Sartres Existenstentialism/Humanism

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

existential humanism?
what exactly does he mean by existance comes before essence? obviously somehitng can’t have charectoristics if its non-existant. i’ve been told Sarte is boring and and an elementry read.
But can you really justify judging someones philosophy on the grounds of boredom? i think
he had some interesting insights into the apparent pessimism associated with existentialism. what is so bad about human nature? were born aware, every day brings new
perceptions/conceptions, every day brings new oppertunities for success/failure and pleasure/pain. If i fuck up yesterday a new day always follows and i see that as optimistic.

does thought preceed every action? id like to think that is the case, but there are examples(usually which require so litte thought we don’t recognize its happening)where it seems we act without putting any thought into the action. i’d like to think of the definition of a rational person as one who thinks before they act, that said we’re not all equally as rational. some people are blinded by ignorace and some blinded by misperception/misconception. we all have a limited capacity for any action/idea we undertake, we also have varrying degrees of commitment to those ideas/actions. (i might never want to give someone my money, but a man with a gun to my head or a written constitution may convince me otherwise)

2

is it ironic that Satre optimistic view of mans freedom came 2 years after the end of world war 2?

3

He means that there is not some pre-existing mold into which he was poured or some prior purpose for his being here on earth. Reality is absurd, and we really have no reason for our existence which we can discover. We have to create it. We don’t find our purpose, we make it. That’s what freedom is. We choose our projects and put meaning into our lives. We have to take responsbility for our essences. We are what we do.

We are not objects to be shaped and molded by external stimuli over which we have no control. We are not victims of our environment. We are subjects. Our natures are not fixed and completed, as are the natures of the things-in-themselves, the things without freedom. We are incomplete and participate in the creation of our own natures. We are the things-for-themselves, and we are still in a process of becoming. We exist, become aware of our existence, and then work on our essences. Existence prior to essence.

bis bald,

Nick

4

A prominent late German thinker said of Sartre that all he did was take a metaphysical position and reverse it–and so he has not accomplished much.

If we are what we do, and that is the extent of freedom (which is really isn’t in all due fairness to Sartre)—than what advance has been made in understanding a philosophical problem–
it is journalistic philosophy.

snowblue

5

Try reading some of the excellent material on Sartre on symposia.

6

Here

Here

Here

And here

Or just search for Sartre on the Symposia frontpage.

7

People knock Satre for good reason… .

But he still did enough to warrent an investigation of his work. I find Camus and Dostoy more enjoyable but think of Sartre as fiction with an added spice.

8

He places this on top of the explanations for freedom, that man is a being-for-itself, a subject, not fixed and complete like the objects. Man has to partcipate in creating his own nature. He is “forced to be free.” And, he creates himself with each new decision. However, he is in self-deception if he thinks he is a hero when he runs away from confrontations. He is what he does.

bis bald,

Nick

9

whew I was already getting withdrawl symptoms…

I really love Being and Nothingness. One thing that strikes me is his "neutral” depiction of bad faith or self deception.
It seems to be almost a condition of the human condition.
You can slip from transcendence to facticity and back almost instantly and once
you see yourself one way you are on the way to being the other.
e.g. for the waiter in the cafe to “play” at being a waiter
he must see himself as a fully human man “playing” being a waiter.
On the other hand the girl whose paw has just being “taken” by the lad
on the bench retreats into her spiritual/transcendent/fully woman side
and abandons her hand in the physical.
So it can go in either direction.

This is all well and good and reads very nicely for me.
Bad faith is necessary to be a fully realised human being and keep going.
We have to decieve ourselves.

Then we come to existentialism is a humanism and suddenly JUDGEMENT CALL!
Every time I make a decision I make a moral call for the human race
(an obvious and crude fall back to Kant).
“Bad faith” is, suddenly, a “bad thing” a refusal to face up the consequences of your action
s and your human existence

I can see why people don’t like this talk.
It does seem a retreat from the more honest appraisal in B + N.
OK I can understand it was after the war and that he was leaning to the communists. But it destroys the his subtly nuanced psychology/phenomenology in B + S for me

Krossie

10

“You’re Free - Choose - that is - Invent.” Jean Paul Sartre

11

he lived his contradictions failure of thoughts, he wanted to see his desires a reality to be detached of what brought them to his body, but he failed the menage a trois the happiness he was sure of him turned to be hell in the most profound sense, as he saw that you could achieve to be your desires but others will always force you to deny making the truth you want

12

Yes, and I think he had to do this to escape the charge of relativism. Otherwise, his ethics would be personal and irrelevant, like one’s taste in icecream.

bis bald,

Nick

13

I suppose this charge of relativism haunts most existentialism and also “post structuralism”. I think its sort of to his credit that he never developed “a system of ethics” Seems that philosophy 101 is

a - Construct meta physics
b - Use metaphysics to build system of ethics

Surely “the message” of existentialism is that you do construct your own ethics - personal and irrelevent though they maybe.

Mnd you supposedly he was working on ethics. The lecture is just a pure reversion back to Kant and a “retreat” for me any how.

Krossie

14

“keep em laughing as you go - just remember that the last laugh is on you…”

Monty Python - Life of Brian

You stand up to deliver those lines you have been “running” in your head for months. You walk centre stage. But the set has been dismantled, the lines have slipped out of your pocket, the audience are gone home and you’re all alone. But you still have something to say…

Krossie (after Camus I guess)

15

are ones ethics any more than personal preferances based on a core/absolute set of beliefs?

16

murder is bad because death is bad. (murder is stealing someones life)

stealing is bad because possesions are good and don’t come free.

rape is bad because rape is the forcefully taking possesion of someone else(even if its for a short time)rape is forcefully stealing sex.(one of our most prized possesions)

if you steal from someone, whether its thier life, thier body, thier other possesions its immoral.

17

condition of human being borned to be forced to learn how to ignore his true needs of consideration of him being real choosing to fake appearance of well being in scenes denying his soul for just a show a powerful maker decided it for one joy you cannot understand, is the truth of pain condition to be one man in this world, this is the truth of all men condition living on earth, now if you can accept this truth of us all you would more clearly see how moral rules are in truth feelings of guiltiness because of what you want to avoid, it is of our nature condition to will avoid its reality of pain, in a sense it is a sane reaction to choose to survive in smiles as much as you can despite the darkness of not feeling doing what you are forced to, because it is our reality that we are not doing any and we don’t know how or why, so it is likely sane to love yourself as noone will in adapting your mind of the force ruling your world, giving your frighten soul as much as you can of feeling alive little peace of the fakeness being considered and loved, this is the depth of the bright healthy behaviour of lying to oneself, but only in one condition being aware that this is the best choice you got, in order to remain alive, in that sense we can see how morality is an existant range of values given from the conscience of real human conditionning agressing its soul, so what is stealing or raping in that sense? what i want to say trevor, is to show how you shlould always keep faith in truth to justify all your feelings or thoughts, stealing like jeanvaljean a piece of bread from a shop that bake plenty to eat is sane thing to do, like copying another smiling face hoping you could pretend to be him stealing his cloths to escape the pain doubled of what you feel you can’t do the same on your own i think it is sane too, that is how this smiling face could even enjoy to give more if he is smart to stay close to the truth of pain by giving more truth to the issue he found, this is how a better world could be of awakened minds, so now you could see what could be judge as bad doing to souls captured to say in pain conditions, bad could be assimilated to idiots in that sense you can see how good is of intelligence, when you deny the truth of pain to an extend that you would appear being lies, like one man convincing himself that money is making all the happiness he buys or another who will put behind a mind crying for help judging him of not being and deserve to hell of pains, instead of giving power to your fake happiness of the truth you feel of you inside, this is bad as stupid in the sense of giving to what you are doing a reality of making the issue of problems you were of, in the general perspective of what is happening it is bad because you are destroying the truth, and the truth is your creator destroying it of your life is making the earth die as a dry tree, you cannot be outside nature truth who give you birth, the issue is not the lies but to love your nature as much as you can, in a more down to earth perspective, bad is forcing the pain in others who deserve the issue of loving their nature to give your mind a pleasure unsane of being less fake of others pains truth that you show clearly you don;t want, you don;t want to feel the pain but you want the others meritant workers of truth to steal their merit deserve to give to your bad issue of destroying the truth of its roots. do you see how revolting it is? can you understand at what extend it is bad? i am saying this utilitarian demonstrations to convince of my shouting revolt, what moves me is not what we could do to save the earth and make it a better place to live even if i am see it as a good thing to look for if you like to make, as you, but for me all i care of in depth is the pains in souls its need of peace those shouting to my ears i cannot bare, and also the passion of being that i feel of seeing the smile on the face of someone who knows and wont escape the paintruth, i feel this is heroism i like so much those men it will make my joy tears thanking God for this profound means of being of nothing but a soul who doesnt asked for any and cannot understand why isnt it ok to be nothing and still smiling to each beauty another is making without being his slave or under his strength protection, why cant we feel safe when we are not doing or thinking any bad? it is not logical to my ears it is absurd

18

look how truth is always of God creator from his feelings therefore it is everywhere you see serving different aspect of the same wish of one God, unsecure condition of human existance based on fears of agressions to non existance beings, based on the threats of dying for other pleasure of you in flesh, why do you think is that our condition being? you will say it is our sins because we don’t love each others God made a reality hunted to awake our souls and open our mind to his path, you will say every man and soul will get what it deserved, i say, you cannot create what you are not especially God, as more you are as more you will be in everything you does, there is nothing but Him how He would do such evil things powerful in all times just to say love? my point is He is saying in evil desires the hate gender of not being loved, that is why usually He will make for a serial killer scenes of profound hate to his body as a child where the soul is more awake, so he could justify in truth a mind based on his feeling of not being loved, God is being here as He is alone in all of what He knows of being alone justifying to men his behaviors desires of beasts of the absence he never felt so deep, He is saying i give you consciousness to see what i do so you could be as i want to feel, i could give you to be in real if you show a free will of choosing to love me in depth, love my means i would give, love any feelings or whisper to your ears, love me in any smiling face i would bring to your doors, love me in rejecting of your life any word or a soul who denies serving my goal, you can see from that that God love is not true yet, in love there is no give and take, you cannot harm someone you love to force him to say what he is loving you in real, He wants to feel we love Him in fake or in true, i hope for our children next slaves they would benefit more of truth of God Love He achived in thinking the depth of His evil leasures, the point is not that, always all in God being, the point is more the pity of men being slaves, unconscients of any they say, don’t hate your brother in other religion or land, we have the same roblems we are on the same boat of noones land, we can with the ability He gave us to see Him, we can use it to see us also as we are inside His choice, He said he loves us in what we feel of him in others voices or scenes he made to give you peace and joys, but you can do better to receive love you need of seeing others, we are the same almost, so there is others for us, He NOT, i may love you more than God would love you in fact, you exist for me more, if only someone could understand and feel it as i do, you would make the will of God, of the maximum truth of yours, all this desires to be a writer famous or a hot shot in having fun everywhere it goes, will not lead anywhere because of the truth, everything you could do of a feeling is to pretend being to avoid the pain of the truth not being, unless you look deep to the eyes of another to see that you are, this is what is saying i guess, it is very deep, you are only if another loves you truely because of what he saw in you of something he enjoys to watch the most, once you have the true feeling of being loved you don’t need anymore to say you are in making, than you will make what you really enjoy seeing done, and i guess God is saying that the best to make in truth is to get a deeper sense of love, you will be more in making less, you would receive without making any you dont want, being free to make only what brings you love, beauty to adore

19

say thanks to another who is giving an honest consideration to your feelings or thoughts of the conscience to thank God for his will to make you be in deserving by helping others to grow as looking for your growth of the means to be