at this person? It seems that, even when I
agree with a judgment of the Other, the fact that it is the Other’s
changes the situation. Why is the Other’s judgment so important as
to give rise to emotions that I cannot attain on my own?
This is not due to just the judgment of the Other (since I can
agree with his judgment and still feel different when the Other is
involved), but merely to the fact that the Other is involved. When
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the Other is involved I become an object. This object, moreover, is a

real object: for the Other it is there in the world. In other words, the
fact that the Other can see me in a certain way is not the main issue;
the main issue is that he gives me an in-itself reality. As a conse-
quence, even if I would actually agree with his judgment that I am
fat, for instance, his judgment is still alienating because for myself I
am always more than what I am, and I am always the possibility of
transcending what I am. Similarly, I could feel uncomfortable
because there are pictures or information of me on the internet even
if there is nothing uncomfortable in the content of these, merely
because of the fact that they are ‘out there’. In this case, I am
uncomfortable because there are things about me that have an in-
itself reality that I have no real control over.
Such uncomfortable feelings, as well as shame, pride etc. in front
of the Other, have to do with my projects and values, just as is the
case with other emotions. However, the fact that the Other is
involved adds a fundamentally alienating and therefore uncomfort-
able aspect. “Fundamental” can be understood in an ontological
sense: it is in conflict with the basic project of consciousness, namely
transcending being, which constitutes the freedom of the for-itself.
Any characteristic the Other ascribes to me has too much being for
me, since I am not in-itself. The reverse side of this ontological sta-
tus of consciousness is that I am also a lack of being to such an
extent that only the Other can confer being on me.
One result of my lack of being is that my emotions can never have
in-itself reality for me. When I am sad, I am never sad enough and I
am never completely sad (I am always separated from my sadness by
consciousness, which is not what it is). Unless I am in bad faith, the
sadness I experience is never the in-itself sadness that I see on paint-
ings or I read in stories. I have to create and maintain it myself as if I
was playing at being sad (Sartre 2003: 115–116). We see that where
the emotion involves the look, on the contrary, I am made an in-itself
object, which is thus the essential difference between these emotions
and ones without the Other. Since the Other can confer being-in-
itself onto me, he is the one I can go to in order to make him give in-
itself reality to my sadness. This is why, in most cases, to tell someone
who says he is sad to simply “get over it” or that “you should not be
sad,” or to ignore his sadness completely, can make the emotion
much worse: it is opposing the affirmation of the sadness, which
might be the very reason for the sad person to go to someone.5
The meaning of the look is thus not only the fact that I am always
for-others, but also the fact that my being-for-others can really affect
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and transform me. The Other plays a fundamental role for me since I
am a lack of being so that, by making me in-itself, he can give me
the affirmation I lacked, or alienate me completely from my tran-
scending, free position. It is thus to the Other that I can express my
sadness in order to give it more reality; but it is also the Other that
constitutes me as a fat being, a judgment that alienates me and is
thus different from my own judgment. As a result, the presence of
the Other in my situation changes the nature of the emotions
involved; it changes their meaning and their object, myself, since it is
only through these emotions that I become aware of my shameful or
satisfying objective being: my being-for-others.

My being-for-others and captive consciousness

My being-for-others is a peculiar object. It is, at one and the same

time, an object that I cannot know and one of which I cannot deny
that it is me. It is an ontologically alienated me that has reality outside
me, in the Other’s world. I am aware of this, since I can feel ashamed,
proud or anxious in front of the Other. As a result, my concrete or
ontic being-for-others, what the other thinks of me (or rather: what I
think the other thinks of me) is also something that I have to relate to.
My being-for-others is for others, I cannot therefore know or
encounter it: I would have to encounter it as they do, which is impos-
sible. As a result, the only real thing emotions can reveal in this con-
text is the emotion itself, and the fact that I am an object for others.
Apart from the fact that it exists, I cannot know anything about my
being-for-others. In other words, when I am ashamed, “I am
ashamed of myself as I appear to the Other” (Sartre 2003: 246), but
I cannot know how precisely I appear to the Other. For example, if I
am ashamed because I apprehend myself as impolite in front of the
Other, I do not actually know if I am really impolite in the Other’s
eyes, nor why or in which way. Shame, however, tends to automati-
cally and unreflectively include qualities in my objective being at the
very same moment that it reveals my shameful being-for-others to
me. The emotion thus seems to reveal something to me that I can-
not know or perceive. Therefore, what the emotion creates, namely
the particular object I think the Other sees me as, and the qualities I
think this object has (shameful, disgusting and impolite), have to be
imaginary, since they are neither perceived nor known.6
Since the real is what is present in person, and the irreal is that
which is intended through the imaginary but which is not present or
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is non-existing, my being-for-others as I intend it must be irreal.

That the qualities of my being-for-others in my eyes can only be
imaginary has consequences with regard to the role they play for
consciousness, since consciousness relates differently to the real than
to the imaginary or the “irreal” (Sartre 2004b: 136 ff.). The differ-
ence between the conduct of consciousness in front of the real and
the irreal that interests us is the difference in the relation between
affectivity and its object. Affectivity in front of a real object can be
reinforced by its object because consciousness apprehends objects
through an infinite amount of intentions. When the object of, for
instance, my disgust is in front of me, there is an infinite amount of
aspects that can feed and enrich my disgust: I can thus always find
another disgusting detail to reinforce it (Sartre 2004b: 139).
The irreal object, on the contrary, does not have this capacity of
enriching affectivity because the irreal object is constituted by con-
sciousness in the act of imagination, and is thus entirely dependent
on consciousness for its creation and its continuation. What con-
sciousness puts in the irreal object, using knowledge and affectivity,
is all that is present in it (Sartre 2004b: 140-141). Since everything
in the irreal object is given to it by consciousness, consciousness will
never discover any new details in it to reinforce its affectivity. More-
over, since it is dependent on an activity of consciousness and it can-
not feed on a real object, the irreal object wears out quickly: it loses
its liveliness and fades away. In other words, the irreal object is very
poor in comparison with real objects.
Because of the peculiarity of my being-for-others (its being real
but only imagined by me), the clear-cut distinction between the
conduct in front of the real and the conduct in front of the irreal
does not hold in the context of the imagination of the object that I
am for others. This is because “[r]eal emotion […] is accompanied
by belief. The qualities ‘willed’ upon the objects are taken to be
real” (Sartre 1962: 75-76). Since my shame or pride is a “real emo-
tion,” I take what my shame or pride reveals to me to be real: not
only the fact that my being-for-others exists, but also the qualities it
supposedly has are taken for real. In other words, I believe in what
shame or pride reveals to me as if it was reality, while it can actually
only be apprehended by me as irreal. This confusion has an impor-
tant consequence with regard to the way I relate to it. Given that
my being-for-others is revealed to me in pride or shame, and given
that it is me, the object of my shame or pride is seemingly present.
This means my feeling of shame or pride is able to feed on my
being-for-others as if it were another real object that I have in front
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 The Magic of the Other

of me and of which I can apprehend numerous details to confirm

my feeling.
Let us consider two examples in order to show the importance of
the belief that comes with my emotion of shame or pride. If I am in
a long distance relationship, I maintain the love and tenderness I
feel for my beloved by evoking, through this tenderness or love, an
“irrealized” image of my beloved. The real tenderness and love I
feel for this person goes into the image I create, creating an irreal
object for the feeling. Such an image is invoked to try and make pre-
sent something I know is not actually present. In such an instance, I
cannot find more tenderness in this irreal object than I already use
to create and maintain it. Similarly, if the image was created using
certain details or character traits of this person, for instance his
beautiful hair or delicate gestures, of which I was already thinking to
begin with, I will not find anything more than that in the image. As
a result, the feeling will not be enriched by this predictable and less
vivid version of the actual person. In the end, this image will fade
away or become banal because the image as well as the tenderness is
all consciousness’s effort, and not consciousness being affected from
without. If I want to maintain the image, recall my lover every once
in a while, together with my tenderness for him, it will be more and
more of an effort, and the image will be poorer and poorer (Sartre
2004b: 142-143).7
On the other hand, when I am ashamed because I picked my nose
in front of my family, there will be an infinite amount of details to
reinforce and maintain my feeling of shame providing that I really
believe others think I am impolite, maybe even disgusting. Since I
(as I appear to others) am the object of the emotion, the feeling of
shame might be sustained and reinforced by what I do next, how I
think I appear to the others, and other details I apprehend about
myself. Perhaps I blushed and think I must look ridiculous: they
must think I am an idiot. And now I have been very clumsy or I
have made a vulgar gesture. Additionally, what I am wearing is dirty!
This makes me look even more vulgar than the gesture I just made.
My aunt just looked at me contemptuously, that was clear! Numer-
ous details and everything I might do wrong in the following
moments feed my shame. This is why perhaps I just want to disap-
pear so that this feeling would disappear as well: there would no
longer be anything to maintain and reinforce it.
All of this seems to rest on confusion, since it implies that I take
the object of my shame to be a real object. This is, as we have seen,
a result of my emotion, which tends to believe the object it consti-
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 Julie Van der Wielen

tutes is real. It could be objected, however, that according to Sartre

consciousness cannot perceive and imagine at the same time (Sartre
2004b: 15). How then is it possible that the object I am for others,
which can only be imagined, feeds on things I apprehend in the real
situation? This is possible because I am not perceiving and imagin-
ing at the same time, but creating an object on the basis of things I
know or have perceived. Furthermore, since the irreal object is
maintained in a “continuous creation”, it is possible that my con-
sciousness continuously adds new details to the image, changing or
enriching it.
It must be noted here that this process is involuntary. It happens
through what Sartre would call “captive consciousness” (Sartre
1962: 80; Sartre 2004b: 67). Captive consciousness is a conscious-
ness that believes in the reality of its creation, and is similar in this
respect to emotive consciousness, as we have seen. Imagining con-
sciousness can be captive of its creation as well; the irreal then has it
in its possession.
Consciousness can free itself from this captivation by making the
emotion disappear or by exercising a “purifying reflection” (Sartre
1962: 53). Of course, in some cases this might be easier said than
done. When I am really ashamed, I am consumed by this shame and
it will be hard to deliver myself from it and stop belittling myself.
Moreover, there is a danger attached to reflection: since it makes the
ego appear, it can lead to “bastard consciousness” (Sartre 2004a: 16
ff.). Bastard consciousness attaches passive qualities or states to an
equally passive ego that is nevertheless often experienced as the
active origin of such states and qualities. However, for Sartre con-
sciousness is purely active, as well as completely transparent. Pure
reflection, although involving “I”, allows consciousness to view itself
in its transparency, which means it does not affirm more than is actu-
ally experienced at a given moment. Impure or bastard reflection on
the other hand does not only invoke the “I,” but it also ascribes
states and qualities to the “me.”
Concretely this means that, with the rise of the ego, consciousness
risks to confer states and qualities to itself, in the “me,” for instance
shameful, impolite, disgusting or vulgar. This turns my instantaneous
emotion of shame and its correlates into states I am in or into quali-
ties I have. If this happens, I could magically start seeing everything
as an expression of my being indelicate, impolite, vulgar or inferior.
The same can happen if I become captivated by my pride and its
beautiful, delicate and clever object.8 Strangely thus, my unknowable
being-for-others can end up dictating my qualities to me. This dan-
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 The Magic of the Other

ger of captivation is a bad faith extreme in which I identify myself

with my imagined being-for-others. The other extreme would be
trying to ignore my being-for-others altogether. Responsibility must
find its place between these two extremes, and must give language a
central role.

J ULIE VAN DER W IELEN -H ONINCKX studied philosophy at the

Hoger Instituut Wijsbegeerte of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
(Belgium). She recently completed her M.Phil in Philosophy, in
which she presented a more detailed version of this paper as the main
dissertation. Currently she is researching for a Ph.D. project.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Prof. Roland Breeur for the interesting lectures
and seminars on Sartre, and for the productive collaboration on my
thesis, which was a longer version of this article; and Daniel O’Shiel
for the long and fruitful conversations on Sartre and phenomenol-
ogy. I also very much appreciate the helpful suggestions from Dr.
Bruce Baugh and Prof. David Detmer to the improvement of this
article.

Notes

1. To show what it does to me to be seen by another, Sartre uses the famous key-
hole example (Sartre 2003: 282 ff.): I am looking through a keyhole and sud-
denly I hear footsteps in the hall. These footsteps are a vector of the look: I have
the feeling that someone is there and sees me. Because I am caught looking
through a keyhole, I feel ashamed. The shame, recognition of the look, is first of
all a confession of the fact that I was the very person looking through the key-
hole. But it also shows I am aware of having become an object for the Other
upon which he can bear judgements. In addition to this, I have no idea of and no
influence on how the other will take up this object I am for him: the other sees
me and judges me in a way which escapes me.
2. The duality of for-itself and for-others is according to Sartre as much an instru-
ment for bad faith as the duality transcendence and facticity (Sartre 2003: 81),
hence the term ‘balancing’. Here too consciousness is confronted with two of its
aspects that it can be in an authentic way (by balancing between the two and by

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 Julie Van der Wielen

trying to apply a constant self-recovery) or in bad faith. This explains Betty Can-
non’s suggestion that “[S]artre later admitted that all the interactions described
in ‘Concrete Relations with Others’ were in bad faith” (Betty Cannon: 1991). It
is because these attitudes are always about transcending the Other on the one
hand (being just for-itself), and identifying myself with my being-for-others on
the other (being just for-others), that the attitudes described in ‘Concrete rela-
tions with others’ (BN 383-434) are all of bad faith.
3. Richmond seems to find the two ways in which emotion can arise contradictory
or ‘asymmetrical’ in a problematic way (Richmond 2010: 155). We do not, how-
ever, view them as contradictory since, whether the emotion seems to be trig-
gered by me or by something in the world, it always involves an interaction
between me and the world (including others and the Other), and it always results
in a suspension of, challenge to, or a breaking down of my pragmatic attitude.
4. We here agree with Richmond (2010: 155) when she says Sartre’s ‘account of
our perception of the Other does not suggest that we have any choice but to
experience him or her ‘magically’ – and emotionally’, although only if we are
talking about the other person as representing the Other; since we just showed it
is possible to experience another person without there being emotion or magic
involved.
5. This act of seeking affirmation with the Other falls under the attitude in front of
the Other that Sartre calls ‘language’ (Sartre 2003: 394). In the attitude of lan-
guage, which actually contains all kinds of expression, the subject recognizes that
it is an object for the Other and surpasses this toward its own possibilities.
6. Language can help me know something about what the Other thinks about me,
but we will leave the issue out due to lack of space.
7. This is why, in Nausea, Antoine Roquentin invokes memories rarely and cau-
tiously: in order not to wear them out. Some of his memories have already lost
the sensations that belonged to them when imagined. The sensations are replaced
by a vague feeling and some words that describe the memory, for instance ‘I was
on a charming little square’ accompanied by a vague feeling of peace. It is thus as
if a memory can become tired and lose the ability to produce sensations (Sartre
2000: 51–53).
8. For an interesting account of the magic of the imaginary, the analogon and capti-
vation, cf. O’Shiel 2011. Here we are focused on the influence of the Other, but
the two could be taken together for a more complete account of how my imagi-
nation can magically contaminate my perception of myself and of reality to vary-
ing degrees.

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 The Magic of the Other

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Richmond, Sarah (2010), “Magic in Sartre’s Early Philosophy,” in Reading
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Sartre, Jean-Paul [1936] (2004a), The Transcendence of the Ego (London
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