Jean Paul Sartre: Existentialism

SartreThe philosophical career of Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) focuses, in its commencement phase, upon the structure of a philosophy of existence known equally existentialism. Sartre'due south early works are characterized by a evolution of archetype phenomenology, but his reflection diverges from Husserl's on methodology, the formulation of the self, and an involvement in ethics. These points of divergence are the cornerstones of Sartre's existential phenomenology, whose purpose is to sympathise homo being rather than the earth as such. Adopting and adapting the methods of phenomenology, Sartre sets out to develop an ontological account of what it is to be human. The main features of this ontology are the groundlessness and radical liberty which characterize the human condition. These are contrasted with the uncomplicated being of the globe of things. Sartre'southward substantial literary output adds dramatic expression to the ever unstable co-existence of facts and freedom in an indifferent world.

Sartre's ontology is explained in his philosophical masterpiece, Beingness and Nothingness, where he defines two types of reality which lie beyond our conscious experience: the being of the object of consciousness and that of consciousness itself. The object of consciousness exists as "in-itself," that is, in an contained and non-relational way. Notwithstanding, consciousness is ever consciousness "of something," and so information technology is defined in relation to something else, and it is non possible to grasp it within a conscious experience: it exists as "for-itself." An essential feature of consciousness is its negative ability, by which we can experience "nothingness." This power is as well at piece of work inside the cocky, where it creates an intrinsic lack of self-identity. So the unity of the self is understood equally a task for the for-itself rather than as a given.

In order to ground itself, the self needs projects, which tin exist viewed as aspects of an individual's fundamental project and motivated by a desire for "being" lying within the individual'due south consciousness. The source of this projection is a spontaneous original choice that depends on the individual'southward freedom. However, self'south choice may lead to a project of self-deception such as bad faith, where ane'due south own real nature every bit for-itself is discarded to adopt that of the in-itself. Our but way to escape self-deception is actuality, that is, choosing in a way which reveals the existence of the for-itself as both factual and transcendent. For Sartre, my proper exercise of freedom creates values that any other human existence placed in my situation could experience, therefore each authentic project expresses a universal dimension in the singularity of a human life.

Later a brief summary of Sartre's life, this commodity looks at the main themes characterizing Sartre's early philosophical works. The ontology developed in Sartre's master existential work, Being and Nothingness, will then exist analysed. Finally, an overview is provided of the farther development of existentialist themes in his later works.

Table of Contents

  1. Sartre'southward Life
  2. Early on Works
    1. Methodology
    2. The Ego
    3. Ethics
    4. Existential Phenomenology
  3. The Ontology of Being and Nothingness
    1. The Being of the Phenomenon and Consciousness
    2. Two Types of Being
    3. Nothingness
  4. The For-Itself in Being and Pettiness
    1. A Lack of Self-Identity
    2. The Project of Bad Faith
    3. The Fundamental Projection
    4. Desire
  5. Relations with Others in Being and Nothingness
    1. The Trouble of Other Minds
    2. Man Relationships
  6. Authenticity
    1. Liberty
    2. Authenticity
    3. An Ethical Dimension
  7. Other Contributions to Existential Phenomenology
    1. Critique of Dialectical Reason
    2. The Problem of Method
  8. Conclusion
  9. References
    1. Sartre's works
    2. Commentaries

1. Sartre's Life

Sartre was built-in in 1905 in Paris. After a childhood marked by the early death of his father, the important function played past his grandpa, and some rather unhappy experiences at schoolhouse, Sartre finished High School at the Lycée Henri IV in Paris. After two years of preparation, he gained archway to the prestigious Ecole Normale Supérieure, where, from 1924 to 1929 he came into contact with Raymond Aron, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and other notables. He passed the 'Agrégation' on his second attempt, by adapting the content and way of his writing to the rather traditional requirements of the examiners. This was his passport to a teaching career. Later teaching philosophy in a lycée in Le Havre, he obtained a grant to study at the French Institute in Berlin where he discovered phenomenology in 1933 and wrote The Transcendence of the Ego. His phenomenological investigation into the imagination was published in 1936 and his Theory of Emotions two years later on. During the 2nd World War, Sartre wrote his existentialist magnum opus Being and Pettiness and taught the work of Heidegger in a war camp. He was briefly involved in a Resistance group and taught in a lycée until the end of the state of war. Being and Nothingness was published in 1943 and Existentialism and Humanism in 1946. His study of Baudelaire was published in 1947 and that of the actor Jean Genet in 1952. Throughout the Thirties and Forties, Sartre besides had an abundant literary output with such novels every bit Nausea and plays like Intimacy (The wall), The flies, Huis Clos, Les Mains Sales. In 1960, afterward three years working on it, Sartre published the Critique of Dialectical Reason. In the Fifties and Sixties, Sartre travelled to the USSR, Cuba, and was involved in turn in promoting Marxist ideas, condemning the USSR's invasion of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and speaking upward against France's policies in People's democratic republic of algeria. He was a high profile figure in the Peace Movement. In 1964, he turned downwards the Nobel prize for literature. He was actively involved in the May 1968 uprising. His study of Flaubert, 50'Idiot de la Famille, was published in 1971. In 1977, he claimed no longer to be a Marxist, merely his political activity connected until his expiry in 1980.

two. Early Works

Sartre's early work is characterised past phenomenological analyses involving his own interpretation of Husserl'south method. Sartre'south methodology is Husserlian (as demonstrated in his paper "Intentionality: a fundamental ideal of Husserl'due south phenomenology") insofar as it is a form of intentional and eidetic analysis. This means that the acts by which consciousness assigns pregnant to objects are what is analysed, and that what is sought in the particular examples under exam is their essential structure. At the core of this methodology is a conception of consciousness as intentional, that is, as 'virtually' something, a conception inherited from Brentano and Husserl. Sartre puts his own marker on this view by presenting consciousness every bit existence transparent, i.east. having no 'inside', merely rather as being a 'fleeing' towards the world.

The distinctiveness of Sartre'due south development of Husserl's phenomenology can be characterised in terms of Sartre's methodology, of his view of the cocky and of his ultimate upstanding interests.

a. Methodology

Sartre's methodology differs from Husserl's in two essential ways. Although he thinks of his analyses equally eidetic, he has no real involvement in Husserl's understanding of his method as uncovering the Essence of things. For Husserl, eidetic assay is a clarification which brings out the higher level of the essence that is subconscious in 'fluid unclarity' (Husserl, Ideas, I). For Sartre, the task of an eidetic assay does not deliver something stock-still immanent to the miracle. It still claims to uncover that which is essential, but thereby recognizes that astounding feel is essentially fluid.

In Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions, Sartre replaces the traditional picture of the passivity of our emotional nature with one of the field of study'south active participation in her emotional experiences. Emotion originates in a degradation of consciousness faced with a certain situation. The spontaneous conscious grasp of the situation which characterizes an emotion, involves what Sartre describes as a 'magical' transformation of the situation. Faced with an object which poses an insurmountable problem, the subject attempts to view it differently, every bit though it were magically transformed. Thus an imminent extreme danger may cause me to faint and then that the object of my fearfulness is no longer in my conscious grasp. Or, in the case of wrath against an unmovable obstacle, I may hit it as though the world were such that this action could pb to its removal. The essence of an emotional state is thus not an immanent characteristic of the mental world, but rather a transformation of the subject'due south perspective upon the world. In The Psychology of the Imagination, Sartre demonstrates his phenomenological method by using it to have on the traditional view that to imagine something is to have a picture of it in listen. Sartre's business relationship of imagining does away with representations and potentially allows for a direct access to that which is imagined; when this object does not exist, at that place is still an intention (albeit unsuccessful) to become conscious of it through the imagination. So there is no internal structure to the imagination. It is rather a form of directedness upon the imagined object. Imagining a heffalump is thus of the same nature as perceiving an elephant. Both are spontaneous intentional (or directed) acts, each with its own type of intentionality.

b. The Ego

Sartre's view also diverges from Husserl's on the important result of the ego. For Sartre, Husserl adopted the view that the discipline is a substance with attributes, as a result of his interpretation of Kant's unity of apperception. Husserl endorsed the Kantian claim that the 'I think' must exist able to accompany any representation of which I am conscious, only reified this 'I' into a transcendental ego. Such a motility is non warranted for Sartre, as he explains in The Transcendence of the Ego. Moreover, it leads to the following problems for our phenomenological analysis of consciousness.

The ego would have to feature every bit an object in all states of consciousness. This would result in its obstructing our conscious admission to the world. Just this would conflict with the direct nature of this conscious access. Correlatively, consciousness would exist divided into consciousness of ego and consciousness of the earth. This would nonetheless exist at odds with the uncomplicated, and thus undivided, nature of our access to the earth through witting feel. In other words, when I am witting of a tree, I am directly conscious of information technology, and am non myself an object of consciousness. Sartre proposes therefore to view the ego as a unity produced by consciousness. In other words, he adds to the Humean motion picture of the self as a package of perceptions, an account of its unity. This unity of the ego is a production of conscious activity. Every bit a result, the traditional Cartesian view that self-consciousness is the consciousness the ego has of itself no longer holds, since the ego is not given just created by consciousness. What model does Sartre suggest for our understanding of self-consciousness and the production of the ego through witting activity? The primal to answering the beginning part of the question lies in Sartre's introduction of a pre-cogitating level, while the second can and so be addressed by examining conscious activity at the other level, i.e. that of reflection. An example of pre-reflective consciousness is the seeing of a house. This type of consciousness is directed to a transcendent object, only this does non involve my focussing upon information technology, i.eastward. it does not require that an ego be involved in a witting relation to the object. For Sartre, this pre-cogitating consciousness is thus impersonal: there is no identify for an 'I' at this level. Importantly, Sartre insists that self-consciousness is involved in any such state of consciousness: it is the consciousness this state has of itself. This accounts for the phenomenology of 'seeing', which is such that the subject field is conspicuously aware of her pre-cogitating consciousness of the firm. This awareness does not have an ego as its object, merely it is rather the awareness that at that place is an act of 'seeing'. Reflective consciousness is the type of land of consciousness involved in my looking at a firm. For Sartre, the cogito emerges as a event of consciousness'due south being directed upon the pre-reflectively conscious. In so doing, reflective consciousness takes the pre-reflectively conscious as being mine. It thus reveals an ego insofar equally an 'I' is brought into focus: the pre-reflective consciousness which is objectified is viewed as mine. This 'I' is the correlate of the unity that I impose upon the pre-cogitating states of consciousness through my reflection upon them. To account for the prevalence of the Cartesian picture, Sartre argues that nosotros are decumbent to the illusion that this 'I' was in fact already present prior to the cogitating conscious act, i.e. present at the pre-cogitating level. By substituting his model of a two-tiered consciousness for this traditional picture, Sartre provides an account of self-consciousness that does not rely upon a pre-existing ego, and shows how an ego is constructed in reflection.

c. Ethics

An important feature of Sartre's phenomenological piece of work is that his ultimate involvement in conveying out phenomenological analyses is an ethical 1. Through them, he opposes the view, which is for case that of the Freudian theory of the unconscious, that at that place are psychological factors that are across the grasp of our consciousness and thus are potential excuses for sure forms of behaviour.

Starting with Sartre's account of the ego, this is characterised by the claim that it is produced by, rather than prior to consciousness. Equally a result, accounts of agency cannot appeal to a pre-existing ego to explain certain forms of behaviour. Rather, conscious acts are spontaneous, and since all pre-reflective consciousness is transparent to itself, the agent is fully responsible for them (and a fortiori for his ego). In Sartre'due south assay of emotions, affective consciousness is a form of pre-reflective consciousness, and is therefore spontaneous and self-conscious. Confronting traditional views of the emotions every bit involving the bailiwick's passivity, Sartre tin can therefore claim that the agent is responsible for the pre-reflective transformation of his consciousness through emotion. In the case of the imaginary, the traditional view of the power of fancy to overcome rational idea is replaced by i of imaginary consciousness as a grade of pre-reflective consciousness. As such, it is therefore over again the result of the spontaneity of consciousness and involves self-conscious states of mind. An individual is therefore fully responsible for his imaginations'due south activity. In all iii cases, a key factor in Sartre'southward account is his notion of the spontaneity of consciousness. To dispel the apparent counter-intuitiveness of the claims that emotional states and flights of imagination are active, and thus to provide an account that does justice to the phenomenology of these states, spontaneity must be clearly distinguished from a voluntary act. A voluntary act involves reflective consciousness that is connected with the will; spontaneity is a feature of pre-reflective consciousness.

d. Existential Phenomenology

Is in that location a mutual thread to these specific features of Sartre's phenomenological approach? Sartre'southward choice of topics for phenomenological assay suggests an interest in the phenomenology of what information technology is to be human, rather than in the world as such. This privileging of the human dimension has parallels with Heidegger's focus upon Dasein in tackling the question of Existence. This attribute of Heidegger's work is that which can properly be called existential insofar every bit Dasein's mode of being is substantially singled-out from that of whatsoever other being. This characterisation is particularly apt for Sartre's work, in that his phenomenological analyses exercise not serve a deeper ontological purpose as they do for Heidegger who distanced himself from any existential labelling. Thus, in his "Alphabetic character on Humanism", Heidegger reminds u.s. that the assay of Dasein is only one chapter in the research into the question of Beingness. For Heidegger, Sartre's humanism is i more metaphysical perspective which does not render to the deeper issue of the meaning of Being.

Sartre sets up his ain picture of the private human being by commencement getting rid of its grounding in a stable ego. As Sartre after puts it in Existentialism is a Humanism, to be human is characterised by an being that precedes its essence. As such, existence is problematic, and it is towards the development of a total existentialist theory of what it is to exist man that Sartre's work logically evolves. In relation to what will get Existence and Nothingness, Sartre'southward early on works tin can exist seen as providing of import preparatory material for an existential account of being human. But the distinctiveness of Sartre's approach to agreement human being is ultimately guided by his ethical interest. In particular, this accounts for his privileging of a strong notion of freedom which we shall run across to exist fundamentally at odds with Heidegger's analysis. Thus the nature of Sartre's topics of analysis, his theory of the ego and his ethical aims all characterise the development of an existential phenomenology. Let us now examine the cardinal themes of this theory as they are presented in Being and Nothingness.

iii. The Ontology of Existence and Nothingness

Beingness and Pettiness tin can be characterized as a phenomenological investigation into the nature of what it is to be man, and thus exist seen as a continuation of, and expansion upon, themes characterising the early on works. In dissimilarity with these however, an ontology is presented at the outset and guides the whole development of the investigation.

One of the main features of this system, which Sartre presents in the introduction and the first chapter of Part One, is a distinction between two kinds of transcendence of the phenomenon of beingness. The first is the transcendence of being and the second that of consciousness. This means that, starting with the phenomenon (that which is our conscious experience), there are two types of reality which lie beyond information technology, and are thus trans-phenomenal. On the one hand, there is the existence of the object of consciousness, and on the other, that of consciousness itself. These define two types of being, the in-itself and the for-itself. To bring out that which keeps them apart, involves understanding the phenomenology of pettiness. This reveals consciousness as substantially characterisable through its power of negation, a ability which plays a key office in our existential condition. Allow us examine these points in more detail.

a. The Beingness of the Phenomenon and Consciousness

In Being and Time, Heidegger presents the phenomenon as involving both a covering and a disclosing of being. For Sartre, the miracle reveals, rather than conceals, reality. What is the status of this reality? Sartre considers the phenomenalist choice of viewing the world as a construct based upon the series of appearances. He points out that the being of the phenomenon is not like its essence, i.eastward. is non something which is apprehended on the basis of this series. In this way, Sartre moves abroad from Husserl'south conception of the essence as that which underpins the unity of the appearances of an object, to a Heideggerian notion of the being of the phenomenon as providing this grounding. Just as the existence of the phenomenon transcends the phenomenon of being, consciousness as well transcends information technology. Sartre thus establishes that if there is perceiving, there must be a consciousness doing the perceiving.

How are these two transphenomenal forms of being related? Equally opposed to a conceptualising consciousness in a relation of cognition to an object, as in Husserl and the epistemological tradition he inherits, Sartre introduces a relation of being: consciousness (in a pre-reflective course) is directly related to the being of the phenomenon. This is Sartre'south version of Heidegger's ontological relation of existence-in-the-earth. Information technology differs from the latter in 2 essential respects. Starting time, it is not a applied relation, and thus distinct from a relation to the ready-to-hand. Rather, information technology is simply given by consciousness. 2nd, it does not lead to any further question of Being. For Sartre, all there is to being is given in the transphenomenality of existing objects, and at that place is no further consequence of the Beingness of all beings as for Heidegger.

b. Two Types of Being

As nosotros have seen, both consciousness and the being of the phenomenon transcend the phenomenon of being. Equally a result, there are two types of beingness which Sartre, using Hegel'south terminology, calls the for-itself ('pour-soi') and the in-itself ('en-soi').

Sartre presents the in-itself as existing without justification independently of the for-itself, and thus constituting an absolute 'plenitude'. It exists in a fully determinate and non-relational fashion. This fully characterizes its transcendence of the witting experience. In dissimilarity with the in-itself, the for-itself is mainly characterised past a lack of identity with itself. This is a consequence of the post-obit. Consciousness is always 'of something', and therefore divers in relation to something else. It has no nature across this and is thus completely translucent. Insofar as the for-itself always transcends the item witting experience (because of the spontaneity of consciousness), any attempt to grasp it within a conscious experience is doomed to failure. Indeed, equally we have already seen in the stardom between pre-reflective and cogitating consciousness, a witting grasp of the first transforms it. This means that it is non possible to place the for-itself, since the most bones course of identification, i.due east. with itself, fails. This picture is conspicuously one in which the problematic region of being is that of the for-itself, and that is what Beingness and Nothingness will focus upon. But at the same time, another important question arises. Indeed, insofar Sartre has rejected the notion of a grounding of all beings in Being, 1 may ask how something like a relation of being between consciousness and the world is possible. This consequence translates in terms of understanding the meaning of the totality formed by the for-itself and the in-itself and its division into these two regions of being. Past addressing this latter result, Sartre finds the key concept that enables him to investigate the nature of the for-itself.

c. Pettiness

1 of the most original contributions of Sartre's metaphysics lies in his assay of the notion of nothingness and the merits that it plays a key role at the centre of being (chapter 1, Part I).

Sartre (BN, 9-x) discusses the example of entering a café to meet Pierre and discovering his absence from his usual place. Sartre talks of this absenteeism as 'haunting' the café. Importantly, this is not just a psychological country, because a 'nothingness' is really experienced. The nothingness in question is too non simply the issue of applying a logical operator, negation, to a proffer. For it is not the same to say that there is no rhino in the café, and to say that Pierre is not there. The offset is a purely logical construction that reveals cipher about the earth, while the 2nd does. Sartre says it points to an objective fact. However, this objective fact is not but given independently of human beings. Rather, information technology is produced by consciousness. Thus Sartre considers the phenomenon of destruction. When an convulsion brings about a landslide, it modifies the terrain. If, withal, a town is thereby annihilated, the convulsion is viewed every bit having destroyed information technology. For Sartre, there is simply devastation insofar as humans accept identified the town equally 'frail'. This ways that information technology is the very negation involved in characterising something as destructible which makes devastation possible. How is such a negation possible? The answer lies in the claim that the ability of negation is an intrinsic feature of the intentionality of consciousness. To farther identify this ability of negation, let us await at Sartre'southward treatment of the phenomenon of questioning. When I question something, I posit the possibility of a negative reply. For Sartre, this means that I operate a nihilation of that which is given: the latter is thus 'fluctuating betwixt being and pettiness' (BN, 23). Sartre then notes that this requires that the questioner be able to detach himself from the causal series of beingness. And, past nihilating the given, he detaches himself from any deterministic constraints. And Sartre says that 'the proper name (…) [of] this possibility which every human being has to secrete a nothingness which isolates it (…) is freedom' (BN, 24-25). Our power to negate is thus the clue which reveals our nature as complimentary. Below, we shall render to the nature of Sartre's notion of liberty.

4. The For-Itself in Being and Nothingness

The construction and characteristics of the for-itself are the master focal point of the phenomenological analyses of Being and Nothingness. Hither, the theme of consciousness'south ability of negation is explored in its different ramifications. These bring out the core claims of Sartre'due south existential business relationship of the human condition.

a. A Lack of Cocky-Identity

The assay of nothingness provides the cardinal to the phenomenological understanding of the for-itself (affiliate 1, Part Two). For the negating power of consciousness is at work within the self (BN, 85). By applying the business relationship of this negating power to the case of reflection, Sartre shows how reflective consciousness negates the pre-cogitating consciousness it takes as its object. This creates an instability within the cocky which emerges in reflection: it is torn between beingness posited equally a unity and existence reflexively grasped equally a duality. This lack of self-identity is given another twist by Sartre: it is posited equally a task. That means that the unity of the self is a chore for the for-itself, a task which amounts to the self's seeking to ground itself.

This dimension of task ushers in a temporal component that is fully justified by Sartre'due south analysis of temporality (BN, 107). The lack of coincidence of the for-itself with itself is at the heart of what it is to be a for-itself. Indeed, the for-itself is non identical with its past nor its hereafter. It is already no longer what information technology was, and it is not yet what information technology will be. Thus, when I brand who I am the object of my reflection, I can take that which now lies in my past as my object, while I have really moved across this. Sartre says that I am therefore no longer who I am. Similarly with the future: I never coincide with that which I shall be. Temporality constitutes another aspect of the manner in which negation is at piece of work within the for-itself. These temporal ecstases also map onto cardinal features of the for-itself. First, the past corresponds to the facticity of a man life that cannot choose what is already given about itself. Second, the future opens up possibilities for the freedom of the for-itself. The coordination of freedom and facticity is withal mostly breathless, and thus represents another aspect of the essential instability at the heart of the for-itself.

b. The Project of Bad Faith

The fashion in which the incoherence of the dichotomy of facticity and freedom is manifested, is through the project of bad religion (affiliate 2, Part One). Let us first clarify Sartre's notion of project. The fact that the cocky-identity of the for-itself is set as a task for the for-itself, amounts to defining projects for the for-itself. Insofar every bit they contribute to this task, they can be seen equally aspects of the private's fundamental project. This specifies the style in which the for-itself understands itself and defines herself as this, rather than another, individual. We shall return to the issue of the fundamental project below.

Among the different types of project, that of bad faith is of generic importance for an existential agreement of what it is to be human. This importance derives ultimately from its ethical relevance. Sartre's analysis of the project of bad faith is grounded in vivid examples. Thus Sartre describes the precise and mannered movements of a café waiter (BN, 59). In thus behaving, the waiter is identifying himself with his role every bit waiter in the style of being in-itself. In other words, the waiter is discarding his existent nature every bit for-itself, i.eastward. as gratuitous facticity, to adopt that of the in-itself. He is thus denying his transcendence equally for-itself in favour of the kind of transcendence characterising the in-itself. In this style, the burden of his freedom, i.eastward. the requirement to make up one's mind for himself what to practice, is lifted from his shoulders since his behaviour is every bit though set in stone past the definition of the role he has adopted. The mechanism involved in such a project involves an inherent contradiction. Indeed, the very identification at the centre of bad faith is but possible because the waiter is a for-itself, and can indeed cull to adopt such a project. So the freedom of the for-itself is a pre-condition for the projection of bad religion which denies it. The agent's defining his beingness as an in-itself is the result of the mode in which he represents himself to himself. This misrepresentation is all the same ane the agent is responsible for. Ultimately, zip is hidden, since consciousness is transparent and therefore the project of bad religion is pursued while the amanuensis is fully aware of how things are in pre-reflective consciousness. Insofar every bit bad faith is cocky-deceit, information technology raises the trouble of accounting for contradictory beliefs. The examples of bad faith which Sartre gives, serve to underline how this conception of cocky-deceit in fact involves a project based upon inadequate representations of what one is. There is therefore no demand to have recourse to a notion of unconscious to explicate such phenomena. They tin can be accounted for using the dichotomy for-itself/in-itself, every bit projects freely adopted by private agents. A commencement issue is that this represents an alternative to psychoanalytical accounts of self-deceit. Sartre was particularly nifty to provide alternatives to Freud's theory of cocky-deceit, with its appeal to censorship mechanisms accounting for repression, all of which are beyond the subject'south awareness equally they are unconscious (BN, 54-55). The reason is that Freud'southward theory diminishes the agent's responsibility. On the contrary, and this is the second outcome of Sartre's account of bad faith, Sartre's theory makes the individual responsible for what is a widespread course of behaviour, one that accounts for many of the evils that Sartre sought to describe in his plays. To explain how existential psychoanalysis works requires that nosotros first examine the notion of cardinal project (BN, 561).

c. The Cardinal Project

If the project of bad faith involves a misrepresentation of what it is to be a for-itself, and thus provides a powerful account of certain types of self-cant, we have, as even so, no account of the motivation that lies behind the adoption of such a project.

Every bit we saw in a higher place, all projects can be viewed as parts of the fundamental projection, and we shall therefore focus upon the motivation for the latter (chapter 2, Part Four). That a for-itself is divers by such a project arises as a consequence of the for-itself's setting itself cocky-identity equally a task. This in turn is the result of the for-itself's experiencing the cleavages introduced by reflection and temporality as amounting to a lack of self-identity. Sartre describes this as defining the `want for being~ (BN, 565). This desire is universal, and it tin accept on ane of 3 forms. Get-go, it may be aimed at a directly transformation of the for-itself into an in-itself. 2nd, the for-itself may affirm its liberty that distinguishes it from an in-itself, and so that it seeks through this to become its own foundation (i.e. to go God). The conjunction of these two moments results, 3rd, in the for-itself'due south aiming for another mode of beingness, the for-itself-in-itself. None of the aims described in these three moments are realisable. Moreover, the triad of these three moments is, unlike a Hegelian thesis-antonym-synthesis triad, inherently instable: if the for-itself attempts to achieve i of them, it will conflict with the others. Since all human being lives are characterised past such a want (albeit in unlike individuated forms), Sartre has thus provided a clarification of the man condition which is dominated by the irrationality of detail projects. This motion picture is in particular illustrated in Beingness and Nothingness past an account of the projects of honey, sadism and masochism, and in other works, by biographical accounts of the lives of Baudelaire, Flaubert and Jean Genet. With this notion of desire for being, the motivation for the central project is ultimately accounted for in terms of the metaphysical nature of the for-itself. This means that the source of motivation for the fundamental project lies inside consciousness. Thus, in item, bad faith, as a type of project, is motivated in this way. The private choice of fundamental project is an original pick (BN, 564). Consequently, an understanding of what it is to exist Flaubert for example, must involve an attempt to decipher his original pick. This hermeneutic do aims to reveal what makes an private a unity. This provides existential psychoanalysis with its principle. Its method involves an analysis of all the empirical behaviour of the subject, aimed at grasping the nature of this unity.

d. Desire

The primal projection has been presented every bit motivated past a desire for beingness. How does this enable Sartre to provide an account of desires as in fact directed towards being although they are generally idea to exist rather aimed at having? Sartre discusses desire in chapter I of Role One and then over again in chapter II of Part 4, after presenting the notion of key project.

In the commencement short give-and-take of desire, Sartre presents information technology every bit seeking a coincidence with itself that is non possible (BN, 87, 203). Thus, in thirst, there is a lack that seeks to be satisfied. Simply the satisfaction of thirst is not the suppression of thirst, but rather the aim of a plenitude of existence in which want and satisfaction are united in an impossible synthesis. Every bit Sartre points out, humans cling on to their desires. Mere satisfaction through suppression of the desire is indeed e'er disappointing. Another example of this structure of want (BN, 379) is that of love. For Sartre, the lover seeks to possess the loved one and thus integrate her into his beingness: this is the satisfaction of desire. He simultaneously wishes the loved one nevertheless remain beyond his being as the other he desires, i.e. he wishes to remain in the state of desiring. These are incompatible aspects of desire: the being of desire is therefore incompatible with its satisfaction. In the lengthier discussion on the topic "Being and Having," Sartre differentiates between three relations to an object that can be projected in desiring. These are being, doing and having. Sartre argues that relations of want aimed at doing are reducible to one of the other ii types. His examination of these two types tin be summarised as follows. Desiring expressed in terms of being is aimed at the self. And desiring expressed in terms of having is aimed at possession. Simply an object is possessed insofar as it is related to me by an internal ontological bail, Sartre argues. Through that bond, the object is represented every bit my cosmos. The possessed object is represented both as function of me and as my cosmos. With respect to this object, I am therefore viewed both equally an in-itself and as endowed with freedom. The object is thus a symbol of the subject'due south beingness, which presents it in a manner that conforms with the aims of the cardinal project. Sartre tin can therefore subsume the case of desiring to have nether that of desiring to be, and we are thus left with a unmarried blazon of desire, that for beingness.

5. Relations with Others in Existence and Nothingness

So far, nosotros take presented the analysis of the for-itself without investigating how different private for-itself'southward interact. Far from neglecting the issue of inter-subjectivity, this represents an important part of Sartre'south phenomenological analysis in which the main themes discussed to a higher place receive their confirmation in, and extension to the inter-personal realm.

a. The Problem of Other Minds

In chapter 1, Part Three, Sartre recognizes in that location is a trouble of other minds: how I tin be witting of the other (BN 221-222)? Sartre examines many existing approaches to the problem of other minds. Looking at realism, Sartre claims that no access to other minds is ever possible, and that for a realist approach the being of the other is a mere hypothesis. As for idealism, information technology can only e'er view the other in terms of sets of appearances. But the transphenomenality of the other cannot be deduced from them.

Sartre also looks at his phenomenologist predecessors, Husserl and Heidegger. Husserl's business relationship is based upon the perception of another body from which, past analogy, I tin consider the other as a distinct conscious perspective upon the earth. Simply the attempt to derive the other's subjectivity from my own never really leaves the orbit of my own transcendental ego, and thus fails to come to terms with the other as a singled-out transcendental ego. Sartre praises Heidegger for understanding that the relation to the other is a relation of beingness, not an epistemological one. However, Heidegger does not provide any grounds for taking the co-existence of Daseins ('beingness-with') every bit an ontological structure. What is, for Sartre, the nature of my consciousness of the other? Sartre provides a phenomenological analysis of shame and how the other features in it. When I peep through the keyhole, I am completely absorbed in what I am doing and my ego does not characteristic as part of this pre-cogitating land. Notwithstanding, when I hear a floorboard creaking behind me, I go aware of myself as an object of the other's look. My ego appears on the scene of this reflective consciousness, but information technology is as an object for the other. Note that one may be empirically in fault near the presence of this other. But all that is required past Sartre's thesis is that at that place be other human beings. This objectification of my ego is only possible if the other is given as a subject area. For Sartre, this establishes what needed to be proven: since other minds are required to account for conscious states such as those of shame, this establishes their being a priori. This does non abnegate the skeptic, but provides Sartre with a place for the other equally an a priori condition for certain forms of consciousness which reveal a relation of being to the other.

b. Human Relationships

In the feel of shame (BN, 259), the objectification of my ego denies my existence equally a field of study. I do, still, take a style of evading this. This is through an objectification of the other. Past reacting against the look of the other, I can plow him into an object for my look. But this is no stable relation. In chapter one, Part 3, of Being and Nothingness, Sartre sees important implications of this move from object to subject and vice-versa, insofar equally it is through distinguishing oneself from the other that a for-itself individuates itself. More precisely, the objectification of the other corresponds to an affirmation of my self past distinguishing myself from the other. This affirmation is however a failure, considering through it, I deny the other'southward selfhood and therefore deny that with respect to which I want to assert myself. So, the dependence upon the other which characterises the individuation of a particular ego is simultaneously denied. The resulting instability is characteristic of the typically conflictual country of our relations with others. Sartre examines examples of such relationships as are involved in sadism, masochism and beloved. Ultimately, Sartre would argue that the instabilities that arise in human relationships are a form of inter-subjective bad faith.

6. Authenticity

If the picture which emerges from Sartre's exam of human relationships seems rather hopeless, it is because bad faith is omnipresent and inescapable. In fact, Sartre's philosophy has a very positive message which is that nosotros have infinite freedom and that this enables united states to make authentic choices which escape from the grip of bad faith. To understand Sartre's notion of authenticity therefore requires that we first clarify his notion of liberty.

a. Freedom

For Sartre (chapter one, Role Four), each agent is endowed with unlimited freedom. This statement may seem puzzling given the obvious limitations on every private'southward freedom of pick. Conspicuously, physical and social constraints cannot be overlooked in the mode in which we make choices. This is however a fact which Sartre accepts insofar as the for-itself is facticity. And this does not lead to any contradiction insofar every bit freedom is not divers by an power to act. Freedom is rather to be understood equally characteristic of the nature of consciousness, i.eastward. as spontaneity. Just there is more to liberty. For all that Pierre'southward freedom is expressed in opting either for looking subsequently his ailing grandmother or joining the French Resistance, choices for which at that place are indeed no existing grounds, the decision to opt for either of these courses of action is a meaningful one. That is, opting for the one of the other is not simply a spontaneous decision, just has consequences for the for-itself. To limited this, Sartre presents his notion of freedom as amounting to making choices, and indeed not being able to avert making choices.

Sartre'south conception of choice can best be understood past reference to an private'southward original choice, every bit we saw above. Sartre views the whole life of an individual equally expressing an original project that unfolds throughout time. This is not a projection which the individual has proper knowledge of, but rather one which she may translate (an interpretation constantly open to revision). Specific choices are therefore always components in time of this time-spanning original choice of projection.

b. Authenticity

With this notion of liberty as spontaneous choice, Sartre therefore has the elements required to define what it is to be an accurate human being. This consists in choosing in a way which reflects the nature of the for-itself as both transcendence and facticity. This notion of authenticity appears closely related to Heidegger's, since it involves a mode of beingness that exhibits a recognition that ane is a Dasein. Nevertheless, unlike Heidegger's, Sartre's conception has articulate applied consequences.

For what is required of an authentic choice is that it involve a proper coordination of transcendence and facticity, and thus that information technology avert the pitfalls of an uncoordinated expression of the desire for beingness. This amounts to not-grasping oneself as liberty and facticity. Such a lack of proper coordination betwixt transcendence and facticity constitutes bad faith, either at an individual or an inter-personal level. Such a notion of authenticity is therefore quite different from what is ofttimes popularly misrepresented every bit a typically existentialist mental attitude, namely an absolute prioritisation of individual spontaneity. On the contrary, a recognition of how our freedom interacts with our facticity exhibits the responsibility which we have to make proper choices. These are choices which are not trapped in bad faith.

c. An Ethical Dimension

Through the practical consequences presented in a higher place, an existentialist ethics can be discerned. Nosotros pointed out that random expressions of i's spontaneity are not what authenticity is well-nigh, and Sartre emphasises this signal in Existentialism and Humanism. At that place, he explicitly states that in that location is an upstanding normativity about authenticity. If one ought to human activity authentically, is there whatever way of further specifying what this means for the nature of ethical choices? There are in fact many statements in Being and Pettiness which emphasise a universality criterion not entirely different from Kant'southward. This should come as no surprise since both Sartre and Kant'due south approaches are based upon the ultimate value of a potent notion of freedom. As Sartre points out, by choosing, an individual commits non only himself, only the whole of humanity (BN, 553). Although there are no a priori values for Sartre, the agent'south choice creates values in the same fashion as the creative person does in the artful realm. The values thus created past a proper practice of my freedom have a universal dimension, in that any other homo could make sense of them were he to be placed in my situation. There is therefore a universality that is expressed in particular forms in each authentic project. This is a first manifestation of what Sartre afterward refers to as the 'atypical universal'.

seven. Other Contributions to Existential Phenomenology

If Existence and Nothingness represents the culmination of Sartre'due south purely existentialist work, existentialism permeates subsequently writings, albeit in a hybrid grade. We shall briefly indicate how these afterwards writings extend and transform his projection of existential phenomenology.

a. Critique of Dialectical Reason

The experience of the war and the encounter with Merleau-Ponty contributed to awakening Sartre'southward interest in the political dimension of human being being: Sartre thus further developed his existentialist understanding of human beings in a way which is uniform with Marxism. A key notion for this stage of his philosophical development is the concept of praxis. This extends and transforms that of project: man as a praxis is both something that produces and is produced. Social structures define a starting point for each individual. But the individual and then sets his own aims and thereby goes beyond and negates what lodge had divers him equally. The range of possibilities which are bachelor for this expression of freedom is even so dependent upon the existing social structures. And it may exist the example that this range is very limited. In this way, the infinite freedom of the earlier philosophy is at present narrowed down by the constraints of the political and historical situation.

In Critique of Dialectical Reason, Sartre analyses different dimensions of the praxis. In the start volume, a theory of "practical ensembles" examines the manner in which a praxis is no longer opposed to an in-itself, merely to institutions which have become rigidified and institute what Sartre calls the 'practico-inert'. Human being beings interiorise the universal features of the state of affairs in which they are born, and this translates in terms of a particular way of developing equally a praxis. This is the sense Sartre now gives to the notion of the 'atypical universal'.

b. The Trouble of Method

In this book Sartre redefines the focus of existentialism as the private understood as belonging to a certain social state of affairs, but not totally determined by it. For the private is always going beyond what is given, with his own aims and projects. In this manner, Sartre develops a 'regressive-progressive method' that views individual development as explained in terms of a movement from the universal expressed in historical evolution, and the particular expressed in individual projects. Thus, past combining a Marxist understanding of history with the methods of existential psychoanalysis which are beginning presented in Being and Nothingness, Sartre proposes a method for understanding a human life. This, he applies in item to the case of an analysis of Flaubert. It is worth noting yet that developing an business relationship of the intelligibility of history, is a project that Sartre tackled in the second volume of the Critique of Dialectical Reason, but which remained unfinished.

8. Conclusion

Sartre's existentialist understanding of what information technology is to exist homo can be summarised in his view that the underlying motivation for action is to be found in the nature of consciousness which is a desire for being. Information technology is upwardly to each agent to exercise his freedom in such a way that he does non lose sight of his existence as a facticity, likewise as a costless man. In then doing, he will come to understand more nigh the original choice which his whole life represents, and thus about the values that are thereby projected. Such an agreement is only obtained through living this particular life and fugitive the pitfalls of strategies of self-deceit such as bad faith. This authentic pick for man life represents the realisation of a universal in the singularity of a human life.

nine. References and Further Reading

a. Sartre's Works

  • "Intentionality: a Key Ideal of Husserl's Phenomenology" (1970) transl. J.P.Brutal, Journal of the British Club for Phenomenology, 1 (2), 4-5.
  • Psychology of the Imagination (1972) transl. Bernard Frechtman, Methuen, London.
  • Sketch for a Theory of the Emotionsouthward (1971) transl. Philip Mairet, Methuen, London.
  • The Transcendence of the Ego: An Existentialist Theory of Consciousness (1957) transl. and ed. Forrest Williams and Robert Kirkpatrick, Noonday, New York.
  • Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology (1958) transl. Hazel Eastward. Barnes, intr. Mary Warnock, Methuen, London (abbreviated as BN above).
  • Existentialism and Humanism (1973) transl. Philip Mairet, Methuen, London.
  • Critique of Dialectical Reason one: Theory of Practical Ensembles (1982) transl. Alan Sheridan-Smith, ed. Jonathan Rée, Verso, London.
  • The Trouble of Method (1964) transl. Hazel E. Barnes, Methuen, London.

b. Commentaries

  • Caws, P. (1979) Sartre, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.
  • Danto, A. C. (1991) Sartre, Fontana, London.
  • Howells, C. (1988) Sartre: The Necessity of Freedom, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
  • Howells, C. ed. (1992) Cambridge Companion to Sartre, Cambridge Academy Press, Cambridge.
  • Murdoch, I. (1987) Sartre: Romantic Rationalist, Chatto and Windus, London.
  • Natanson, One thousand. (1972) A Critique of Jean-Paul Sartre's Ontology, Haskell House Publishers, New York.
  • Schilpp, P. A. ed. (1981) The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, Open Court, La Salle.
  • Silverman, H. J. and Elliston, F.A. eds. (1980) Jean-Paul Sartre: Contemporary Approaches to his Philosophy, Harvester Press, Brighton.

Author Information

Christian J. Onof
Email: c.onof@purple.ac.uk
University College, London
United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland