Zhihan Li

G. E. M. Anscombe famously argues that our self-knowledge of intentional action (“practical knowledge”) is both non-observational and yet concerns happenings in objective reality. This combination seems to present a strong tension. Recently, Adrian Haddock offered a novel account of the role of observation in practical knowledge, claiming that such knowledge is a unity of self-knowledge (non-observational) and other-knowledge (observational), both of which are indispensable. Yet Haddock’s view faces several problems. This paper suggests that Sartre’s phenomenology resonates deeply with Haddock’s account and provides a rich resource for addressing his problems. Through Sartre’s discussions of self-consciousness, intentionality, and perception-action unity, we gain a deeper understanding of how observation functions within practical knowledge. This account shows that observation is not merely an aid (as Anscombe suggests) but a constitutive part of practical knowledge.

Anscombe famously argues that ‘I’ is not a referring expression, otherwise, a ‘Cartesian Ego’ would inevitably appear. She thinks the form of self-consciousness expressed in ‘I’ is ‘subjectless’: it is consciousness that does not involve a self-object (or Ego). Sartre’s theory of consciousness offers a strikingly parallel and mutually illuminating framework. He similarly denies the presence of the Ego within consciousness, arguing instead that the Ego is a transcendent object constructed through reflection. For both of them, the fundamental form of self-consciousness is pre-reflective. I argue that Anscombe’s position encounters two difficulties: (1) how the non-referential ‘I’ can express subjectivity, and (2) how self-consciousness is about an embodied subject. I propose that Sartre’s accounts of (1) the ‘fundamental ipseity’ and (2) the ‘lived body’ offer a phenomenological framework that helps to respond to Anscombe’s difficulties.