Being and nothing
Being and Nothingness , attempt to phenomenological ontology (orig. L'être et le néant. Essai d'ontology phénoménologique of 1943) is the main philosophical work of Jean-Paul Sartre , centered on the question of the ontological foundation of freedom is .
The being and the nothing belongs to the great philosophical works of the 20th century. In the outcome of Descartes it stands in the tradition of French rationalism and is at the same time inspired by the more recent and contemporary German philosophy ( Hegel , Husserl , Heidegger ).
With his famous phenomenological analysis of the gaze, he shows the importance of others for one's own self , works on the ontological distinction between for-itself and in-itself as well as the oscillation between contingency and transcendence , which contrasts peculiarly with famous statements such as “judgment to freedom ”and the determination of one's own responsibility as existential fate.
These analyzes, carried out on the basis of everyday phenomena such as love , shame , hatred , fear , self-lies or sexuality , were the reason for the broad but often short-sighted reception of this work, which in large circles encouraged the assumption that existentialism had a fundamentally hedonistic life Aim or be an expression of fundamental pessimism .
Sartre describes man as constantly haunted by the attempt to achieve the 'ens causa sui', a being that is his own ground and that the religions call God. This guiding principle of the work finally leads Sartre to the draft of an “existential psychoanalysis ”, which sees itself as an alternative to the Freudian school.
Overview of the plant
Historical situation and meaning
"We were never freer than under the German occupation (...) Since the Nazi poison penetrated into our minds, every right thought was a conquest ..."
The being and the nothing appears in Paris in 1943 under the German occupation and initially hardly attracts attention. Sartre had started work in 1942 while he was working on his first play " The Flies ". The project: to deliver an ideology to the post-war period, which is definitely expected as a liberated France and post-fascist world . This should offer a reorientation beyond the totalitarianisms of fascism and Stalinism as well as traditional bourgeois or Christian worldview . At the same time, the work reflects Sartre's turn from pure pre-war individualism , as it is expressed in the novel “ The Disgust ” from 1938, to a social philosophy which, however , remains shaped by Sartre's anarchist concept of freedom. The being and the nothing will provide the philosophical foundation of what will become the fashion of existentialism in the post-war years .
Systematics: ontology and phenomenology
Ontology and phenomenology are the two dominant concepts of the work.
Phenomenology is a philosophical movement of the 20th century that goes back to Edmund Husserl , who wanted to counter the philosophical tendencies of his time, historicism and psychologism , with an approach that aimed at the continuance of logical truths. The phenomenological method therefore referred to the things themselves - as Husserl put it - to what is given to us in our everyday perception. In doing so, Husserl avoided basing himself on derived concepts and theories. Phenomenology is based on this so-called phenomenon .
Ontology is the teaching of being . Ontology as part of metaphysics leads individual things, concepts, things back to basic concepts, things, things. In the last resort, on a being that underlies everything else.
Basic concepts
Some terms in SN are essential for an understanding of the entire work. In the introduction, some terms are developed in order to carry out the phenomenon analyzes later on. Although these terms are known in the history of philosophy and their origin is assumed by the author , they will be slightly modified by the discussion. In particular, the term phenomenon , which is obtained in the discussion with Husserl and Heidegger, is important here, the pair of terms facticity and transcendence , as well as the pair of terms in-itself and for-itself .
All of these terms are given a specific meaning in Being and Nothing . These meanings are an expression of the specific question posed by the author and are therefore placed in front of the description of the work.
phenomenon
At the beginning of the 20th century , the new philosophical direction of phenomenology emerged under the influence of Edmund Husserl . The most important representatives of this trend are - besides Husserl - Heidegger, Max Scheler , Merleau-Ponty , Waldenfels and Sartre. Husserl saw the situation of philosophy at that time as an auxiliary science of the natural sciences degraded and tried to rehabilitate philosophy as a science . By confronting psychologism and scientism , Husserl arrives at the new beginning of philosophy, which was intended in the Descartes sense , and which has since been reduced to a short formula with the phenomenological expression of the things themselves . The center of this expression is the concept of the phenomenon with which Husserl describes the pure appearance of a thing. Husserl assumes that bodily perceptions , i.e. seeing, smelling, hearing, feeling, have a high degree of evidence , representative acts such as imagining, fantasizing, remembering, etc. are less evident. Thus, theoretical constructions, although they are absolutely necessary, are not of the same importance for the phenomenological procedure as bodily perceptions. The starting point of phenomenology thus remains the phenomenon of the bodily given. With this, Husserl differs from the previous tradition of philosophy and the above-mentioned representatives of the sciences. Phenomenology does not see any truth or substance behind the phenomenon from which the phenomenon is thought, but remains fundamentally related to the phenomenon.
Appearance is absolute in the sense that it does not refer to any other being , as it must be thought, for example, in Kant's transcendental philosophy . In the phenomenon of natural sciences, such as light, she does not see the reductionistically conceived truth of the photons , but rather regards these explanations as a reductionist, in the language of phenomenology, a theoretical construction that reduces the phenomenon to simpler explanations. Phenomenology does not deny the benefit of this approach, it just refuses to conclude that it sees more than a reduction in these explanations.
The adjacent picture of a rose is intended to illustrate this consideration. Is the truth of the rose the botanical consideration of the systematic order? Or is it the physiological and consideration of the processes inside the rose? Is it the chemical considerations for the structure of the leaf structure, the coloring or is it the evolutionary aspects? Or is it the contemplation of the flower lover, the rose grower , the owner of a rose or the viewer who walks past a rose? The phenomenologist would not prioritize any of the phenomena listed here.
Pre-reflective cogito
According to Edmund Husserl, consciousness is always consciousness of something. Franz Brentano took over this provision . This means that consciousness is not empty, but constitutively requires a content, which means that there cannot be empty consciousness. Reflection is the self-contemplation of consciousness. In this way I can see myself as a reader, but I can also only read and be without any particular awareness of this reading while reading. Sartre assumes in his introduction that we can only have reflection, that is, consciousness, of our consciousness if there is a structure that he calls a pre-reflective cogito , a non-positing consciousness.
In his argumentation, Sartre proceeds as follows: Sartre assumes that reflexive consciousness is the consciousness of something that is observed . For example, I am proud, ashamed, etc. The consciousness of something does not evaluate itself, it is entirely directed outwards (SN 19). According to Sartre, the consciousness of something lacks the distance that the positing consciousness possesses. However, the non-reflexive consciousness is constitutive for this reflexive consciousness. This should be illustrated using the example of counting, which Sartre himself chooses.
When I count, I can just count without being aware that I am counting. But if I am asked what I am doing, I will answer: “Counting!”. Sartre now assumes that even before I reflexively bring this to consciousness, I must already have an awareness of the matter, which he calls a pre-reflective cogito . Sartre considers an unconscious consciousness to be logically absurd.
Being-for-oneself and being-in-oneself
Through his study of the phenomenological phenomenon, Sartre discovers two distinct areas of being. With the terms being-for-oneself and being-in-oneself, Sartre describes these separate areas of being. The being-in-itself is thought of as a totality that is exactly what it is. Sartre extracts three statements from his investigations: Being is in itself; being is what it is; being is. The in-itself is in itself, that is, it is independent of a consciousness that contemplates it. The second statement means that in-itself is identical with itself and is not in the process of becoming, or is in some way separated from itself, like being-for-itself. The last statement ultimately states that the in-itself behaves without reference to the possible or necessary, that is, it is without reason and meaning. Thus being-in-itself has neither temporality nor spatiality.
Facticity and transcendence
Facticity and transcendence are the two structural elements of being-for-itself. The concept of facticity expresses the paradoxical fact that being-for-itself chooses its own meaning, while freedom must at the same time be bound in a situation in which it can first choose. Facticity means here, as in use already with Dilthey , that origin , nation , body and epoch form a basis of the human being that cannot be further deceived . In contrast to this, being- for-itself is also transcendence. That is, it can exceed its actual conditions. Transcendence here means that which goes beyond the given. As a human being, I can indeed have a body that restricts me, for example, but as being- for-yourself I can transcend this factuality, for example by attaching less importance to my physicality, placing spiritual qualities in the foreground, etc. I can but left to my factuality and override my possibilities. Ultimately, however, as being- for-yourself , I cannot escape my responsibility for my choice. So my transcendence is also a fact that I can deny, but not undo. With this double structure of being- for-oneself , the phenomenon analyzes are carried out later.
Subject of the work
Sartre titled the work with an attempt at a phenomenological ontology . This is reminiscent of Martin Heidegger's statement in his work “ Being and Time ” that ontology should only be carried out as phenomenology. This refers to the belief that only through access to the things themselves, the dictum of phenomenology, statements about the existence can be taken. According to this conviction, all other approaches are provided retrospectively and thus falsified. Although the ontological structures are hidden, Heidegger and Sartre are convinced that humans have a pre-understanding of being that makes understanding possible in the first place. Both also agree that this preconception in everyday life of the people is to be found and that any attitude of the people, an expression of his entire existence was, in turn, a so-called in its being expressed understanding of being is. Ontology is therefore only possible as a hermeneutic of this existence: as an understanding of our everyday life. In this way, concrete relationships, forms of life, speaking , thinking , loving, believing , and desperation gain an essential meaning for the phenomenological ontologist for the interpretation of existence.
Fundamental to the work is the ontological dualism of res extensa (the "being-in-itself" of things) and res cogitans (the "being-for-itself" of consciousness) , which comes from the Cartesian tradition . A thing is what it is: pure positivity, “being” or “being in itself”; but “for itself” is what it is not: it only exists in relation to the negation of things, as the non-being of something.
If consciousness is always already consciousness of something, that is, it always has an object, namely in such a way not to be this object, then its "being" (the "being for itself") is always already the "nothing" this object (of “being-in-itself”): the “for-itself” appears as a pure negation in the positivity of being as something that does not exist or as something that does not exist : the “for-itself” only exists as “nothing "Of" being ".
The analysis of “being for others”, which initially - exemplarily and fundamentally in shame - as mere antithetics and conflict of “for oneself” (freedom, transcendence, non-being of something) and “in-oneself” ( Reification , facticity , as the “being-in-itself” of the “for-itself”) should also bring about the mediation of both areas of being.
With his famous analysis of the gaze, Sartre shows the function of the other for the self, which in this sense gives being and at the same time is “robbing” : For the other, the “for-itself” has an outside, a positive “being” that is accessible and the Constantly withdrawing the disposal of the “for-itself” and deprived it of its “non-indulgent, possessive and transcendent determination, that is, its freedom and its world plan: the other dives into it as“ nothing ”of the“ for-itself ” World on; With this he justifies the "desire to be" of the "for-yourself", the eternally doomed attempt to reappropriate the stolen being and to (re) establish the ideal of this desire: the "in-and-for-yourself" Being “as ens causa sui or God -being.
Train of thought of the work
According to Sartre, the starting point of philosophical search is only the phenomenon ( see chapter Phenomenon) in the sense of Husserl. If this phenomenon is asked about its conditions, the viewer receives two separate realms of being, being-in-itself and being-for-itself. Being-in-itself is the thing to be found in the everyday world , while being-for-itself denotes consciousness, that is, the form of human existence. Both areas of being are related to one another, being-in-itself is attested by being-for-itself, as Sartre puts it, while being-for-itself requires being-in-itself in order to be able to be at all. This argument is developed in the introduction and, according to Sartre, leaves crucial questions unanswered: What is the relationship between the two areas of being? How can the relationship to being in general be thought, so there are two realms of being or only one? And if neither realism nor idealism can connect the two, what other solution could there be? Since being-in-itself cannot answer these questions, the analysis of being-for-itself has a great burden of proof
"To try to answer these questions, we wrote this book"
In the following chapters, Sartre will phenomenologically analyze everyday experiences and on the basis of these analyzes show how people, as being-for-themselves, relate to being-in-themselves and how our existence is the basis for other people as well as being dependent on them. These considerations show that being-for-itself has no basis of its own, that is, it is nothing and not only requires being-in-itself, but also the other being-for-itself, which for it is the negation of in-itself -being, which he calls freedom , can only give a reason. The work ends with considerations on the synthesis of both areas of being. This being in and for itself would be an existence that would justify itself: God .
Overview of the terms:
| Realm of being | Kind in the world | ontological term |
|---|---|---|
| Being in oneself | Things | Being |
| To be for yourself | awareness | Being |
| To be in and for yourself | God | Be |
Method of work
See in particular: Phenomenology
Sartre's methodical approach is based on Husserl's phenomenology and goes more into the intentional relation of consciousness and is referred to as regressive analysis . This differs from the conventional way of Husserl's phenomenological reduction in that in this reduction Husserl traces the knowledge of the so-called natural attitude back to a transcendental consciousness and understands the contents of this knowledge as correlates of this very consciousness. The regressive analysis also asks about the conditions of being of those phenomena of consciousness.
The subtitle already shows the work's claim to combine phenomenology and ontology. Sartre's approach is characterized by a "regressive analysis", which is based on the phenomenological consideration of individual phenomena, e.g. B. language , fear , freedom etc. about their general, underlying necessary structures asks: What must a person be that he can be afraid? Basically, the consideration in Being and Nothing is the representation of complex human structures, as an expression of a being that has a special relation to nothing , hence the name of the work. Sartre distinguishes here between human being , as a being that is not what it is and that is what it is not (being for itself) and being what is, what it is (being in itself) . The impressive aspect of this way of thinking for the anthropological view of man is that Sartre does not think of man as a composition of different actions or properties, but as a totality: every action, every movement is an expression of a whole, leads back to a whole and reveals that Totality of the being of the individual.
History of ideas basis of the work
Bernhard Waldenfels describes the historical situation in his book Phenomenology in France :
"... the dialectical term vocabulary Hegel (penetrates) into all phenomenological descriptions and determine their increment from the origin of nothingness about the pros-itself and the for-others Its up to the design of an ideal on-and-for-itself His. This interweaving of originally different theoretical grids is one of the main difficulties in reading. "
In addition to Hegel, Sartre commits Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger in particular. In the introduction to Being and Nothing , he deals more intensely with both authors' concept of phenomenon. But far beyond this, the reader is required to cover the entire history of philosophy from Descartes to Kant to Heidegger.
In a departure from Heidegger, Sartre develops his phenomenological ontology on the concept of consciousness , which Heidegger is known to reject in order not to have to express himself in the language of a subject philosophy . Sartre is thus closer to Husserl than Heidegger, without getting involved in the narrow limitation of the “ cogito ”, the bottom of which, in Sartre's opinion, Husserl does not leave. Heidegger, on the other hand, accuses him of wanting to completely renounce the concept of consciousness and thus to ignore an essential dimension of human existence. The following quote from Sartre sums up Sartre's considerations and shows how the author imagines the limitations of Husserl's phenomenology and why he brings them close to Kant's thinking:
“But the cogito only ever offers what you ask of it. Descartes had asked it about its functional aspect: "I doubt, I think", and since he wanted to pass from this functional aspect to existential dialectics without a guide, he fell into the error of substantialism. Taught by this mistake, Husserl remained anxious at the level of functional description. Therefore he never went beyond the mere description of the appearance as such, locked himself in the cogito and, despite his denial, deserves to be called a phenomenist rather than a phenomenologist; and a phenomenonism always borders on Kantian idealism "
The quotation brings Husserl's philosophy closer to Kant's transcendental philosophy, which, at least according to Sartre's interpretation, describes things, but fails to really approach things. Just as Kant, again in Sartre's interpretation, needs the thing in itself as an essential construct and thus does not dwell on the things themselves in order to explain his Transcendental Aesthetics , Husserl sticks to the mere description of the phenomena without clarifying their ontological status .
Hegel
Sartre draws the basic concepts of his ontological analyzes, “for oneself”, “in oneself” and “being for others”, from Hegel; his portrayal of the fundamental intersubjective conflict refers to its phenomenology of the mind , in particular to the struggle for recognition that is ideally represented there .
Hegel attaches great importance to the outcome of this struggle for life and death : He regards it as a source of self-confidence - of identity . Here, however, the servant's self-confidence is different from that of the master. Hegel differentiates between the two types of self-awareness as “being-for-yourself” (master) and “being-for-others” (servant). The Lord bases his self-awareness on the fact that he is recognized; In the duel-like confrontation with the other, he despised the fear of death and risked his life: in doing so, however, he at the same time overcame the “absolute master”; he doesn't work, he “enjoys”. However, this fear gripped the servant as the inferior combatant. He "trembles" before the absolute Lord, wants to preserve his life and submits. Henceforth he works for the Lord.
With this submission, which takes the place of the real killing of the other, human history begins as a history of inequality . But this is at the same time a dialectical development of the original relationship between master and servant. The servant draws his confidence over time not only from the fact of being for someone else and work, but through his work he gets to rule on the nature . The relationship between independent and dependent consciousness is historically reversed in favor of the servant, on whom the master ultimately becomes dependent.
Sartre appropriates the Hegelian basic model of human relationship in order to rob it of its historical implications at the same time: The ontology of "being for others" does not know any historical dialectics of developing self-consciousnesses, but only the futility of the failure of an underlying absolute (and ahistorical) Project: Of “being-in-and-for-yourself” or being God. In contrast to Hegel, existentialism is not a historical idealism : Here there is no “ progress in the consciousness of freedom ” (Hegel), but the (resigned) insight into the ontological hopelessness of (inter-) human endeavors. “For oneself” and “being for others” remain “ unreconciled ”; a "self-awareness" in the sense of Hegel exists only as a reifying contrast to the "for-yourself".
In spite of all the systematics and the history of philosophy, Sartre's basic pre-theoretical considerations , which Sartre had gained from his individual life experience and which are reflected in prominent, formulaic expressions of his existentialism, remain the starting point of Being and Nothing, for example that of a "condemnation to freedom".
Content of the work
introduction
The introduction to the work is entitled In Search of Being . This also describes the basic program of the introduction: if Sartre wants to implement the program of a phenomenological ontology, he must show how to get from phenomenon to being. This task confronts him with the problem of developing its basis from a pure phenomenon. In comparison: Classical ontologies develop their theories on the basis of argumentation. A phenomenological ontology is required to develop this basis on the basis of phenomena. In the introduction, Sartre will first develop argumentatively using the concept of phenomenon along the lines of being. The rest of the book will face the phenomenological evidence of this argument.
Sartre now sets out the basic structure of his philosophical approach. Two subject areas are worked out there:
- the analysis of the phenomenon and of being a phenomenon,
- the analysis of consciousness and self-awareness .
The starting point of his investigation is Husserl's concept of phenomenon , which he sees as a decisive advance in modern thinking . Accordingly, modern thinking, and Sartre identifies modern thinking with Husserl's phenomenology, has overcome and recognized the dualism of being and appearance . The phenomenon is absolute in the sense that it not only refers to something behind it , such as visible light to the photons behind it , but the phenomenon itself as a relative-absolute refers to the entire series of possible appearances. That is, a perception of one side of a house refers to all possible perspective perceptions of a house. But what if no being can be found behind the appearance, as Sartre works out in the confrontation with Kant, Husserl and Heidegger, which is then in turn the condition for the phenomenon dem Sein dieses Erscheinens.
In his search Sartre refers to the fact of a pre-ontological understanding of being, which every person, according to his understanding, has. In moods such as disgust , boredom or fear , the appearance of being can be experienced and described. He shares this conviction with Heidegger. Sartre now describes this experienced being as the phenomenon of being [phénomène d'être] . In Husserl and Heidegger, this phenomenon of being is understood as the essence or meaning of beings.
But since, according to Sartre, the phenomenon of being [phénomène d'être] is not the being on the basis of which the meaning of being manifests itself, the phenomenon of being needs a reason for its part: the being of the phenomenon [l'être du phénomène]. This being of the phenomenon [l'être du phénomène] is referred to by Sartre in the following course of the work as transphenomenal being , with which Sartre wants to express that this being is neither recognizable nor appearing . Sartre hereby asserts the simultaneity of phenomenality and transphenomenality, which, even according to the understanding of some interpreters, is the special point of Sartre's ontology. What is meant by this is that the being of the phenomenon does not dissolve into the phenomenal phenomenon of being, but rather points beyond it, but in turn can only be inferred through the phenomenon of being.
Sartre now distinguishes two forms of transphenomenal being:
- the trans-phenomenal being of the subject and
- the transphenomenal being of the phenomenon.
In his argumentation , Sartre shows that the knowledge of the subject is based on being, since otherwise the knowledge would have to dissolve. Sartre is proceeding here analogously to the argumentation for justifying the being of the phenomenon. According to Sartre, this trans-phenomenal being of the subject is now consciousness .
Argumentation of the introduction:
| output | 1. Argumentation step | 2. Argumentation step | 3rd step of the argument |
|---|---|---|---|
| phenomenon | Being phenomenon | ||
| Being the phenomenon | pre-reflective awareness | For themselves | |
| thing | Per se |
The nothing
In Sartre's phenomenological ontology, nothing is understood as a constitutive moment of human existence.
The origin of the negation
The first reflections in Being and Nothing led Sartre to a dead end, which confronted him with the problem of a fundamental separation of the areas of being-in-itself and being-for-oneself. He describes being-in-itself as being, what is, what it is and that being, being-for-itself, what has to be, what it is. Here the origin of the negation shows itself , which is already shown in the basic structure of being-for-oneself. Since being-for-itself is not what it is, but has to be, this is where the negation begins, which is later found in all everyday negations. Being-for-itself is already negative in its mode of being.
The untruthfulness
In Chapter 2 (SN 91) Sartre describes the phenomenon of insincerity ( mauvaise foi ), in some translations also referred to as self-lie. This phenomenon is first described in phenomenological terms ( description ). First, the simpler, underlying phenomenon is described - the lie . The following aspects stand out in this description:
In the lie there is
- a liar
- a lied to,
- the object of the lie - the truth or supposed truth.
These three structural elements are necessary for the lie. The liar lies to the lied about a truth which the liar knows and which the lied to may not know. He thinks the lie is the truth. Now the phenomenon of self-lies demands a structure that unites these aspects in a single person. This leads to the question of how the liar himself can be the one who has been lied to, since he knows the truth that he withholds from the other. Sartre's question touches on this structure. If there is the self-lie, and that it does exist, Sartre assumes here, so if it is possible to lie to ourselves, then what must the human being in his being be for this possibility to exist?
The phenomenon of self-lies is of course also explained in other philosophical and psychological concepts; compare here only the defense mechanisms of division and repression in the theory of psychoanalysis . The difference to these concepts lies in the fundamental question of a phenomenological ontology in the sense of Sartre, which claims to offer an explanation for the fundamental conditions for the possibility of such phenomena as splitting or displacement for these theories as well.
The for-itself
The for-itself is the second part of being and nothing that is contained in the chapters
- The immediate structures of the for-itself
- The temporality and
- The transcendence
divides. According to Sartre, the for-itself is being through which nothing comes into the world. This topic is broken down in the three chapters of the second part.
Being for others
In the third part of the work, Sartre turns to the subject of the alter ego . First he discusses the problem in the philosophical tradition, in order to reopen the problem field through the approaches of Husserl, Hegel and Heidegger in the well-known analysis of the gaze. Then he turns to the considerations of the body and then, after this preliminary work , presents his thoughts on the concrete relationships to the other, love , language , masochism as well as indifference , desire , hate and sadism . The reflections on the concepts of being with and we are concluded.
The foreign existence
In the tradition of philosophy, the topic of foreign existence is connected with the concept of solipsism . What is meant is the problem of how I can gain knowledge from this that the other person is also really a person, just as I am one. If I do not manage to demonstrate this, I will remain lonely in the world as an individual. Sartre now shows that the two great schools of philosophy, idealism and realism , have no real solution to this problem. The realist becomes the idealist and the idealist the realist. Both systems fail because of the problem of foreign existence. Sartre takes it for granted that we are in fact changed by the existence of the other. He shows this in various examples. But if the two main points of view of philosophy cannot explain this, the question arises as to how this phenomenon of alien existence can be explained. For this purpose, the author examines the solutions proposed by Husserl, Hegel and Heidegger, in whose philosophical systems he moves or whose systems he described in the introduction as the progress of modern thought. He accuses all three authors of not having succeeded in solving the problem of solipsism, since they remain on the level of knowledge, thus the level of reflective consciousness, on the path of a fundamental derivation from me to the others. Sartre's approach, on the other hand, goes to the level of pre-reflective consciousness. The advantage of this approach, according to the author, is that the certainty of the other's existence is more evident . At the level of concrete relationships to the other, Sartre arrives at the certainty of the existence of the alien through the phenomenological descriptions:
"And a discussion of being-with on the level of intersubjectivity cannot lead to a more firm certainty."
The view
Sartre describes two basic attitudes towards other people, between which we alternate and which are mutually exclusive: looking at another as an object (seeing the other) or perceiving oneself as being seen by the other as an object (being seen). All concrete relationships (love, indifference, masochism) to fellow human beings arise either from one attitude or another, whereby the relationships are unstable ("metastable") and change.
“I am in a public park. Not far from me I see a lawn and chairs along the lawn. A person walks past the chairs. I see this person, I grasp him as an object and as a person at the same time. What does that mean? What do I want to say when I claim that this object is human? "
"In the eyes of the other, I experience the other as freedom that makes me an object."
The shame
“When there is someone else, whoever he is, wherever he may be, whatever his relation to me, even if he does not affect me other than through the mere appearance of his being, I have an outside, I am one Nature; my fall into sin is the existence of the other; and shame is - like pride - the perception of myself as nature, even if this very nature escapes me and is unrecognizable as such. "
The concrete relationships to the other
In this chapter, Sartre concretizes the connections with the other that were previously only considered fundamentally. The outcome is the concrete encounter with the other. For Sartre there is only this concrete encounter that shows being-for-itself its existence for the other and shows him that his being eludes himself. Sartre now distinguishes the first attitude towards the other, the failure of which is followed by the second attitude and, as a third consequence, the question of community experience.
Sartre divides the concrete relationships to the other into three chapters:
- The first attitude towards the other: love, language, masochism
- The second attitude towards others: indifference, desire, hatred, sadism
- Being with and we
Love
To love means to want the other to want to be loved by one. This dialectical entanglement gives an indication of the problematic of the relationship of the other, which Sartre thinks of as a conflict . The basis for this starting point is the following conviction of Sartre:
"The other has a secret (...) of who I am."
- and
"The other person's gaze shapes my body in its nakedness, lets it arise, models it, brings it out as it is, sees it as I will never see it."
Since the other withdraws from me in his freedom, love, according to Sartre, is the possibility of overcoming this separation between me and the other. However, the attempt to bridge fails because of the fundamental gap between two people who are defined as freedom and who would lose this freedom.
“One wants to be loved by a freedom and demands that this freedom as freedom is no longer free, (...) that this freedom is captured by itself, that it (...), as in delusion, as in a dream (...) is yours wants his own captivity. And this imprisonment should be a free abdication that is at the same time chained to our hands. "
Sartre states that in love the lover tries to capture the freedom of the beloved. The other should love me as I am. This “should”, but destroys the freedom of the other. So the lover has to convince his counterpart to love him, to seduce him. However, this is the starting point of failure, since the beloved is manipulated in a certain way towards the lover.
A forced love is not love. Love made on the basis of false pretenses is not love either; at least from the lover's point of view. The seduction , according to Sartre, is now a manipulation , since the seducer shows himself as he would like to be seen, he withholds precisely those aspects that he does not want to recognize. Thus, in the initiation of love, one's own mistakes are not pointed out directly, unless flirtatious. This flirtation is, however, in the service of concealment, since it tries to distract from them precisely through the explicit representation of the errors.
“Seduction means taking my objectivity for others completely and as a risk on myself, means exposing myself to the gaze of the other, means running the risk of being seen, in order to then take a fresh start and look at the other to appropriate myself and through my objectness; I refuse to leave the area where I experience my objectivity; on this site I want to start the fight by making myself a charming object "
According to Sartre, love fails precisely at these points. Since we see the other and this is seen in a way that he does not want to see himself, love is a constant conflicting situation that could only dissolve in a total knowledge of the other. However, this is not possible and thus the failure of love is at the same time its perpetual re-enactment.
Have, do and be
In the fourth part of “Being and Nothing”, Sartre shows that action is bound to freedom and that freedom can only be thought of in situations. From this he then deduces man's responsibility for his actions. The investigations lead to considerations on an existential psychoanalysis , which is to be seen as an alternative to Freud's psychoanalysis .
To be and to do
The action model Sartre can be illustrated drive-Intentions-circle at best. This differs fundamentally from the Aristotle model of action . Basically it can be said that the Aristotle model presupposes a closed world view . According to Aristotle, human action is a form of movement. The ethics asks for the origin of arché this movement. Aristotle sees it in the pursuit of the good, the agathon , towards which all human action is directed. The telos of human action is accordingly good, since it is in this that the rational nature of man is realized.
In order to determine in outline what happiness as the highest good for humans consists of, Aristotle asks: What is the specific function or task ( ergon ) of humans? It consists in the faculty of reason ( logos ) which distinguishes it from other living beings. The part of the soul that is specific to man has this faculty of reason; the other part of the soul, which is made up of emotions and desires , is not itself sensible, but can be guided by reason. In order to attain happiness, the individual must use reason, not just possess it, in the long run and in top condition ( Arete ). Accordingly, "the good for man," happiness is one
“Activity of the soul according to goodness ( kat 'aretên ), and if there are several kinds of goodness, in the sense of which is the best and most of all a final goal ( teleios ). We still have to add: 'in a lifetime'. Because a swallow doesn't make spring, not even a day. So even a day or a short time does not make one blissful ( makarios ) or happy ( eudaimôn ). "
Sartre cannot adopt this model, since a phenomenological ontology does not know any being, be it rational or biological. If the existence precedes the essence, then action cannot be tied to essential aspects. Here the implications of Sartrian thinking on the level of morality became apparent . Neither happiness nor the urge to survive are fundamental goals of action. Man alone sets these goals as values. Sartre's approach is similar to the Aristotelian one, only that he does not see the telos of action in good or happiness, but rather set by people themselves. There is thus a correspondence in the structure of the action, but not in the content-related provisions of the individual sections.
The two systems can be compared as follows:
| Aristotle | Jean-Paul Sartre |
|---|---|
| the good (agathon) | freedom |
| Striving (orexis) | Primary election (basic draft) |
| Intentionality (transcendence) | |
| voluntarily - considered | Drive (will) - motive (reflection) |
| Decision (prohairesis) | decision |
| Action (practice) | action |
Impact history
Despite its enormous distribution and high level of awareness, which was certainly due to the fashion trend of existentialism after the Second World War, Das Sein und das Nothing is a strictly specialized philosophical work, the scientific claim of which is already shown in the complex introduction. Reading them is necessary for understanding the entire work, since Sartre works out the basic elements of his phenomenological ontology here.
The work places high demands on the reader, and dealing with its background in the history of ideas is complex. It is rarely on the seminar schedule of academic teaching. One reason for this may be that
"Jean-Paul Sartre's philosophy (is) a philosophy that too many philosophers, academics and laypeople refer to, but too few read - at least read seriously."
- or that Sartre's philosophy is the philosophy that
"... is still not properly understood."
The impression remains that it is the work that has been most heavily distorted and falsified. This applies in particular to the view that was shaped by the Heidegger reception , which accuses Sartre's analyzes of concrete human phenomena as a relapse into ontic considerations, that is, Sartre does not consider being in the sense of ontological difference , but falls on the pre-ontological status, back to the level of being . However, the recent reception of the work shows a new interest in Sartrian thinking by analytical authors such as Arthur C. Danto or Gregory McCulloch .
criticism
The criticism of being and nothing can be divided into two broad camps. One part relates to the fundamental criticism that a phenomenological ontology receives from analytic philosophy . This criticism is similar to the criticism that was made of the hermeneutics of Heidegger's facticity .
The second thrust of the criticism of Sartre's thinking relates to the methodical and content-related approach of the work. Since this criticism relates to individual aspects of the terms presented here, these are in the foreground here.
literature
- Jean-Paul Sartre: Being and Nothing . Rowohlt Tb., Hamburg 1993, 10th edition ISBN 3-499-13316-4
- ↑ a b Sartre
- ↑ Sartre , p. 35
- ↑ Sartre p. 9
- ↑ Sartre p. 10
- ↑ Sartre , p. 14
- ↑ Sartre p. 16
- ^ Sartre , p. 464
Biographical
- Annie Cohen-Solal: Sartre. 1905-1980 . Reinbek b. Hamburg 1991
- Simone de Beauvoir: In the prime of life . Reinbek b. Hamburg
Introductions
- Thomas Blech: Education as an event of the foreign. Freedom and historicity with Jean-Paul Sartre . Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2001 (Zugl: Cologne, Univ. Diss. 2001)
- Bernard-Henri Lévy : Sartre. The philosopher of the 20th century . Hanser, Munich 2002
- Traugott König (Ed.): Sartre reading book. Inventing people . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1986.
- Arthur C. Danto: Jean-Paul Sartre . Steidl-Verlag, Göttingen 1992.
- Martin Suhr: Sartre for an introduction . 2nd edition, Junius, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-88506-394-8
- Ferdinand Fellmann: Phenomenology . Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-88506-616-5
Special literature
- Bernhard Waldenfels : Phenomenology in France . Frankfurt 1987, ISBN 3-518-28244-1
- ↑ Waldenfels , p. 79
- ↑ Waldenfels , p. 82
- ↑ Waldenfels , p. 80
- Thomas Damast: Jean-Paul Sartre and the problem of idealism . Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-05-002309-0
- Alfred Dandyk: Insincerity. Sartre's existential psychoanalysis in the context of the history of philosophy . Würzburg 2002, ISBN 3-8260-2349-8
- Bernhard N. Schumacher (Ed.): Jean-Paul Sartre: The being and the nothing . Akademie Verlag, 2003, ISBN 3-05-003236-7
- ↑ Schumacher , pp. 198-210
- ↑ Schumacher , p. 3
- ↑ Schumacher , p. 4
- ↑ Schumacher , p. 4
- Wolfgang Brauner: The pre-reflective Cogito . Munich 2007
See also
Web links
- Literature from and about being and nothing in the catalog of the German National Library
- Thomas Flynn: Entry in Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
- Christian J. Onof: Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980): Existentialism. In: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Or "... the three big H". This catchy, triadic formula as a reading key to the work probably comes from H.-G. Gadamer ; see. ders .: Being and nothing . In: Traugott König (ed.): Sartre. A congress . (rowohlts encyclopedia), Reinbek b. Hamburg 1988, p. 38. You can u. a. refer to section IV. “Husserl, Hegel, Heidegger” in the third part, first chapter of Being and Nothing . On Sartre's sources cf. a. the study by Alfred Betschart sartreonline.com ( memento of the original from November 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 289 kB). Sartre's classification in the philosophical tradition and his appropriation of Heidegger's work, accompanied by productive misunderstandings, is described in detail by Lévy Part One, Chapter 4. Lévy refers u. a. on the influence of Nietzsche and Bergson. Sartre got to know Husserl and phenomenology through Emmanuel Levinas ' Théorie de l'intuition dans la phenoménologie de Husserl , who thereby introduced phenomenological thinking in France (see Lévy , p. 148).
- ^ In: Jean-Paul Sartre: Paris under the occupation , p. 37; Quoted from: Cohen-Solal , p. 295
- ↑ Simone de Beauvoir sums up the situation at that time among the intellectual resistance fighters. a. Camus also heard: “We promised ourselves to forever make a covenant against the systems, the ideas, the people we condemned. The hour of their defeat would come. Then the future would be open again and it would be up to us to shape it politically, perhaps, but definitely spiritually. We wanted to provide an ideology for the post-war period. ” De Beauvoir , p. 481
- ↑ Sartre himself had an ambivalent relationship to this title: In addition to expressing critical distancing, there are popular-philosophical lectures such as “ Existentialism is a humanism ”, which he gave at that time (October 1945) in overcrowded halls in liberated Paris and which he gave this title also leaves embarrassed. See: Cohen-Solal , p. 387 ff. Existentialism has come
- ↑ Cf. Martin Heidegger: Being and time . P. 25.
- ↑ in contemporary France mainly mediated by Alexandre Kojève
- ↑ in the chapter “Independence and Dependency of Self-Consciousness; Domination and servitude ”: When Hegel speaks of“ phenomenology ”, something completely different is meant than what modern“ phenomenology ”describes at the start of Husserl: Hegel uses this to refer to the theory of the historical forms of appearance and development of the spirit.
- ↑ Original quote: "Man is condemned to freedom"; see. a. damask
- ↑ Peter Caws: The Origin of Negation . Schumacher , p. 47
- ↑ Jean-Paul Sartre: Being and Nothing . 16th edition. Rowohlt Paperback, p. 636-637 .
- ↑ cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
