Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Graduate School
Soc. Sci 612
Sartrean Existentialism
Existence precedes essence
This is a reversal of the Aristotlean premise that
essence precedes existence, where man exists to fulfill
some purpose. Sartrean existentialism argues that man has
no predefines purpose or meaning; rather, human define
themselves in terms of who they become as their individual
lives are played out in response to the challenge posed by
existence in the world.
Values are subjective
Sartre accepts the premise that something in the
Facticity (properties of an object or person as traditionally
conceived and experienced) of an individual is valuable
because the individual consciousness chooses to value it.
Sartre denies that there are any objective standards on
which to base values. However, this should not be confused
with post modernism. Sartre clearly believed that systems
of consciousness followed clear and solid rules.
Bad Faith
Sartre believed that people lie to themselves and,
underneath these lies, people negate their own being
through patterns. The preceperi is similar to what today is
called insight. It is necessary to get rid of bad faith.
The Gaze
Sartre believed that beings possess the power to
look at themselves and at another or an object, which is to
use ones mind to look at the person in static. This concept
of looking and the power to look, is referred to as the
Gaze. This destroys an objects subjectivity. The things
becomes an in itself or an object. Sartre stated that this
form of consciousness was used quite often in interpersonal
relationships. People place meaning onto what other people
think of them rather than what they think of themselves.
This process of radically re-aligning this meaning from the
Gaze onto ones own being is what leads to periods of socalled existential angst.
Being for others
Sartre believed that people who cannot embrace
there freedom seek to be looked at that is, to be made an
object of anothers subjectivity. This creates a clash of
freedoms whereby person As being (or sense of identity) is
controlled by what person Bs thoughts about him are.
Responsibilities for Choices
The individual consciousness is responsible for all
the choices it makes, regardless of the consequence.
Condemned to be free because mans actions and choices
are his and his alone, he is condemned to be responsible for
his free choices.
There are several terms Sartre uses in his works
Being in-itself is an object that is not free and cannot
change its essence. Being for-itself is free; it does not need
to be what it is and can change into what it is
not.Consciousness unusually considered being for-itself.
Sartre distinguish between positional and non-positional
consciousness. Non-positional consciousness is being
merely conscious of
ones surroundings. Positional
consciousness puts consciousness into relation of ones
surroundings. This entails an explicit awareness of being
conscious of surroundings. Sartre argues identity is
constructed by this explicit awareness of consciousness.
Other Works with Existentialist themes and provided a
welcoming climate for existentialism:
Gautama Buddhas teachings
Bible (Book of Ecclesiastes, Book of Job)
Saint Augustine (Confessions)
Saint Thomas Aquinas
Mulla Sadras Writings
John Locke in his advocacy of individual autonomy and
self-determination
Human Freedom
The word freedom is taken from the Latin word
liber (Libertas) which means free. Literally, freedom is the
right of an individual to think, act, or live as he chooses
without being subjected to any restraints and restrictions by
necessity or force.
All men seem to be at least experientially aware of
freedom in choice. The experience is so primary, in fact, that
it is difficult to conceive oneself operating as if there were
no freedom at all. It has often been maintained that this
universal experience of freedom provides the greatest proof
for its own experience.
B.F. Skinner, an extremely influential behavioral
psychologist from Harvard seems to affirm that man is not
free because: a.) all present behavior is controlled by
previous behavior, including the entire network of
environmental, psychological, and educational stimuli which
have shaped our present characters and personalities, and
b) all behavior (even the dropping of a book of matches) has
motivational causes which are necessitating causes. We
might summarize this basically by saying: man is determined
by his historicity.
Quite to the contrary of skinner, Jean-Paul Sartres
position seems to be one of absolute indeterminism or total
freedom. In Sartres view man actually has no history. The
individual has only his future project which he makes
entirely of himself and or which he alone is responsible. Man
is so free, so indeterminate, that he cannot even be defined.
Abraham
Maslow
offers
something
of
a
compromise position. Man cannot be reduced
to his
historicity , to his environment, to determinism nor can man
be totally divorced from them. To be a human person means:
a) to have potentialities which liberate him from blind
necessity-to be able to know, question, and mold himself,
and b) to be inserted into an environment and history which
help him actualize these potentialities.
Structured Freedom
Sartre and Skinner, concentrate on levels of human
reality to the exclusion of other levels. One realm covers
mans historicity and given structure; the other realm covers
man transcendence in free questioning. Skinner focuses of
the first. Consequently he stresses mans physical, genetic,
biological
facticity,
the
external
structures
of
environmental, psychological, and historical givens, and
the way in which mans presence has been conditioned by
the history of his past. Sartre on the other hand
concentrates on the second. Thus he emphasizes mans
release from immediate, blind demands and his ability to
shape and confront his facticity. In addition, he dwells on
mans ability to question, to negate or validate external
givens, and on his openness to knowledge and love. But
the point is that integral human existence includes both of
these realms or levels. Consequently, if man is free, his
freedoms will involve both realms of his experience and any
interpretation of man must be able to integrate both realms.
Absolute
determinism
either
omits
the
data
of
transcendence and questioning or tries to reduce it to
external forces. Absolute determinism ignores mans
history and structure or tries to wish it out of existence.
Structure then is not only compatible with
freedom; it is fundamental to all human growth, evolution,
and process. Freedom is exercised only within the structure
of ones humanity and ones historicity; and it is the vehicle
by which one can remain faithful to ones humanity and
history. In Conclusion we might say:
a. Structures are the offerings of the human world.
Structures embrace historicity, environment, the
community of thought, cultural and moral heritage.
b. Structure is also the internal constitution of being a
man with human potentialities. It is the reason why
values and demands merge from his own identity as a
questioning self, a knower, a lover.
c. The structure of being a man is the basis of internally
self-constituted values.
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Human Love
What is love? The question has been asked since the
time of Plato, not only by professional philosophers but by
the people from all walks of life. The very fact that this
question of what love is still being asked seems to show
that love is part and parcel of mans life, and a philosophy of
man is incomplete without a philosophy of love, of man as
loving.
On the other hand, love is pictured many times as an
act of possessing or being possessed by another person.
People fight and struggle in the name of love. I love you
has come to mean you are mine and I want you to do the
things I want, I want you to be what I want to be. Or else, it
has come to mean I am yours, and you can do whatever
you want me to.
Erich Fromm in his famous book, The Art of Loving
mentions the fact that the popular notion of love at present
is falling in love. People have the misconception that there
is nothing to be learned about love, that love hits a man like
lightning. He attributes this popular notion of love to three
reasons:
1. the emphasis on being loved rather than on
loving
2. the emphasis on the object loved rather than on
the faculty of loving
3. the confusion between the initial state of falling
in love and the permanent standing in love.
Loneliness and Love
The experience of love begins from the experience and
loneliness. The experience of loneliness is basically a
human experience. Because man as man is gifted with selfconsciousness, there comes a point in the stage of mans
life that he comes to an awareness of his unique self and
possibilities open to him. He becomes aware that he is
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