Sartres Being and Nothingness

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Sartres Being and Nothingness

• Part IV Having, Doing, Being
• Chapter One Being and Doing Freedom
• I. Freedom The First Condition of Action
• To be is to act, and to act is to modify the
  shape of the world (291).
• Acts are intentional.
• Acts are autonomous, nothing can determine them
  (see bottom 292).

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On Freedom

• Freedom has no essence, and remember that a
  human being (Dasein) is freedom, so quoting
  Heidegger existence precedes and commands
  essence (292).
• Thus freedom is not a property of a human being,
  and one cant be more or less free or only free
  sometimes.
• I am condemned to exist forever beyond my
  essence, beyond the causes and motives of my act.
  I am condemned to be free (292).

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Chapter Two Doing and Having

• I. Existential Psychoanalysis
• Although is shares a few points in common with
  Freudian or empirical psychoanalysis, there are
  significant differences.
• A common point is that they see the symbolism of
  psychic life pointing to fundamental structures
  and attitudes.

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Empirical vs. Existential Psychoanalysis

• Illusion of substance view of desires in a
  person
• Erroneous search for empirical desires, or a
  complex, or some state or psycho-biological
  residue

• Recognizes nothing before upsurge of freedom
• Rejects unconscious hypothesis
• Views man as a totality, not a collection
• Seeks original choice

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Existential Psychoanalysis

• In existential psychoanalysis the goal is to
  decipher empirical behavior patterns to
  determine the original subjective choice by
  which each living person makes himself a person
  (298).
• Thus existential psychoanalysis is a moral
  description (300).

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Conclusion

• I. In-Itself and For-Itself Metaphysical
  Implications
• Have we got an insurmountable dualism? What is
  the relation between Being-in-itself and
  Being-for-itself?
• There is an a priori unity, a synthetic
  connection between the two.
• Being-for-itself is the nihilation of
  being-in-itself it is like a hole of being at
  the heart of being (299).

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Conclusion

• II. Ethical Implications
• Ontology itself cannot formulate ethical
  precepts, but an existential ethics will
  focus on human reality in situation (300).
• An existentialist ethics will reject the
  spirit of seriousness that considers values as
  transcendent givens independent of human
  subjectivity (301).
• An existentialist ethics will reveal to the
  moral agent that he is the being by whom values
  exist.