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-->Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology (sometimes subtitled '''A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology''') is a 1943 as Transcendent . "BEING AND NOTHINGNESS" ANALYSIS ''Being and Nothingness'' is clearly influenced by Martin Heidegger 's '' Being And Time '', though Sartre was profoundly skeptical of any measure by which humanity could achieve a kind of personal state of fulfillment comparable to the hypothetical Heideggerian re-encounter with Being. In his much gloomier account in ''Being and Nothingness'', man is a creature haunted by a vision of "completion," what Sartre calls the ''ens Causa Sui'' that religions identify as God. Born into the material reality of one's body, in an all-too-material universe, one finds oneself inserted in being (with a lower case "b"). But consciousness is in a state of cohabitation with its material body; it is no thing. Consciousness can imagine that which is not (imagine the future, etc.). PART 1 CHAPTER 1: THE ORIGIN OF NEGATION When we go about the world, we have expectations which are often not fulfilled. Pierre is not at the café where we thought we would meet him, so there is a ''negation'', a void, a nothingness, in the place of Pierre. (Ê&N, p. 45; Barnes, p. 9) So Sartre claims 'It is evident that non-being always appears within the limits of a human expectation.' (Ê&N, p. 41; Barnes, p. 7) PART 1 CHAPTER 2: BAD FAITH Bad Faith is a condition entered into when individuals negate their true nature in an attempt to become a self they are not. The classic example is Sartre's waiter who is always just slightly too friendly, too helpful, too willing to play the part of a waiter rather than being the less friendly, helpful and waiter-like self he would be if he were not assuming the identity of "waiter." In assuming the role of "waiter," Sartre's character has negated himself by denying his authentic ego with all its characteristics not becoming of a waiter. One of the most important implications of bad faith is the abolition of traditional Ethics and morality. As being a moral person requires one to deny authentic impulses and change one's actions based on the will of a person other than oneself, being a moral person is one of the most severe forms of bad faith. Sartre has a very low opinion of conventional morality for this reason, condemning it as a tool of the bourgioisie to control the masses, like so many signs to keep off the grass, deriving "its being from its exigency and not its exigency from its being." Bad faith also results when individuals begin to view their life as made up of distinct past events, like the "perfect moments" or "adventures" from ''Nausea.'' By viewing one's ego as it once was rather than as it currently is, one ends up negating the current self and replacing it with a past self that no longer exists (as illustrated by Anny in ''Nausea''). PART 3 CHAPTER 1: THE LOOK The mere appearance of another person causes one to look at him/herself as an object, and see his/her world as it appears to the other. This is not done from a specific location outside oneself, it is non-positional. This is a recognition of the Subjectivity in others. Sartre describes being alone in a park, at this time, all relations in the park (e.g. the bench is between two trees) are available, accessible and occurring-for him. When another person arrives in the park, there is now a relation between that person and the bench, and this is not entirely available to him. The relation is presented as an object (e.g. man glances at watch), but is really not an object, it cannot be known. It ''flees from him''. The other person is a "drainhole" in the world, they disintegrate the relations of which Sartre was earlier the absolute centre. This transformation is most clear when one sees a Mannequin that they confuse for a real person for a moment.
:This is back to the pre-reflective Mode Of Being , it is "the eye of the camera that is always present but is never seen". The person is occupied, and too busy for self-reflection.3 This process is continual and unavoidable. Subjectivity is competitive. This explains why it can be difficult to look someone in the eye. Sartre does mention another man in the park who is reading a newspaper. This man is different because he is so engaged in a Project , that he allows himself to be completely the object- "a man reading". Being for Others (Love/Masochism - Hate/Sadism) Sartre states that many relationships are created by peoples attraction not to another person but rather how that person makes them feel about themselves by how they look at them. This is a state of emotional alienation whereby a person avoids experiencing their subjectivity by identifying themselves with "the look" of the other. "The look" of the other found the person's own being. The consequence is conflict. In order to keep the persons own being the person must control the other but must control the freedom of the other "as freedom". These relationships are a profound manifestation of " Bad Faith " as the for-itself is replaced with the others freedom. That is to say that the purpose of the participants is not to exist but to keep the other participant looking at them. This system is often mistakenly called love but is in fact nothing more than emotional alienation and a denial of freedom through conflict with the other. Sartre believes that it is often created as a means of making the unbearable anguish of a persons' relationship to their " Facticity " (all of the concrete details against the background of which human freedom exists and is limited, such as birthplace and time) bearable. At its extreme the alienation can become so intense that due to the guilt of being so radically enslaved by "the look" and ergo radically missing their own freedoms the participants can enter into masochistic and sadistic attitudes. This happens when even the participants cause pain to each other to try to prove their control over the other's look they cannot leave because they believe themselves so enslaved to the look that experiencing their own subjectivity would be equally unbearable. Sex "The look", Sartre explains, is the basis for Sexual Desire ; Sartre declares that there isn't a biological motivation for Sex . Instead, "double reciprocal incarnation," is a form of mutual awareness which Sartre takes to be at the heart of the sexual experience. This involves the mutual recognition of subjectivity of some sort, as Sartre describes: "I make myself flesh in order to impel the Other to realize for herself and for me her own flesh. My caress causes my flesh to be born for me insofar as it is for the Other flesh causing her to be born as flesh." {Link without Title} Even in sex (perhaps especially in sex), men and women are haunted by a state in which consciousness and bodily being would be in perfect harmony, with desire satisfied. Such a state, however, can never be. We try to bring the beloved's consciousness to the surface of her/his body by use of magical acts performed, gestures (kisses, desires). But at the moment of Orgasm the illusion is ended and we return to ourselves, just as it is ended when the skier comes to the foot of the mountain or when the commodity that once we desired loses its glow upon our purchase of it. There will be, for Sartre, no such moment of completion because "man is a useless passion" to be the ''ens causa sui,'' the God of the Ontological Proof . Nothingness Sartre contends that human existence is a conundrum whereby we remain, for as long as we live, within an overall condition of nothingness — one that ultimately allows each of us free consciousness. Yet also, but then within our own ''being'', we are compelled to choose and must therefore anguish, because choice (subjectivity) represents the limit of freedom of an unbridled range of thoughts. Subsequently, we then wish to flee the anguish that comes from being forced to make a choice with action-oriented constructs of escapes, such as visualizatons or visions (dreams) of necessity, destiny, determinism, etc. In our lives, we are also specific ''actors'' — Bourgeois, Feminist, Worker, Party Member, Frenchman, Canadian, or American — and each must do what needs to be done to fulfill our specific destinies. In the end, however, choices may represent nothing more than intellectual freedom, since we are bound to a conditioned, physical world in which action is always required. Such ''failed dreams of completion'', as Sartre described them, inevitably fail to bridge the dichotomy between thought and action, between being and the nothingness that, too, is contained inherently within our ''self''. Sartre's recipe for fulfillment is to escape all quests, to complete them, while forcing order onto nothingness in terms such as " Bad Faith ," " False Consciousness " and the "spirit (or consciousness of mind) of seriousness." Thus Sartre contends that our ''being'' pales before ''nothingness'' since consciousness is based more on spontaneity than on stable seriousness, so a person of a serious nature must then continuously struggle between: a/ the conscious desire for peaceful self-fulfillment through physical contraints and social roles — as if living within a portrait one actively paints oneself (see the gallery of Bouville's notables in Nausea ), and b/ the more pure and raging spontaneity of being bordered by nothing, consciousness, of being instantaneously free to overturn one's roles, pulling up stakes, and striking out new paths. Phenomenological ontology In Sartre's opinion, Consciousness does not make sense by itself: it arises by the awareness of objects. So ''consciousness of'' is the proper way to qualify consciousness. One is always aware ''of an object''. The latter being ''something'' or ''someone'', it accounts to the same. This non-positional quality of consciousness is what makes it an Ontology . And the fact that third parties are the Tangible foundation for the intangible self is what truly makes it a Phenomenological ontology. SPECIAL TERMINOLOGY USED BY SARTRE Explanation of terms based on postscript to the English edition of Being and Nothingness by translator Hazel Barnes4
CONNECTION TO ''NO EXIT'' A man or a woman will always be in a world of other people, who can capture him within their Gaze , reducing him to his external materiality. They will take his measure, call him hero, coward, nonentity, fool, etc. And then, at last, they will tote up the balance sheet of his life after his death. Thus, for Sartre's Garcin, in '' No Exit ,'' "hell is other people." There is a second, comical reference. When explaining the difference between existence and essence, Sartre uses a paper-knife (un coupe-papier). A paper-knife also appears as a crucial prop in ''No Exit''. SARTRE'S SOLUTION Against all this Sartre can offer only the ruthless probing and dissolution of one’s illusions. In this he is entirely in line with Sigmund Freud whom he otherwise critiques in ''Being and Nothingness''. Indeed, in many respects Sartre is far more ruthless towards the self’s illusions than Freud ever was. This is why the early Sartre, of the “existentialist” period ( 1943 - 50 ) was so often anathema to political parties, with their programs, plans, and Dogma s. There could be no radical Utopia n experiments for early Sartre. Nor could there be the platitudes of Liberal or Conservative world-views. Sartre carries this "hyperempiricism" into his later work, and the fellow-travelling Sartre of the 1950s and after seems almost to forget the Sartre of the 1940s , and it would not be until “'The Family Idiot”, his “existential Psychoanalysis ” of Gustave Flaubert that Sartre would attempt to bring together his existentialist and Marxist views. EDITIONS ''L'être et le néant'' first appeared in the <<''Bibliothèque des Idées''>> in 1943. It is published by Gallimard. ISBN 2-07-029388-2 The first English translation of Sartre’s work was written by University Of Colorado professor Hazel Barnes , in 1956 . It is now published by Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04029-9 SEE ALSO REFERENCES |
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