Jean Paul Sartre

Being and Nothingness

Introduction

Jean Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness ranks among the most important philosophical works of the twentieth century. It is also the most penetrating and thorough exposition of his existentialist philosophy. It is very difficult to summarize such a lengthy and complex work, but what follows are some of the fundamental points Sartre makes.

Nothingness

Sartre begins by discussing the concept of nothingness. If the world presents itself as being, where do we get our idea of nonbeing? According to Sartre, the concept of nonbeing comes from the apprehension that the world could be something than it already is. To borrow one of Sartre’s examples, if you are meeting a person at a restaurant, that person’s absence from the restaurant is, for you, an important aspect of your experience of the restaurant. The restaurant presents itself as a multiplicity of things, but you experience it in terms of the absence of your friend.

This brings up, for Sartre, a distinction between facticity and meaning, both of which are elements of our experience. Facticity has to do with the things in the world as we confront them, whereas meaning has to do with the attitudes and expectations that we have regarding those facts. In the sense that we choose meaning, we choose the world, or more precisely, we are responsible for the world.

In a famous example, Sartre discusses a hiker who comes across a boulder in a path. The hiker could choose to play the victim and turn back because the boulder is in the way. The hiker could choose to play the hero and find a way around the boulder. The hiker could choose to be aesthetic and view the boulder as a work of art to be admired. The hiker could also play the scientist and examine the boulder to determine its composition. In each case, what the boulder is, is a reflection of the free choice of the hiker.

Anguish

According to Sartre, our freedom is a source of anguish. He distinguishes anguish from fear. Fear is the fear of something outside of ourselves. To use Sartre’s example, if I am walking along a steep cliff, I might have fear regarding the possibility that a strong wind will blow me off balance and that I will fall. Anguish is directed toward the self. The idea that I might for one second decide to jump would cause me anguish. Anguish is thus an unease at the recognition of our own freedom.

This anguish is compounded by our relations with others. Just as we choose the meanings of objects, we also make choices about the meaning of the actions or physical presence of others. That is, we interpret peoples’ actions as a means to determine what type of people they are. Even though the actions are free, once a person has been judged to be a certain type, we interpret their actions in relation to that type.

This makes us aware of what Sartre calls “being-for-others”. We become aware that our own actions are being perceived by others in the same way, and we thus construct our actions as they relate to the interpretations of others. This leads to a condition that Sartre refers to as “bad faith”.

Bad Faith

Bad faith occurs as a disjunct between what one does and who one is. In other words, we see some of our actions as not reflective of who we are To explain this, let’s consider the film “Grease”. In that movie, Danny Zuko has some kind of fling with Sandy Olssen over the summer. Unbeknownst to him, she transfers to his high school in the fall. The first encounter each other at a pep rally. At first, there is a moment of recognition when he sees Sandy. Then, he realizes his friends (Sartre’s other) are watching. He remembers he is Danny Zuko. Danny Zuko does not lose his head over a girl, especially a cheerleader like Sandy. At that moment, he reverts to a “cool” posture. When she sees his change in demeanor, she asks, “Where is the Danny Zuko I met at the beach?” “I do not know,” he responds and then suggests she take out an ad to find him! So he’s Danny Zuko, but not Danny Zuko--- bad faith.

Later, he “accidentally” encounters Sandy at the juke box—more bad faith. At that moment, in explaining his actions, he says, “It wasn’t me.. it was me, but it wasn’t me.” He is both correct and incorrect in this statement, according to Sartre. He is a free being, and so he doesn’t have to be the Danny Zuko that everyone expects him to be. That expectation is his being-for-others (how he presents himself) and not his being-in-itself, which is completely free to determine his actions. On the other hand, those actions were his actions, so it was him.

Alienation and Authenticity

Thus, for Sartre, the human condition is characterized by alienation, a state in which we are all strangers to each other because we condition our actions to respond to the context in which the observer places them. We are also strangers to ourselves because we adopt certain roles in order to lessen our anguish regarding the consequences of our total freedom. The goal is to reach a state of authenticity, in which our actions are truly our own, and not dictated by some contrived construct of who we are. Until we can present ourselves honestly to ourselves, we cannot present ourselves honestly to each other. This for Sartre is the challenge of modernity.