AN EXPOSITION OF THE BOOK: NAUSEA
AN EXPOSITION OF THE BOOK: NAUSEA
TABLE OF CONTENT
1.0 Introduction………………………………………………………………………
2.0 Wandered Life…………………………………………………………………...
2.1 Clarification
on the Wondered Life…………………………………….
3.0 Power of Goodwill……………………………………………………………….
4.0 The Testimony of Roquentin…………………………………………………….
5.0 Sartrian Nihilism…………………………………………………………………
5.1. Sartrian Existentialist
Ontology………………………………………….
5.2 Being-In-Itself and
Being-For-Itself……………………………………..
5.3. The
Concept of Nothingness……………………………………………...
6.0 Aim of Existence Precedes Essence in
Sartre…………………………………..
7.0 A Critique of Sartrian
Existentialism…………………………………………..
8.0.
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The problem of existence, freedom,
responsibility, and consciousness is one which is common to anyone who deeply reflects
on his life, beliefs and ideas. Certainly, these problems has been the central
theme of the existentialists’ explorations of Jean Paul-Sartre who began his philosophical
investigations with this issues. Jean Paul-Satre a 20th century
atheist, was born in 1905 and being influenced by the work of Soren Kierkegard,
Friedrich Nietzsche, and Edmund Husser, Sartre distinguished himself with his
development of the philosophical doctrine which he labelled Existentialism. As
a philosophical movement, existentialism “is nothing else than an attempt to
draw all the consequences of a coherent atheistic position.” In his book, Existentialism is a Humanism, Satre, explains
that: “if God does not exist, there is at least one being in whom existence
precedes essence, a being who exists before he can be defined by any concept,
and that this being is man,…Man as nothing else but that which he makes of
himself. That he called the first principle of existentialism.”[1] He continued, man is,
indeed, a project which possesses a subjective life; but before that projection
of the self, nothing exists…man will only attain existence when he is what he
purposes to be. In Satre view, existence precedes essence entails that man at
first exists, secondly, man must create his own essence as he appears on the
scene, and, after that defines himself. [2]
The Nausea, the first and greatest novel of Sartre written in 1938
presents us with the original and true verdict of Satre’s existentialism. The Nausea which was written proximately
after the overwhelming Spanish Civil War and published before the plague of the
World War II, is the story of a man who, after strenuous searching and
wandering, discovers the painful truth that life is disgusting, discomforting,
it has no meaning, and it is nauseating, like vomit. The novel addresses the
main themes of existentialism: anxiety, self-deception, freedom, and despair
that would come to define the terror, horrors and errors of the twentieth
century. This feeling of Nausea is centred on objects and people in the novel.
For instance in the Nausea, Antoine
Roquentine, the novel’s protagonist is disturbed by the strong feelings of
Nausea. This feelings which he thought appears most often in his lonely time now
appears even in while in his favourite café. He finds out that he no longer
recognizes people but only sees the individual parts of their bodies as
independent objects. He does not identify any essence to them, instead they are
simply just there.
As the author rightly noted
in the Editor’s Note, the Nausea also
confirms the focus on one singular individual which is a major feature in
existentialism. It actually favours existentialism, a philosophical doctrine
that firmly supports the study of individual human beings existing
independently of cultures, traditions, and laws as against traditional
philosophical approach to objective and abstract understandings of human
behaviour.
Thus, this essay shall thus give an exposition of this
book of Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea, as
well as its relation to the other works of Sartre and his general philosophical
assumptions and convictions. To achieve this feat, this essay shall be divided
into three sections. The first section which highlights some of the pertinent
issues discussed in the Nausea namely: The Wondered Life, The Power of Goodwill
and Testimony of Roquentin shall serve as a kind of background to our further
discussion. The second section, will be an examination of Sartrean Nihilism
which will be narrowed down by our consideration of Sartre’s concept of
absurdity and nausea, ontology: consciousness, being-in-itself and being-for-itself,
and the concept of nothingness. This will lead to the third section which discusses
the aim of “existence precedes essence”, a critique of Sartrian existentialist
stance and a recapitulative conclusion which will finally close the curtain of
our essay.
2.0 WANDERED LIFE
Roquentin
began his diary in early January 1932, following his return from the Far East,
Central Europe, and North Africa. He moved to the seaside town of Bouville in
order to write a book about the Marquis de Rollebon. Roquentin's introductory
notes establish his intent to keep a diary. He feels that something has changed
in the way he sees objects, but he cannot quite place his finger on exactly
what. He hopes that a diary will help him better understand what is going on,
specifically, to see, classify, and determine the extent and nature of the
change. He recalls an odd sensation while holding a stone a few days earlier,
but is not sure whether the odd feeling came from the stone or himself. Despite
his feelings of disgust and being afraid of the stone, he is wary of
exaggerating the events he records in his diary. Indeed, he soon writes that
his odd feelings were nothing but a passing moment of madness and that there is
no longer any need to continue with his diary.
However, the
next entry dated January 29, 1932, opens with Roquentin's realization that
something strange has happened to him. He first thought that it was nothing but
a "passing moment" gives way to a permanent feeling of uneasiness
around objects and people. He hopes that it is nothing but an "abstract
change," but soon begins to worry that he is the one who has changed
little by little, overwhelmed by a sudden transformation. He recalls his
whimsical decision to leave Vietnam and return to France, terrified that it was
actually a precursor to his current state of mind.
The next day,
however, he becomes resigned to his fate, realizing that his solitary lifestyle
has changed him. He notices that living alone has prevented him from both
having friends and simply communicating with other people. When he looks inside
himself for answers, he finds nothing. Even when he has sex with Francoise, a
local barmaid, very little is said between them in the diary. Roquentin feels
that he is purging himself of a "certain nostalgia" rather than
feeling pleasure. Yet he does acknowledge that he would be lying to himself if
he began to think that nothing new has happened to him. When he looks at a
glass of beer or a soggy piece of paper lying in the street he is unable to
touch them despite his desire to do so. He does not feel free. Thinking back on
the strange feeling he had while holding the stone he recalls a "nausea of
the hands."
Roquentin
attempts to divert his anxiety with a historical research on the Marquis de
Rollebon, a mysterious aristocrat who lived around the time of the French Revolution.
Yet Roquentin's research begins to bore him. Ten years earlier he had been
fascinated with the story of the Marquis, but now feels that he is writing a
work of pure conjecture that has nothing to do with the real Marquis at all.
His work inevitably returns Roquentin to himself and his emerging disgust at
the outside world. Specifically, the changing appearance of objects in the
light of the sun makes him feel uneasy. When he tries to focus on the mystery
of Rollebon he can't help but look at himself in the mirror, alarmed that he
doesn't recognize his own face.[3]
2.1 CLARIFICATION ON THE
WONDERED LIFE
Existentialism
is primarily a reaction against the traditional philosophical approach to
objective and abstract understandings of human behaviour. Instead,
existentialists choose to study individual human beings who exist independently
of cultures, traditions, and laws. As Sartre stresses in the "Editors'
Note," not only have Roquentin's writings not been altered, but they are
his personal papers. This establishes the novel's focus on one singular
individual through the lens of his most personal documents. As such, they are
an accurate reflection of one person and nothing else; this is the main focus
of existentialist thought. Even though it will take some time for Roquentin to
understand exactly what is happening to both him and the objects and people he
sees, he has already begun to address the major themes of existentialism:
anxiety, suffering, freedom, and self-deception. In writing his diary, Roquentin
first intends to objectively study the changes he has observed; He wants his
diary to “see,” “classify,” and “determine,” just like a scientist would study
a phenomenon. But this soon proves impossible as the very qualities, or
"essences," of objects he seeks to describe no longer make any sense
to him. From the rotting piece of paper on the street to the dirty stone he
holds in his hands, Roquentin is unable to see, classify, or determine exactly
what he is looking at. This leads him to question his free will, since he is
unable to touch these objects; he is afraid of something but still not sure
what it is.
Roquentin
tries to pass off these odd sensations to his feelings of solitude. He worries
that living alone has allowed him to hide the truth of his loneliness from
himself. He fears that his diary will exaggerate events and later notes that he
wrote that "nothing new" had happened to him with a "bad
conscience." He soon admits that something causes him to lie to himself
since, "I am not in the habit of telling myself what happens to me."
Sartre termed this phenomenon "self-deception,"[4]
which resulted from an individual's inability to cope with their absolute
freedom. He believed that human choice is subjective since each individual is
different and unconstrained by laws, cultures, and traditions. They are thus
free to do whatever they want, but they consequently must accept full
responsibility for their actions. Fear and anxiety in the face of this vast
responsibility leads individuals to hide both their freedom and responsibility
from themselves by lying to themselves. For example, Roquentin tells himself
that he is "no longer free."
Roquentin's
research on the Marquis de Rollebon is important for three reasons. First, it
introduces the relationship between existence and time. Roquentin looks to the
past to find a reason for his existence in the present. But so many details
about Rollebon remain a mystery that he is confronted with the inaccessibility
of the past as well. This second theme leads Roquentin to believe that
objectivity is impossible, that nothing can be proved. In fact, he soon feels
that his writings about Rollebon are more about himself than the marquis.
Third, and most important, the presence of Rollebon introduces the
existentialist theme of duality. Sartre used Descartes' method of posing the cogito,
the individual's consciousness and the "other" part of himself or
herself that observes that consciousness. For example, Roquentin tries to draw
as many parallels between the marquis and himself that he can. Even when he
looks at himself in a mirror, he thinks of Rollebon looking in a mirror and how
they are both unattractive. This duality is reinforced by the similarities in
their names as well as the almost analogous spelling of Roquentin and
Rollebon's mistress, Roquelaire. Roquentin's dualistic personality allows him
to observe himself, but to his horror he does not recognize his own face. The
"nothingness" he perceives in his face recalls the anxiety he felt
while looking at the glass of beer and the crumpled piece of paper--but exactly
what this "nothingness" is still eludes him.
3.0 POWER
OF GOODWILL
This section primarily addresses the question
of time and free will. Roquentin realizes that he has been studying the past to
give meaning to his present. But when he discovers that his research about
Rollebon is meaningless and nothing more than educated guessing, he tries to
find a purpose to his life in the present. Yet the present is just as fleeting
as the past. Each moment that Roquentin attempts to call his present is
suddenly over and in the past. He does not see time as an interconnected
stream, but rather, a serious of discordant ragtime notes that are over just as
soon as they have begun.[5]
The themes of time and free will
also preoccupy Roquentin's search for the cause of his Nausea. His desire to be
free and self-sufficient provokes him to abandon his research on the Marquis de
Rollebon. He realizes that he had been attempting to "resuscitate"
Rollebon in order to justify his own existence. He decides that the past is a
meaningless concept that does not exist. Instead, he embraces the present as
the only moment where and when things do exist. He thinks that people emphasize
their past to take a "vacation from existence." For example, Anny
defines herself in relation to the man Roquentin used to be. As Sartre explained, this is an example of bad
faith: Anny rejects her freedom to choose her own essence because the
responsibility is too great.[6]
Roquentin also thinks that people tell stories so as to put time in a
recognizable and linear order, trying to "catch time by the tail." In
effect, while studying Rollebon, Roquentin not only deceived himself into
thinking that Rollebon was like him, but that he could fully understand himself
through the intermediary of a dead man.[7]
Consequently,
Roquentin sees that there is no beginning or end to any action, experience, or
account. This is why he begins reading books in random sections--it does not
matter where he starts, since the beginning and end are already implicit.
Roquentin's sudden realization that humans are unable to tame the flow of time
leads him to understand that he has been a victim of self-deception. He
believed that his "adventures" in the Far East were examples of his
ability to see time pass before his eyes with a distinct beginning, middle, and
end. He now thinks that this is impossible since the past does not exist. For
example, he claims that an actual adventure would involve the
"irreversibility of time."[8] He
understands that anything that occurs, such as a note of music, it
"dies" and becomes part of the past. He thinks that one can only
exist in the present. He also decides that historians try to describe current events
and people in terms of a convenient but meaningless past: Lenin was a Russian
.Robespierre, while Robespierre was a French Cromwell. In the end, one is left
with relative comparisons that signify nothing. Roquentin wants to free himself
from the meaningless past by perceiving objects and people on their own terms
and in the present.
Any
attempt to order time by telling a story tries to bring the past back to life,
attempting to "catch time by the tail." Which eventually leads to
futility. Therefore, this leads him to believe that human existence is
"contingent," or completely accidental. Since humans exist entirely
by chance, he concludes that existence is not a necessity and that there is no
reason or purpose to existence. Sartre used this argument to debunk the
traditional philosophical belief that human existence was the main focal point
in a reality grounded in reason. Sartre's proof self-contradictory came from
Charles Darwin's "rational" theory of natural selection, which argued
that the evolution of humanity was unimportant aspect of reality. Roquentin's
emphasis on contingency is a fundamental step in his awareness of the lack of
purpose, or "nothingness," which makes up existence. As
for Roquentin, rather than give up like the Self-Taught Man, he chooses a life
of creation, action, and commitment. Inspired by the ragtime record's timeless
quality (and the fact that he can listen to the same recording over and over
again), Roquentin decides to write a novel. He doesn't think it will make him
unaware of his own existence, but hopes that once it is written, it will make
sense of who he was. However, Roquentin
feels confident that he can survive his Nausea by ignoring anxiety, living a
life of action, and embracing responsibility. As Sartre wrote, "Life
begins on the other side of despair." What he meant from this saying
is a long discussion that starts with the discussions on fundamentals of
Existentialism – the philosophy that Sartre believed in. However, what we can
understand from the saying is that to understand the life and to live it
properly one has to go through a transformation – he has to experience various
difficulties, problems and even despair. During this transformation, he may
feel despair; and may experience nothingness. The world may look meaningless
and purposeless. The roads may look dusty and leading to nowhere. However, the
important thing is not to get stuck in this despair as the life is on the other
side of despair. It is not within it. This despair may prove to be a necessary
evil. It may provide an opportunity to a person to rethink about his life, to
rewrite its script and to rebuild his personality.
4.0 THE TESTIMONY OF
ROQUENTIN
Who is
Roquentin? Antoine Roquentin is the protagonist of the novel, Nausea. Satire
portrayed him as a 30 year old man[9]
who has travelled quite a lot and lives in Bouville, France and is now making a
research on a certain French aristocrat of the 18th century who
meddled in politics during and after the French Revolution known as Marquis de
Rollebon.
Roquentin
finds himself unable to complete his research on the Marquis de Rollebon. He
used to enjoy Rollebon's overt lies in letters to contemporary aristocrats, but
Roquentin now feels that Rollebon is lying to him personally. He had hoped that
by researching Rollebon, he would discover the truth about him just as easily
as he could learn about someone who was still alive. Yet, not only is Rollebon
dead but Roquentin thinks any understanding of the past to be a futile pursuit
at best. The Rollebon he though he knew was nothing but a man of his own
creation, who ended up disgusting him as much as he disgusts himself.
Roquentin's
attention turns to women instead. He tries to fondle Francoise under a cafe
table, but is thoroughly disgusted by the idea of sex. He imagines ants and
other vermin crawling up her leg, while a sudden attack of the Nausea makes him
want to vomit. He then receives a letter from his old lover, Anny. They have
not seen or spoken to each other since they parted ways in Vietnam five years
earlier. She writes that she is in Paris and desperately needs to see him. Roquentin
is first excited to see her but then recalls all the trouble they had
communicating with each other. He realizes that it is completely his decision
what happens next: he can either go see her or do nothing. He says that he
staggers under the weight of his responsibility.
When he tries
to remember more about Anny, he realizes that he can never have any real memory
of her: he feels that it is impossible to think of someone in the past.
Roquentin concludes that the past does not exist; in its place there is only an
enormous vacuum. He then comprehends that if one cannot learn from the past
they cannot learn from the present. Historians try to describe current events
and people in terms of a convenient but meaningless past: Lenin was a Russian
Robespierre, while Robespierre was a French Cromwell. In the end, one is left
with relative comparisons that signify nothing. Roquentin wants to free himself
from the meaningless past by perceiving objects and people on their own terms.
Roquentin
soon realizes that one of things that has been bothering him is the meaning of
existence. While roaming through the halls of the Bouville portrait museum, he
is confronted with hundreds of painted eyes both looking at him and recalling
the experiences that made them worthy portrait subjects. Roquentin thinks that
these men were so afraid of death that they relied on their past experiences to
give meaning to their lives. But Roquentin decides that the past is useless
since death can come at any moment--why try and hide from it?
As Roquentin
abandons his historical research he realizes that Rollebon had represented the
only "justification" for his existence.[10]
Sartre thus evokes three major existentialist themes through this relationship.
First, Roquentin must confront the meaningless of the past. Everything that he
thought he understood about the marquis was either a lie or something that
Roquentin inadvertently made up himself. As he exclaims in frustration, his
research explains "nothing, nothing at all; nothing." Second, since
he had been imagining what Rollebon was like rather than actually knowing the
truth about him, Roquentin created a figure in his own image, giving the
marquis many of his own personal characteristics. Nevertheless, even in the guise
of a "convenient past," Rollebon still makes no sense to him. As a
result, Roquentin must confront the truth that he no longer makes any sense to
himself. Behind Rollebon's seemingly persuasive "justification" for
his existence, Roquentin finds the real meaning of existence: nothing. Finally,
Rollebon's lies recall Sartre's doctrine of self-deception. Roquentin discovers
that he has been lying to himself. He had been trying to hide the meaningless
of his own existence through the intermediary of Rollebon. Behind Rollebon's
lies and Roquentin's own lies about Rollebon to himself, he finds only
self-loathing and nothingness.
Roquentin's
relationships with women also reveal a number of Sartre's ideas about
existence. For example, he often evokes and describes dirty body parts and
especially dirty genitalia to confront Roquentin with the overwhelming and
disgusting nature of existence. Sartre often spoke of the detestability of
existence. His descriptions of dirt and vermin "hide" the essences,
or characteristics of objects, making the usually invisible idea of their
existence a startling reality. When Roquentin touches a dirty object he is
disgusted by the sensation of the object's "existence," rather than
the physical characteristics that make up its essence. Roquentin's relationship
with Anny addresses the existentialist notion of freedom. Since Sartre believed
that each individual was unconstrained by conflicting objective standards, they
were faced with free and subjective choices. But this absolute freedom comes
with a price: responsibility for one's actions. The sheer burden of this
responsibility encourages anxiety and ultimately, the self-deception of denying
their freedom. For instance, Roquentin marvels at his freedom to either make
contact with Anny or ignore her. But he also "staggers under the weight of
his responsibility." As a result, he lies to himself, thinking that he has
no choice but to go visit Anny. However, Roquentin does realize that people use
the past to hide their responsibility in the present. He sees the portraits of
the successful men of Bouville as an attempt to use past experiences to defend
against the "responsibility of death."
5.0 SARTRIAN
NIHILISM
What
then is Jean Paul Sartre’s concept of nothingness? But the concept of nothingness
originated from Sartre’s concept of ontology and consciousness. It is in this
line of thought that this section of our essay attempts to examine Sartre’s
concept of nothingness. We shall to achieve this feat, plot a mini-thought
trajectory; beginning with his existentialist ontology and then an analysis of
what is meant by being-in-itself and being-for-itself. This provides the raw
material with which we shall focus then on an examination of his concept of
nothingness.
5.1. SARTRIAN
EXISTENTIALIST ONTOLOGY
Sartre’s
concept of consciousness is a follow up of Descartes cogito. While Descartes maintains that only consciousness
understood as cogito could constitute
the essence of a spiritual substantial being and hence only the human soul
could be such a thing, Sartre makes a distinction between two types of being or
reality which lie beyond our conscious experience: being in-itself (en-soi) and being for-itself (pour-soi). Being in-itself is a
non-conscious being which possesses essence since it exists independently of
any observer. Inanimate objects in the world are constituted by this category
of being.
Conversely, being for-itself is a conscious being and
it is its consciousness that renders it different from other things and their
relations to one another.[11] Sartre therefore
identifies the being for-itself with the being of consciousness. Here,
consciousness is always consciousness of something[12] for it is defined in
relation to something else, and it is not possible to grasp it within a
conscious experience. “The chief characteristic of the being for-itself is its
activity. It is incapable of being acted on from without and it consists in and
is exhausted by its own internal meaning conferring acts.”[13]
Like Descartes, Sartre asserts that “consciousness is
a great emptiness, a wind blowing toward objects. Its whole reality is
exhausted in intending what is the other. It is never self-contained or a
container; it is always outside itself.”[14] Consciousness is related
to the things in the world, which constitute the being-in-itself in a peculiar
way. It reduces the being in-itself to what it is for consciousness. Till this
point, Sartre is in agreement with Husserl, who proposes the intentionality
principle in order to characterize consciousness. However, Sartre parts company
with Husserl’s transcendental ego on the grounds that Husserl took
intentionality to be one of the essential features of consciousness. Contrary
to Husserl’s view, Sartre argues that intentionality is consciousness. For him,
consciousness must be a revealing intuition of things, the being of which is
everywhere.[15]
As said by Sartre, consciousness is never alone and it
is never isolated from the existing world. The transcendental ego (otherwise
called the “I”) is, for Sartre, the death of consciousness. He avows that the
existence of consciousness is absolute for consciousness is consciousness
itself. From this therefore, consciousness is said to be aware of itself in so
far as it is consciousness of a transcendent object.[16] As this view continues,
Sartre declares:
Consciousness is not for itself its
own object. Its object is by nature of it and that is why consciousness posits
and grasps the object in the same act. Consciousness knows itself only as
absolute inwardness. We shall call such a consciousness, consciousness in the
first degree or unreflected consciousness.[17]
Correspondingly, he opines that consciousness of
consciousness is initially pre-reflective and not reflective. It is
consciousness conscious of itself as consciousness of an object. On this view,
the nature of consciousness, Sartre would argue, is to be or to exist and to
have knowledge of self. Thus by nature, “all consciousness is
self-consciousness.”[18] For him, there is no
separation, no positing of the self as an object of consciousness. He sees
self-consciousness as nothingness such that it can exist because a being is
present to itself but that requires that the law of identity should not apply
to that being: “a self-conscious being, he accepts, is not itself.”[19] Hence, consciousness
always has an object; it is never by itself, and it always refers to something,
which is known. This is what is called intentionality of consciousness.
Intentionality, Sartre concludes, is the essential structure of consciousness.[20]
5.2 BEING-IN-ITSELF
AND BEING-FOR-ITSELF
As
earlier noted, Sartre, in his existentialist philosophy, expatiates on two
modes of being which form an important part of beings: the one is that enjoyed
by consciousness, otherwise called being-for –itself, the other being-in-itself
is that enjoyed by everything else.[21] The being- in-itself
refers to the objects that are just there. These objects have no awareness of or
value for themselves. On the other hand, being-for-itself refers to the being
of man. Sartre reminds us that contrary to other things, human beings are aware
of themselves and their consciousness of their own existence is central in
their being. Again, while the being-in-itself is the principle of objectivity
or facticity, the being-for-itself stands for the principle of subjectivity or
consciousness. The being-in-itself refers to the being of things, that is, to
their essences which are fixed and hence are neither active nor passive. The
being-for-itself refers to the being of individuals and their existence. Man
defines his own essence and gives meaning to his own existence through the
choices he makes.
Sartre argues
that, though the being-in-itself and being-for-itself are mutually exclusive;
they are nevertheless combined in human being. Man is both being-in-itself and
being-for-itself. Being in-itself says that being is what is. It is reality as
a whole, it is itself infinitely and unfolds eternally through the activity of
human consciousness. Sartre is in effect saying that being-in- itself has no
cause. If it did have a cause, it would not be “in itself” but “in its cause.”[22] Its principal
characteristic is its total self-identity. It is nothing within itself, without
the slightest suspicion of duality. The in-itself is full of itself and no more
total plenitude can be imagined.[23]
With the concept
of being-in-itself, that which is defined by facticity and an essence, Sartre
rejects Aristotle’s doctrine of potentiality, where things are conceived as
potentially evolving to higher and higher points of realization of their
essential nature. Aristotle cites an example of a seed evolving into a tree in
order to highlight this evolutionary aspect of reality. In opposition, Sartre
claims that whatever is, manifests itself in actuality and there cannot be any
potentiality for other than itself.[24] So, an object is no more
than what it is in itself. Thus, being-in-itself refers to the being of objects
and entities other than humans. Sartre says that
The being-in-itself is neither
passive nor active, neither an affirmation nor a negation. It is massive, rigid
and still and is that which it is. Therefore, it excludes other being and is
unrelated to other beings. It is a synthesis of itself with itself, fully
positivity, dense, massive and is beyond time. It is radically contingent,
inexplicable and absurd and there is no ultimate ground for the existence of a
being.[25]
Then again, being-for-itself is “a state of self-awareness
and control.”[26]
Being-for-itself or the being of human beings suggests the presence of a free
and knowing being such as a man in a rigid, immobile and deterministic
universe.[27]
These two aspects of being—in-itself and for-itself—represent facticity and
transcendence respectively. Facticity stands for the givenness of our context,
which we cannot change; and transcendence refers to our ability to transcend
facticity through our choices. We humans are always “more” than our situation.
Sartre maintains that, though the being of man is characterized by facticity,
it nevertheless does not prevent us from being free and exercising this
freedom.[28] Here, man has its nature as consciousness and
freedom is the essential characteristics of human consciousness because
consciousness is always consciousness of something other than itself. As such,
consciousness defines man as being what he is in the mode of not being it. He
articulates it this way:
I can be aware of my consciousness
but this awareness will always be an awareness of my being conscious of
something. This something, the object of my consciousness is obviously nothing
other than the conscious subject. It is of course, the in-itself. And in as
much as consciousness is a consciousness of something, it therefore separates
itself from something not itself.[29]
According to
Sartre, consciousness has no content as Husserl thought. Consciousness is born
and supported by a being other than consciousness itself. Put differently,
consciousness produces itself as a revealed revelation of a being which is not
consciousness itself and which gives itself as already existing when
consciousness reveals it. To add to this, he holds that consciousness is a
being such that in its being, it is in question in so far as this question
implies a being other than itself. The implication of this is such that,
consciousness is non-substantial or nothingness. And as nothingness,
consciousness is separated from its object or essence by not being that object
and hence preserves a distance from it. And so, in its nature as consciousness,
man continues to question his own nothingness. On this view, consciousness is
real yet it is nothing. For this reason, “everything is on the side of the
in-itself and nothing is on the side of for-itself. The in-itself is full of
concrete and whole being; the for it-self is nothing but the emptiness in which
the in-itself is detached.”[30]
On the long run, Sartre says that man
is both in-itself and for-itself. Hence there is an ambiguity surrounding man’s
being. It involves both facticity and freedom. Men are both physical
objects—and hence Being-in-itself— and self-consciousnesses--and hence
Being-for-itself. But the fact that the being of man is always a subject, and
never an object affirms that man is a fundamentally different kind of being.[31] This is why Mary Warnock
remarks that “man as a conscious being is distinguished as being-for-itself
from unconscious objects, which are being-in-themselves.”[32]
5.3.
THE CONCEPT OF NOTHINGNESS
Nothingness does
not nihilate itself, it is nihilated.[33] It therefore follows that
there must exist a being—a human person in whom nothingness resides in order to
support its being, to sustain perpetually in its very existence. Thus, for
nothingness to be meaningful, it is essential that there must exist a being.
But being, as it were, does not originate from nothingness, rather, nothingness
does.
Man is free
because consciousness is the origin of nothingness. And as Frederick Copleston
reports, consciousness must be other than being, not-being that is to say and
it must arise through negation or nihilation of being itself. Consciousness, as
this view continues, is that whereby negation or nihilation is introduced. By
its very nature, consciousness, which characterizes man’s being, involves or is
a distantiation or separation from being.[34] Hence, man is the being
through whom nothingness comes into the world.[35] Man is the
being-for-itself. But without being, the nihilation of the in-itself, there can
be no for-itself. Sartre says that its nothingness places it in a perpetual
struggle towards the in-itself.[36]
Sartre holds that
nothingness becomes apparent in man’s freedom. In a lucid way, he declares that
humans are nothingness, a lack of everything. And this nothingness is freedom;
man is freedom. Man, according to him, is not free to be free; he is condemned
to be free. This means that people are put on earth without their consent and
from then on, they are completely responsible for their actions. To be
completely responsible for one’s actions, Sartre is of the view that man is
never compelled; he is faced with a choice at every turn.[37] Using a thought
experiment, he argues that even if a man is imprisoned or a gun held to his
head, it is his choice whether to comply or defy—the consequence do not exempt
one from making that choice.[38] Similarly, Harold Titus
explains that if I am mobilized in a war, this war is my war, and I could
choose to face it or get out of it by suicide or desertion.[39]
And as Heidegger
points out, temporality is a feature of man’s being. Again, man projects
himself to the future. By doing this, he refuses to get freezed in his past. If
we are determined by our past, we would not be able to choose. But man makes
choices and defines his essence through that process. Hence, he negates his
past. Man projects himself to the future by virtue of negation of facticity and
freedom.[40]
This, however, would have been impossible in the absence of freedom of
consciousness which enables the human to identify both human persons and
objects in the world.
Against this
milieu, Sartre clarifies that being-in-itself contains no negation. For him,
negation is somehow transported into the world by consciousness. This, recounts
Sartre, is because the human person is the only questioning being so that
consciousness which reveals non-being to us through ordinary experience and the
act of mental judgment furnishes us with negative replies.[41] Consequently, he avers
that negation is the origin and the foundation of nothingness. He opines that
in order for negation to exist in the world, and in order to raise questions
about being, it is necessary that nothingness be accepted as a given which is
neither before nor after being, nor outside of being. For this reason, he wraps
up positing that nothingness lies coiled in the heart of being like a worm.
6.0 AIM OF EXISTENCE PRECEDES ESSENCE IN
SARTRE
According
to Jim Unah and Chris Osegwenwune, man, for Sartre, is essentially an
individual human being with his own life to live and his own death to die. By
this, if we refuse to assert our individuality we have no one to blame but
ourselves. For arising from our individuality are enormous freedom of actions
and a heavy burden of responsibilities. Sartre concludes, that ‘Man’ is totally
free. There is no human nature, Sartre affirms, and no heaven of values which
must guide his choices. Hence, in Sartre’s subjective, humanistic
existentialism, Man is therefore condemned to freedom.[42] This being the case, man
should act and invent values for himself, for action is the only thing that enables
a man to live. And since man is free, then, he is totally responsible for his
actions. Man cannot be free to act and at the same time deny responsibilities
for his actions.[43]
In a sense, Sartre
proposes an inescapability of freedom. But his theory of man’s being is not a
metaphysical theory of human subjectivity. He conceives freedom as an actual
feature of the lived human experience. Again, the concept of freedom does not
suggest a metaphysical theory of human nature. Inescapability of freedom does
not mean that each individual can choose whatever he wants. Sartre argues
that, freedom is inescapable as it determines the nature of our being. This
inescapability suggests that we have to make choices with responsibility. Even
when we refuse to make a choice, we are exercising our freedom and are unwittingly
making a choice, and when we refuse to take decisions, we have unknowingly
decided. Even to choose to be a slave of someone else or blindly imitating
others are all instances of freedom.[44] Hence, it is in man’s
interest to accept his total freedom and responsibility for his actions.[45]Of course, freedom has
been a central theme in Sartre’s existentialism. He defines freedom as:
I am condemned to exist forever
beyond my essence, beyond the causes and motives of my act. I am condemned to
be free. This means that no limits to my freedom can be found except freedom
itself. Human-reality is free because it is not enough. It is free because it
is perpetually wrenched away from itself and because it has been separated by a
nothingness from what it is and from what it will be. It is free, finally
because its present being is itself a nothingness in the form of the
“reflection reflecting.” Man is free because he is not himself but presence
himself… Man cannot be sometimes free and sometimes slave; he is wholly and
forever free or he is not free at all.[46]
Freedom is thus a crucial
fact concerning the being of man. Since man is not a being-in-itself, and hence
is separated from being, he is not determined by being and is essentially free.
Sartre says that human freedom precedes the essence of man and makes it
possible. Man makes himself through his choices and therefore, he is nothing
else but what he makes of himself.
Once more, the
idea of freedom also calls for the notion of responsibility. If we are free to
make choices in our lives, we are also responsible for those choices. Hence
freedom is linked with the possibility of authentic or truly human life. Sartre
affirms that, what is important is not what is chosen, but in what manner it is
chosen. Thus, in order to have an authentic life, one has to recognize the
inescapability of freedom and accept the responsibility associated with it. “Since
responsibility is associated with freedom, one cannot escape the anguish that
may follow the inescapability of freedom. Anguish therefore, is a condition for
freedom and action.”[47]
Freedom is the
free-act to make choices in life. It also implies that there are no eternal
guidelines or norms that have any transcendental validity which would help us
while encountering alternatives. Hence, there is uncertainty about the future.
Each choice will have consequences, on which we have no control. Some of these
consequences are better than others, but we can never know which choice leads
to better consequences. Our existential situation is our objective situation
and it leaves us as free individuals who have no objective guidelines. The
choices we have are not dependent on circumstances external to us. By choosing,
we make ourselves.
To exist
authentically is therefore a challenge. It is to live with the realization that
our freedom is boundless and we have no option but to make individual choices.
In the absence of transcendental norms and guidelines, it is bound to encounter
anguish and we have to accept this as a fact. It is part of our existential
situation. We have to act based on the choices we make and should not blame
external factors or circumstances. We have to take responsibility for choosing
them as we are free.
To further express
the experience of human freedom and responsibility, three themes are of
paramount importance. They are: “anguish”, “abandonment”, and “despair”. When
existentialists say that man is in anguish, they mean that a man who commits
himself, a man who realizes that he is not only the individual that he chooses
to be, but also a legislator choosing at the same time what humanity as a whole
should be, cannot help but be aware of his own full and profound responsibility.[48] Explicitly, Sartre
maintains that awareness of man’s total freedom and responsibility is
accompanied by anguish which, as Copleston notes, is akin to the state of mind
experienced by a man standing on the precipice who feels both attracted and
repelled by the abyss.[49]
To substantiate
this view, Sartre acknowledges that man may therefore try to deceive himself by
embracing some form of determinism, by throwing the responsibility on to something
apart from his own choice, God or heredity or his upbringing and environment or
what not. If however he does so, he is in “bad faith.”[50] To be more precise, Sartre
uses the term “bad faith” in more than one way. In its most general sense, it
labels the attempt to deny the basic structure of human being, that the way an
individual sees the world is determined by that individual’s character, which
in turn can be changed by that individual. We deny this by pretending that our
characters are fixed and unchangeable.[51]
Sartre explains abandonment as: “it is we ourselves,
who decide who we are to be”[52] Each human is left alone
to choose how to act: no matter how many consultations and obligations may push
you to act in a certain way, nothing can necessitate your choice. This
is why humans are – in a sense – abandoned in their own agency.[53] For the existentialist, abandonment
is such that God does not exist and that it is necessary to draw the
consequences of his absence right to the end. Sartre strongly opposes a certain
type of secular moralism which seeks to suppress God at the least possible
expense. For Sartrian existentialism, everything is indeed permitted if God
does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn.[54]
As for despair, Sartre argues that despair means: we
must limit ourselves to reckoning only with those things that depend on our
will, or on the set of probabilities that enable action.[55] Put differently, human
agency is marked by probabilities rather than necessary laws: no one can
necessarily predict how an agent is going to behave. This condition is referred
to as “despair” precisely because of the uncertainty that marks it.
7.0 A CRITIQUE OF SARTRIAN EXISTENTIALISM
Sartre’s
existentialist approach could be criticized on many grounds. But for the sake
of this paper and for brevity purposes, we will limit ourselves to only four
(4) criticisms.
Firstly,
Sartre’s existentialism with all its emphasis on unfettered freedom culminates
in extreme atomistic individualism. Slipping dangerously close to solipsism, he
denies the real relations that unite the individual to the society. He
envisions a world separate from the objective relations that surround man, and
the human relations he does see are those of isolated individuals. Jean-Paul
Sartre’s philosophy of absolute freedom led him to attenuate the reality of
others, of society and of history, in the individual’s quest for authenticity.
The inter-subjectivity of social relations and the externalized structure of
society simply could not be accounted for in Sartre’s thoughts. Paradoxically,
Sartre’s absolute freedom became a very limited freedom, since, the individual
does not have the freedom to influence others.[56]
Secondly,
Sartrean existentialism provides us with only negative values for our actions.
He merely tells us to avoid bad faith and repudiate acting in-authentically or
in alienation from ourselves. Authenticity simply tells us to acknowledge our
freedom in choosing. But this is morally inconsequential. Why? Because, it
contains no doctrines as to what is morally worth anything or what is morally
hideous.[57]
And since it indicates no positive direction, it merely leads us into moral
nihilism. If I am to follow the rule to repudiate in-authenticity then I should
at least know the positive meaning of authenticity. Sartrean existentialism
fails in this regard.
Thirdly,
Sartre wags a moralizing finger at us, make us morally anxious about falling
into bad faith, frightens us into avoiding in-authenticity, and into
recognizing that in choosing, we are free and are responsible for our choices.
But then, Sartre fails to provide us with any moral principles by which to
choose. Obviously, Sartre’s existentialism makes ethics impossible by rejecting
any general principles or ideals as the foundation of moral choice all in a bid
to deny God’s existence.[58]
Fourthly,
Sartre’s concept of freedom is replete and fraught with a big contradiction.
Sartre departed from determinism to arrive at a greater kind of determinism,
namely, absurd determinism. If man, for Sartre, is condemned to be free and is
even freedom, it implies that, man has no choice but to be free, he is not free
not to be free. Hence, man is determined to be free. If this is the case,
Sartre can be said to be promoting a fatalist and mechanical notion of freedom-
a form of determinism he vehemently criticizes. His existentialism appears lost
in the murky ground somewhere between the outright-explicit rejection of
determinism and the implicit assumption of determinism in the full affirmation
of human freedom. Sartre thus, attempts to throw a stone against theism to
ground his atheistic stand. To do this, he rejects determinism. The same stone
with which he does this, he throws at himself by proposing and assuming a
deterministic view of human freedom.[59]
8.0.
CONCLUSION
Following the
discussions so far, it is obvious that Sartre’s philosophy of authentic
existence tries to capture a picture of individual man and human reality by
placing emphasis on authentic human beings and their problems. He presents a
picture of human reality, which does not claim that ultimate solutions are
possible for all human problems. Instead, his existentialism encourages man to
accept his facticity and inescapability of freedom and urges him to lead a
reflective life with awareness by taking responsibility. He does not offer a
metaphysical theory of human destiny with a conception of the “greatest or
supreme good”, but instead reminds us the importance of living an authentic
life without quietism and pessimism.
Existentialism, Sartre therefore declares, is humanism.
Again,
so far, we have been able to examine Sartre’s existentialism and its
implications. However, despite the above short-comings, Sartre deserves
commendation for attempting to rescue philosophy from the blind alley of
determinism that reduced man to a mere ‘object’ controlled by historical
forces. His revolt (though taken too far) against the dehumanizing conditions
of man, owing to his French existential experience is quite admirable. As a
matter of fact, it is as a philosopher of freedom that Sartre that Sartre’s
contribution to existentialism is most brilliant. His greatest problem,
however, was his inability to work out for himself, the socio-ethical
implications of an atheistic philosophy of absolute freedom. If he did,
perhaps, the philosophical necessities inherent in his fundamental premise
would have carried him towards a theistic position.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary
Texts:
Sartre,
Jean-Paul. Nausea. England: Penguin
Books, 1965.
--------
Being and Nothingness. Trans. Hazel
E. Barnes. New York: Philosophical Library,
1956.
--------
Transcendence of the Ego. Trans.
Forrest Williams and Robert Kerrkpatrick. New
York:
Bantam Modern Classics, 1968.
----------
Existentialism is a Humanism. London:
Yale University Press, 2007.
Secondary
Texts:
1.
Bocheński, Joseph M., Contemporary European Philosophy, trans. Donald Nicholl and Karl Aschenbrenner.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956.
2.
Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy: 19th and 20th Century French Philosophy. London,
New York: Continuum, 2003.
3.
Grossrnann, Reihardt. Phenomenology and Existentialism: An Introduction. London: Routledge
and Kegan, 1984.
4.
Howells,
Christina (Ed.). The Cambridge Companion
to Sartre. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
5.
Kaufmann, Walter. Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre. New York: World
Publishing Company, 1956.
6.
Lawhead, F. William. The Voyage of Discovery: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy. Belmont:
Wadsworth, 2002.
7.
Lavine, T.Z. From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest. New York: Bantam
Books, 1984.
8.
Macquarrie, John. Existentialism. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1972.
9. Nellickappilly,
Sreekumar. “Jean Paul Sartre’s Concept of Human Existence,” Aspects of Western Philosophy, http://nptel.ac.in/courses/109106051/Module%205/Chapter%2038.pdf(13May,
2014).
10.
Olafson, Fredrick A., “Sartre Jean Paul”
in The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy
vol. 7. New York: Macmillan.
11. Ozumba, G.O. et al (Eds). Critical
Essays on Phenomenology and Existentialism. Calabar:
Jochrisam Publishers, 2010.
12.
Panza, Christopher and Gale, Gregory. Existentialism for Dummies. Indiana:
Wiley Publishing, 2008.
13.
Poster, M. Existential Marxism in Post-War France: From Sartre to Althusser.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975.
14.
Priest, Stephen (ed). Jean Paul-Sartre: Basic
Writings. New York: Routledge, 2001.
15.
Spade, Paul Vincent. Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (Fall 1995).
16.
Stokes, Philip. Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers. New York: Enchanted Lion Books,
2006.
17.
Thomas, King M., Sartre and the Sacred. London: The University of Chicago Press Ltd.
1974.
18.
Titus, Harold H., Living Issues in Philosophy. 5th ed. New York: D. Van
Nostrand Company, 1945.
19.
Unah, Jim. & Osegenwune, Chris. Phenomenology and Existentialism. Lagos:
Fadec Publishers, 2010.
20.
Warnock, Mary. Existentialism. London: Oxford University Press, 1970.
21.
Webber, Jonathan. The Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre. New York: Routledge, 2009.
[1] Jean Paul Satre, Existentialism is a Humanism, (New York:
Philosophical Library, 1947), p. 18
[2] Jean Paul Satre, Existentialism is a Humanism, (New York:
Philosophical Library, 1947), p. 60
[3] Cf. Jean Paul Sartre, Nausea (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965),
p. 14.
[4] Cf. Christina Howells (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Sartre,
(United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 48.
[5] Jean Paul Sartre, Nausea (New York: Penguin Books 1978),
p. 32-38.
[6] Jean Paul Sartre, Nausea (New York: Penguin Books 1978),
p.85
[8] Jean Paul Sartre, Nausea (New York: Penguin Books 1978),
p.56-58.
[10] Henri
Frédéric Amiel, Swiss philosopher and author of Journal intime (1861), E. T.,
Amiel’s Journal,trans. Humphry Ward (London and New York: Macmillan, 1891)
[11] Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, p. 9.
[12] Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, p. ix.
[13] Fredrick A. Olafson, “Sartre Jean
Paul” in The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy
vol. 7 (New York: Macmillan), pp. 290-291.
[14] Jean-Paul Sartre, Transcendence of the Ego, trans. Forrest
Williams and Robert Kerrkpatrick, (New York: Bantam Modern Classics, 1968), p.
22.
[15] Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre, Transcendence of the Ego, p. 24.
[16] Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre, Transcendence of the Ego, p. 40.
[17] Jean-Paul Sartre, Transcendence of the Ego, p. 41.
[18] See Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, p. ix.
[20] Cf. King M. Thomas, Sartre and the Sacred (London: The
University of Chicago Press Ltd. 1974), p. 23.
[21] Cf. Reihardt Grossrnann, Phenomenology and Existentialism: An
Introduction (London: Routledge and Kegan, 1984), p. 201.
[22] Paul Vincent Spade, Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness
(Fall 1995), p. 73.
[23] Cf. King M. Thomas, Sartre and the Sacred, p. 25.
[24] Cf. Sreekumar Nellickappilly,
“Jean Paul Sartre’s Concept of Human Existence,” Aspects of Western Philosophy http://nptel.ac.in/courses/109106051/Module%205/Chapter%2038.pdf
(13 May, 2014).
[25]
Joseph M. Bocheński, Contemporary
European Philosophy, trans. Donald Nicholl and Karl Aschenbrenner,
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956), p. 175.
[26]
Walter Kaufmann, Existentialism from
Dostoevsky to Sartre (New York: World Publishing Company, 1956), p. 43.
[27]
Cf. Joseph M. Bocheński, Contemporary European
Philosophy, p. 175.
[28]
Cf. Sreekumar Nellickappilly, “Jean Paul Sartre’s Concept of Human Existence,” Aspects of Western Philosophy http://nptel.ac.in/courses/109106051/Module%205/Chapter%2038.pdf
(13 May, 2014).
[29] King M. Thomas, Sartre and the Sacred, p. 280.
[30] Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, p. 21.
[31] Cf. Sreekumar Nellickappilly,
“Jean Paul Sartre’s Concept of Human Existence,” Aspects of Western Philosophy http://nptel.ac.in/courses/109106051/Module%205/Chapter%2038.pdf
(13 May, 2014).
[32] Mary Warnock, Existentialism (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 93.
[33] Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, p. 22.
[34] Cf. Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy: 19th and 20th
Century French Philosophy (London, New York: Continuum, 2003), p. 352.
[35] Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, p. 24.
[36] Cf. Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, p. 357.
[37] Cf. Philip Stokes, Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers (New
York: Enchanted Lion Books, 2006), p. 153.
[38] Cf. Philip Stokes, Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers, p.
153.
[39] Cf. Harold H. Titus, Living Issues in Philosophy, 5th
ed. (New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1945), p. 312.
[40] Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, p. 142.
[41] Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, p. 232.
[42] Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre,
Existentialism is a Humanism (New York: Philosophical Library, 1947), p.28.
[43] Jim Unah & Chris Osegenwune, Phenomenology and Existentialism, p.
137.
[44] See Sreekumar Nellickappilly,
“Jean Paul Sartre’s Concept of Human Existence,” Aspects of Western Philosophy http://nptel.ac.in/courses/109106051/Module%205/Chapter%2038.pdf
(13 May, 2014).
[45] Jim Unah & Chris Osegenwune, Phenomenology and Existentialism, p.
137.
[46] Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, pp. 439-440.
[47] Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, p. 358.
[48] Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism, p. 25.
[49] Cf. Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, p. 358.
[50] Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, p. 358.
[51] Cf. Jonathan Webber, The Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre
(New York: Routledge, 2009), p. 89.
[52] Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism, p. 34.
[54] Cf. Stephen Priest (ed), Jean Paul-Sartre: Basic Writings, p. 32.
[55] Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism, p. 35.
[56] Cf. G.O. Ozumba et al (Eds), Critical Essays on Phenomenology and
Existentialism (Calabar: Jochrisam Publishers, 2010), pp. 144-145.
[57] Cf. T.Z. Lavine, From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic
Quest, p.373.
[58] Cf. G.O. Ozumba et al (Eds), Critical Essays on Phenomenology and
Existentialism, pp. 144-145.
[59] Cf. G.O. Ozumba et al (Eds), Critical Essays on Phenomenology and
Existentialism, pp. 144-145.
Comments
Post a Comment