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Being and Nothingness | HearLore
— Ch. 1 · Prison And The Heideggerian Lens —
Being and Nothingness.
~5 min read · Ch. 1 of 7
Jean-Paul Sartre sat in a prisoner of war camp during 1940 and 1941. He read Martin Heidegger's Being and Time while confined there. This reading shaped the course of his own philosophical inquiries for years to come. Heidegger used Husserlian phenomenology as a lens for examining ontology. Sartre attributed much of his later work to this exposure. Yet he remained profoundly skeptical of any measure by which humanity could achieve personal fulfillment. He rejected the hypothetical Heideggerian re-encounter with Being. Man is a creature haunted by a vision of completion. Sartre called this state ens causa sui, meaning literally a being that causes itself. Many religions and philosophers identify this goal as God. Born into material reality within a material universe, one finds oneself inserted into being.
The Two Modes Of Existence
Sartre describes two types of being in his text. One type is being-in-itself, the being of things. The other is being-for-itself, the being of consciousness. Being-in-itself is something that can only be approximated by human beings. Consciousness exists as consciousness of something according to Husserl's notion. There is no form of self hidden inside consciousness. An ego must be a structure outside consciousness so that there can be consciousness of the ego. Phenomenology removed the illusion of worlds behind the scene. It disproved dualism that set the existent up as having a hidden nature like Immanuel Kant's noumenon. This distinction forms the foundation of Sartre's phenomenological ontology framework.
When was the book Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre published?
Jean-Paul Sartre published the book Being and Nothingness in 1943. He developed the core ideas while sitting in a prisoner of war camp during 1940 and 1941.
What are the two types of being described in Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre?
Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre describes being-in-itself as the being of things and being-for-itself as the being of consciousness. Consciousness exists as consciousness of something according to Husserl's notion without any hidden self inside it.
How does Jean-Paul Sartre define nothingness in his work Being and Nothingness?
Jean-Paul Sartre defines nothingness as an experienced reality that appears within the limits of human expectation rather than abstract inexistence. Being-for-itself serves as the origin of negation which changes our relation to things without annihilating their being.
What is bad faith according to Jean-Paul Sartre in the text Being and Nothingness?
Bad faith in Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre refers to self-deception where one makes oneself falsely believe not to be what one actually is or conceives oneself as an object to deny freedom. Living a life defined by occupation, social class, or economic status constitutes the very essence of this concept.
Why did Jean-Paul Sartre critique Sigmund Freud's theory of the unconscious in Being and Nothingness?
Jean-Paul Sartre critiqued Sigmund Freud's theory of the unconscious because he claimed consciousness is essentially self-conscious and found no need for a separate unconscious realm. He viewed Freud's unconscious as a scapegoat for the paradox of simultaneously knowing and not knowing information.
From Sartre's phenomenological point of view, nothingness is an experienced reality. It cannot be a merely subjective mistake. The absence of a friend or the absence of money hints at a being of nothingness. It is part of reality. Non-being always appears within the limits of human expectation. Concrete nothingness differs from mere abstract inexistence such as the square circle. A concrete nothingness like not being able to see is part of a totality. That totality is modified by the nothingness which is part of it. Every question brings up the possibility of a negative answer. Who is entering? No one. For Sartre this is how nothingness can exist at all. Being-for-itself is the origin of negation. By bringing nothingness into the world, consciousness changes its relation to things without annihilating their being.
The Waiter And Self-Deception
As bad faith, Sartre describes one's self-deception about human reality. It takes two forms: making oneself falsely believe not to be what one actually is. Or conceiving oneself as an object and thereby denying freedom. Living a life defined by occupation, social class, or economic status is the very essence of bad faith. Consider the café waiter who performs duties, traditions, functions, and expectations of his role. He believes his social role is equivalent to his human existence. The difference between existence and identity projection remains at the heart of human subjects swept up by their own condition. Sartre argues that such attitude is partially correct since it is based in irreducible character of human reality. Yet it would be fully correct only if the person accepted they have adopted a pattern of conduct defined as that of a homosexual, though not one to the extent that human reality can not be finally defined by patterns of conduct.
The Look And Alienated Relationships
The mere possible presence of another person causes one to look at oneself as an object. This transformation is most clear when one sees a mannequin that one confuses for a real person for a moment. While they believe it is a person, their world transforms. Objects now partly escape them; they have aspects that belong to the other person. During this time one can no longer have total subjectivity. The world becomes the other person's world, a foreign world that no longer comes from the self. The other person is a threat to the order and arrangement of your whole world. Your world is suddenly haunted by the Other's values over which you have no control. When they realize it is a mannequin, the world transfers back to pre-reflective mode. It is the eye of the camera that is always present but is never seen. Many relationships are created by people's attraction not to another person, but rather how that person makes them feel about themselves by how they look at them.
Rejection Of Freudian Repression
Sartre offers a critique of Sigmund Freud's theory of the unconscious based on the claim that consciousness is essentially self-conscious. In his clinical work, Freud encountered patients who seemed to embody a particular kind of paradox. They appeared to both know and not know the same thing. In response, Freud postulated the existence of the unconscious containing truth of traumas underlying behavior. This truth is actively repressed, evident by resistance during analysis. Yet what does the resisting if the patients are unaware? Sartre finds the answer in what Freud calls the censor. The only level on which we can locate refusal of subject is that of the censor. Sartre views Freud's unconscious as a scapegoat for the paradox of simultaneously knowing and not knowing information. Instead of alleviating the paradox, Freud simply moves it to the censor. Establishing between unconscious and consciousness an autonomous consciousness in bad faith. Psychoanalysis thus yields no special insight since hiding something from oneself occurs at level of consciousness as unified phenomenon.
Critics And Enduring Influence
Christian existentialist Gabriel Marcel wrote that Being and Nothingness was of incontestable importance. He ranked it among most important contributions made to general philosophy. Marcel noted influence of Heidegger on form at least of the book. He also observed that Sartre diverged from views expressed by Heidegger in Being and Time in important ways. Marcel considered Sartre's analysis of bad faith one of most outstanding and solid parts of the work. Jean Wahl criticized Sartre's arguments about topic of nothing. Frederick Copleston described Sartre's view that all human actions result of free choice as highly implausible. A. J. Ayer called the book a pretentious metaphysical thesis and principally exercise in misusing verb to be. Susan Sontag praised Sartre's discussions of body and concrete relations with others. She identified them as part of French tradition of serious thought about problems of fundamental importance. Steven Crowell stated the work had come to be seen as outdated by Sartre's death in 1980.