{"id":691,"date":"2024-07-03T19:16:27","date_gmt":"2024-07-03T16:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/?p=691"},"modified":"2025-11-20T19:44:45","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T16:44:45","slug":"jean-paul-sartre-existentialism-is-humanism-being-and-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/2024\/07\/03\/jean-paul-sartre-existentialism-is-humanism-being-and-nothing\/","title":{"rendered":"Jean-Paul Sartre. Existentialism is humanism. Being and Nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was born in Paris to a naval officer, Jean-Baptiste Sartre (who died when his son was only two years old), and Anne-Marie Schweitzer. The future writer and philosopher grew up in the family of his grandfather, Charles Schweitzer (the famous humanist thinker Albert Schweitzer was his nephew), an academic teacher and author of textbooks in the spirit of Voltairean freethinking and hatred of any tyranny. His grandfather\u2019s huge library nourished his grandson\u2019s young mind and predisposed him to a variety of interests. The family lived in \u201cbourgeois prosperity,\u201d and the child was protected from all sorts of life\u2019s hardships, being a \u201cgood boy,\u201d confident in the well-being of the entire world, which he comprehended through books: \u201cI began my life, as, in all likelihood, I will end it \u2014 among books\u201d (4: 381). Since he did not believe in God, he found in the book \u201chis religion\u201d and \u201chis temple\u201d (4: 390, 479). This childish godlessness (\u201cChildhood decides everything,\u201d Sartre believed) resulted in the conscious atheism of the future philosopher, and the \u201cLeibnizian optimism\u201d of a happy child \u2014 when confronted with a harsh and painful reality \u2014 transformed into a sharp rejection of it, rebellion and cynicism.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In 1924, Sartre graduated from the Lyc\u00e9e Henri IV in Paris and received a bachelor’s degree. In 1928, he completed his education at the elite Ecole Normale Sup\u00e9rieure and entered the philosophy graduate school at the Sorbonne, where he met Raymond Aron, Levi-Strauss, Merleau-Ponty, E. Mounier, the future spiritual leaders of France. There he also met Simone de Beauvoir, later a famous writer, awarded the Nobel Prize, who became his wife and a convinced ideological ally. She will write several biographical books: “Memoirs of a Young Girl from a Good Family” (1958), “The Power of Age” (1960), “The Power of Things” (1963), in which she will trace the vital and spiritual-ideological vicissitudes of her life together with Sartre until 1960. In 1929, Sartre received the title of “agr\u00e9g\u00e9 de philosophie” (corresponding to our degree of candidate of philosophical sciences), giving him the right to teach philosophy in lyceums and universities. He was psychologically predisposed to this kind of activity by the example of his adored grandfather: “from a young age I was prepared to see in pedagogical activity a sacred act, and in literary activity – asceticism” (4: 383). After serving in the army, Sartre taught philosophy at one of the lyceums in Le Havre (1931-1933). However, he saw his highest calling in writing and the creation of his own system of philosophy. In 1933-1934 He did an internship at the French Institute in Berlin, where he studied the phenomenology of E. Husserl, as well as German existentialism with an emphasis on the philosophy of M. Heidegger, which made a strong impression on him and served as the theoretical sources of his own views. No matter how the dynamic Sartre changed them, one thing remained constant – the existential tendency of his philosophy and artistic creativity. The center of gravity of his thought was always a person, hidden in his depths, unexpected in his reactions, often vicious in desires, dubious in his goals, a contradictory sufferer and tormentor of himself and others, seeking freedom and independence. “Existentialism is a humanism,” Sartre would proclaim in the post-war years and would enthusiastically lecture on the subject (including in America), and in 1946 he would publish a brochure with this title, to which the French Marxist Jean Canapa would immediately respond with the opus: “Existentialism is not a humanism.” This controversy would add to the popularity of Sartre, who had been widely known since the publication of his novel Nausea in 1938, which the author himself wanted to call Melancholia, but the publisher insisted on a more effective title.<\/span><\/p>\n

It must be said that around the name of Sartre there were always “turbulent flows” of rumors, opinions, slander, and conflicting assessments. His fame in the 20th century was not only enormous, but also often scandalous. He loved to shock not only the French man in the street (for example, with the play “The Virtuous Prostitute”), but also the Western intellectual, declaring in his post-war work “Critique of Dialectical Reason” (1960) his “agreement” with Marxism, seeing in historical materialism “the only acceptable explanation of history” (6: 25). During the May events of 1968 in France, Sartre found himself “above all” on the barricades, calling on the rebellious youth to “make a revolution” and take power into their own hands. Having accused the French communists of “betraying the revolution”, he took an “ultra-left”, pro-Maoist position, joining the “workers’ left” in France “in defiance” of the “intellectual left” (he was the “petty-bourgeois intellectual”, as he liked to call himself) and began publishing the militant newspaper “Red Banner”, on the front of which was a portrait of the “great helmsman Mao”. Considering himself a strategic supporter of the communist movement, he was always quarrelling with the French communists, sharply criticizing their political tactics. With his hyper-criticism of everything “bourgeois”, he was not on the same page with the “right”. Occupying a completely unique position in the political struggle, Sartre was displeasing to everyone, he irritated everyone, and not only his enemies, but also his friends, such as Albert Camus, a friend and comrade in the Resistance movement, who sharply opposed Sartre in the post-war years for ideological and political reasons, not accepting either his \u201cfriendship\u201d with the Soviet Union, or his \u201cpro-communist\u201d orientation, or the evolution of his existentialism under the influence of Marxism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sartre’s provocative activities generated such hatred towards him on the part of the pro-fascist organization OAS that its activists issued a cry: “Shoot Sartre!” Finally, we will point out one more shocking episode from his life. In 1964, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he demonstratively refused, not wanting to associate himself with the “bourgeois circles” that he hated. Yes, this bright man was a brilliant writer (the novel trilogy “Roads of Freedom”, 1945-1949, the autobiographical story “Words”, 1964, etc.) and playwright (famous plays “Flies”, 1943, “Behind the Locked Door”, 1944, “The Devil and the Lord God”, 1951, etc.). He was a \u201ccocky\u201d political fighter (for peace, democracy, and individual freedom), systematically publishing his political essays in the collections \u201cSituations\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the \u201cmain work\u201d of his life is existential philosophy, to which he made his own unique and also \u201ccocky\u201d contribution. He creates his own unique version of \u201cclassical existentialism\u201d by publishing in 1943, during the fascist occupation of France, his academic work \u201cBeing and Nothingness\u201d, consciously contrasted with the \u201cepochal\u201d book \u201cBeing and Time\u201d (1927) by Martin Heidegger. Compared to the German thinker, Sartre develops a more subjectivist version of existentialism, proclaiming: \u201cThe subjectivity of man is our starting point.\u201d He considers his philosophy of man to be more \u201cconcrete\u201d than Heidegger\u2019s objectivist interpretation of existence and expresses bewilderment over his abstract \u201cexistentials\u201d (Being-in-the-world, Dasein, Care, Attunement, Being-before-Death, Time, Nothingness, etc.) as universal ontological structures. Sartre himself understands their concreteness, replacing abstract \u201cBeing-in-the-world\u201d with \u201cconcrete situations,\u201d pure Nothingness with its real \u201cfaces,\u201d Time with concrete psychological time, and Death is taken beyond the limits of human existence, depriving it of existential significance. As a result, the indignant Heidegger \u201cdisavowed\u201d existentialism all his life and \u201csparred\u201d with Sartre. True, both thinkers used Husserl’s phenomenological method to construct an existential ontology, but each interpreted it in his own spirit, setting himself the task of describing “spiritual essences.” In Being and Nothingness, Sartre sets forth a “strict doctrine” about human reality in its relations with the higher world, with the cult of the subject’s activity in any situation and its overcoming, with the idea of \u200b\u200bthe “absolute freedom” of the individual and his responsibility, with the assertion of the absurdity of the world and the alienation of man from it and from other people. In the lecture “Existentialism is a Humanism,” he popularizes his existentialism, putting forward the now famous formula “Existence precedes essence” and two methods of studying human reality: existentialist and essentialist. The first is based on the priority of existence over essence, which is characteristic of human existence, and the second – essence over existence, which takes place in the world of things. With this formula Sartre, firstly, points to the specificity of man “in contrast to mold or cauliflower”. Secondly, this specificity is connected with his consciousness, plans, projects, active striving for the future, in a word, his freedom, while things passively submit to the conditions of their existence. Thirdly, there is no predetermined objective essence of man, coming from nature, society or from the Lord God himself. It is “conquered” by man himself (a coward or a hero), it is the crystallization of his existence. Fourthly, there is not and cannot be a once and for all “conquered” essence, for a coward can cease to be a coward, just as a hero can lose his heroism, for man is always on the way, in movement, change, dynamics. He freely chooses the “law of his life” and bears full responsibility for what he does.who he becomes. All these simple truths represent, so to speak, a \u201clight version\u201d of existentialism, which Sartre actively promoted and achieved its wide popularity, while the \u201cstrict teaching\u201d set out in the rather complex treatise \u201cBeing and Nothingness\u201d remained for a large audience a \u201csecret behind seven seals\u201d, although it was reprinted dozens of times, but became mainly the subject of scientific, philosophical and cultural studies of professionals.<\/span><\/p>\n

Phenomenological method.<\/span><\/strong>Before the beginning of Sartre’s philosophical activity, Raymond Aron drew his attention to Husserl’s phenomenology, in which Sartre saw the much-desired opportunity to speak about the world from the point of view of human consciousness and not fall into idealism (in the spirit of Berkeley, Hume, the Machists, etc.), because the whole world is “outside consciousness”, “transcendent to it”. Since his time at the Sorbonne, Sartre has been sharply opposed to “university idealism” (Brunschvicg, Lalande, Meyerson), arguing in a polemic with them that things exist “outside consciousness”, and contemptuously called their idealism and spiritualism “the digestive philosophy” of the Spirit-Spider, who drew things into his web, slowly digested them, turning them into “his own substance”. In 1936, Sartre published the work \u201cTranscendence of the Ego\u201d (written in 1934 as a result of an internship in Berlin), in which he interprets in his own way Husserl\u2019s idea of \u200b\u200b\u201cintentionality of consciousness\u201d, i.e. \u201cthe direction of consciousness toward its object\u201d. Imagine that you are thrown into a hostile and dangerous world, says Sartre, not reducible to your consciousness and not soluble in it, then you will grasp the \u201cdeep meaning of Husserl\u2019s discovery\u201d: every consciousness is consciousness of some thing. This means that the \u201cray of consciousness\u201d is initially directed \u201coutward\u201d, and not toward itself, in which Sartre sees the \u201cnon-substantiality of consciousness\u201d (against the idealism of Descartes), and with it the deliverance from idealism. However, one cannot think that he adheres to materialistic positions, no, it is not permissible to \u201cdissolve consciousness in things\u201d and determine it by things. Sartre considers himself a “realist” who does not lose either the external world or the freedom and sovereignty of consciousness. But at the same time he does not notice that the idea of \u200b\u200bintentionality in itself does not provide deliverance from idealism either in Husserl or, as we will see below, in Sartre himself, who could have read more carefully the “Cartesian Meditations” of the German thinker, published in France back in 1928. In them, Husserl quite clearly speaks of the external world as correlative to consciousness, so that objects are objects of real or possible consciousness and draw “from myself all meaning and all existential value.” It is to this latter that Sartre pays special attention, for he sees another enormous merit of Husserl in the fact that he does not reduce consciousness of the world only to its cognition (the epistemological type of intentionality), but opens up possibilities for an emotional or spiritual-moral attitude to the world. Let’s say that I can not only know this “tree on the horizon”, but also love, fear and hate it. Sartre believes that Husserl restored for us “the world of artists and prophets with the refuge of grace and love”, moreover, he returned horror and charm to things themselves: the face of a Japanese mask is terrible in itself, and not because of our subjective reaction to a piece of processed wood. The famous “subjective reactions”, which M. Proust attributed entirely to the “inner life of the subject, determine only the way in which we discover the world. Sartre is important to affirm reality,existential moods” (abandonment in an indifferent and hostile world, melancholy, fear, nausea, etc.), and not to consider them merely the subjective fantasy of a hypochondriac. Here we can already see the beginning of that existential ontology that will be developed in Being and Nothingness, and the alienated world of the hero of Antoine Roquentin’s Nausea can be considered its “precursor”. Sartre also touches on the idea of \u200b\u200bthe transcendence of the object of consciousness, since the whole world lies “outside of it”, in the article “The Fundamental Idea of \u200b\u200bHusserl’s Phenomenology: Intentionality” (1939).<\/span><\/p>\n

Having mastered the phenomenological method in theoretical terms, he first of all applied it in psychology in the analysis of imagination and emotions, devoting a number of works to them: “Imagination” (1936), “Essay on the Theory of Emotions” (1939), “The Imaginary. Phenomenological Psychology of Imagination” (1940). Without rejecting the empirical methodology in the study of mental phenomena (going from individual facts to general entities), Sartre considers it superficial, insufficient and reductionist (in the sense of reducing the complex to the simple, the mental to the biological, naturalistic), whereas what is necessary is an initial and direct comprehension of the essence of mental acts in contrast to physiological reactions (which Husserl insisted on, and Bergson before him), their specificity in the integral structure of consciousness, say, emotions in contrast to imagination, which is successfully achieved by means of the phenomenological method. However, Sartre’s concrete explanation of emotions, for example, is not so much phenomenological as existential: the emotions of fear, melancholy, anxiety, disappointment, etc. are a “magical comedy of impotence” of man in the face of the world, or simply an escape from the world.” In the same spirit of alienation of consciousness from reality, he interprets images of the imagination that lead man into an “unreal, non-existent world,” a kind of “nothing” in comparison with the “Dense world of things.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, in Being and Nothingness, Sartre develops the phenomenological method in his own vein (correcting \u201cHusserl himself\u201d) and adapts it to the needs of existential-phenomenological ontology. First of all, he sees the \u201cprogress of modern thought\u201d in the fact that, with the help of the idea of \u200b\u200bphenomenon, it has been possible to free ourselves from the dualism of the internal and external, the immanent and the transcendent, the appearance and the essence, reducing the existing to the \u201cmonism of phenomena\u201d that replaced it. The phenomenon, in contrast to the appearance that hides some essence \u201cbehind itself\u201d (Kant), points \u201cto itself\u201d, reveals itself to our consciousness without intermediaries, \u201cit is the essence that is not contained in the object, but is the meaning of the object\u201d (2: 12, 15). Again, as in The Transcendence of the Ego, Sartre hastens to avoid the reproach of Berkeleyan idealism by resorting to the idea of \u200b\u200bintentionality: “Every consciousness is consciousness of some thing, which means that transcendence is the fundamental structure of consciousness, i.e. consciousness gives birth to the meaning of being, which it is not. This is what we call the ontological proof” (1: 28). This is about proving the existence of the external world and, again, about getting rid of idealism. He also criticizes Husserl for introducing idealism in connection with \u201cbracketing the world out of the equation,\u201d considering this operation meaningless, because the external world is always \u201calready given\u201d to us before any reflection in the so-called \u201cpre-reflexive cogito,\u201d immediate knowledge of the world (I know the table, Peter, etc.), directed \u201coutward,\u201d and not toward consciousness, and therefore not substantial and primary in relation to the \u201creflexive cogito,\u201d directed toward consciousness of things or toward consciousness itself. He has another argument against idealism: \u201cthe transphenomenality of being,\u201d i.e., irreducibility to consciousness, to the phenomenon of being. However, it should be noted that all of Sartre\u2019s \u201carguments\u201d against idealism are more declarations than proofs. Firstly, the intentionality of consciousness does not at all affirm a \u201ctranscendent object,\u201d as Sartre insists, but on the contrary, it has in mind an object immanent to consciousness, which Husserl also spoke about, fighting against the \u201cMoloch of the transcendent\u201d and developing the method of \u201cphenomenological reduction.\u201d Secondly, the \u201cpre-reflexive cogito\u201d still remains a cogito, and it is not without reason that the key concept of \u201cBeing and Nothingness\u201d is precisely cogito. Thirdly, Sartre does not speak of \u201ctransphenomenal being,\u201d and being is presented precisely as phenomenal, be it the external world or \u201cthe being of consciousness itself.\u201d The desire to get rid of idealism, almost an \u201cexalted desire\u201d (not to say \u201chysterical\u201d), is generated by \u201cbook experience\u201d from early childhood: \u201cA Platonist by force of circumstances, I went from knowledge to the object: the idea seemed to me more material than the thing itself, because it was the first to be given to me and given as the thing itself\u2026 I confused the chaos of my book experience with the whimsical course of real events. That is where that idealism came from in me, the struggle against which I spent three decades\u201d (4: 387). Let us say in advance,that Sartre never managed to get rid of idealism in all periods of his work.<\/span><\/p>\n

Existential-phenomenological ontology.<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0Unlike the traditional doctrine of being, or of the existent in general, Sartre \u201cbuilds\u201d a concrete ontology, or a doctrine of human existence, while borrowing one of the \u201cexistentials\u201d from Heidegger \u2014 \u201cbeing-in-the-world\u201d, then transformed into \u201cbeing-in-situation\u201d. The main structures of existential ontology are being-in-itself (the external world) and being-for-itself (human consciousness). Sartre poses the question: \u201cWhat must man and the world be like for the relationship between them to be possible?\u201d (1: 38). This question \u201cconceals\u201d another question: \u201cWhat must man and the world be like for human freedom to be possible?\u201d The phenomenological description of these two regions of being, firstly, proceeds not simply from opposition, but from confrontation. Secondly, this description must be direct: \u201cBeing will reveal itself to us in some immediate way, through boredom, nausea, etc., and ontology will be a description of the phenomenon of being as it reveals itself, i.e., without an intermediary\u201d (2: 14). Instead of an epistemological attitude to the world, Sartre is interested in \u201cexistential experiences,\u201d emotional reactions to the environment, \u201cpersonal meanings,\u201d moral assessments, etc. The consciousness of the subject is filled with uniquely subjective content, so that Sartre\u2019s cogito differs from the Cartesian one and does not have a rationalistic character. Consciousness \u201cdoes not think\u201d the world, but phenomenologically perceives it as something alien, opposite to itself, devoid of meaning, absurd, accidental, causing \u201cnausea\u201d and \u201cdizziness\u201d in the heroes of Sartre\u2019s novels.<\/span><\/p>\n

In-itself is the external world, dense-material being, the characteristics of which Sartre exhausts in three theses: \u201cBeing is. Being is in itself; Being is what it is\u201d (1: 34). The first thesis establishes the simple, unpredicated presence of being, its facticity. The second thesis rejects the presence of any teleological structures in it, for the world exists without meaning and purpose and is therefore accidental and absurd. Finally, the third thesis means that being is absolutely identical to itself, its density is infinite. It is neither passive nor active, does not allow the slightest bifurcation with itself, does not contain any negation, there is no mystery in it. It knows no change, for it never posits itself as another. There is no emptiness in it, no \u201ccrack\u201d through which nothing could penetrate into it. \u201cTransitions, becoming, everything that allows us to say that being is not yet what it will be, and that it is already what it is not, all this is denied to it in principle\u201d (1: 33). But if it is deprived of any change and development, then it is also deprived of time, and therefore it has neither past nor future. Being simply is, that\u2019s all. The In-itself is the realm of anti-dialectics, for, following Hegel, Sartre sees in the principle of identity the \u201cprinciple of non-contradiction\u201d. \u201cNegation\u2026 appears on the surface of being through human reality, and not through its own dialectic in being itself\u201d (1: 119). This interpretation of being recalls the intelligible being of Parmenides: this vital being for Sartre is simply the \u201ccondition for the discovery\u201d of true being, or \u201cauthentic existence,\u201d which is the For-itself. The In-itself is defined only negatively, through the absence of all those qualities that the For-itself possesses in abundance: self-development, internal impulses to change, creativity, invention, etc. The In-itself receives a qualitative characteristic only through the For-itself: \u201cIn this sense, every positive definition of being is the antithesis of the ontological definition of the For-itself in its being as pure negativity\u201d (1: 228). The only function of the In-itself is the passive expectation of the creative power of man. Such an interpretation of the In-itself and the For-itself is very reminiscent of the dialectic of the I and the not-I in Fichte\u2019s philosophy.<\/span><\/p>\n

The For-itself is human reality, man as consciousness, cogito. Consciousness is \u201cnothing\u201d, because, firstly, the whole world is outside of it, and, secondly, it is the antipode of the In-itself-being both in its mode of existence and in its characteristics. If the In-itself is subject to the principle of identity, or non-contradiction, then the For-itself is subject to the principle of contradiction, antinomy. Sartre expresses this with the formula: \u201cThe For-itself is always what it is not, and is not what it is\u201d. The ontological expression of the principle of contradiction of consciousness is, as it were, \u201cpresence with oneself\u201d, \u201cnon-coincidence with oneself\u201d, which means degradation of identity, i.e. self-bifurcation, be it in the act of reflection or denial of one\u2019s past and present, \u201cpeeping at oneself\u201d, \u201cquestioning about oneself\u201d, etc., ad infinitum. The For-itself is in a state of eternal mobility, fluidity, becoming, changeability. Therefore, time as a \u201csymbol of change\u201d constitutes an essential structure of the For-itself and is understood anthropomorphically and psychologically as the past, present and future of human life. Man in his being \u201cmolts\u201d, as it were, casts off his \u201cold skin\u201d, escaping from his past, already \u201cbecoming being\u201d, and rushing into the future. A special role in this is played by negation, one of the key concepts of \u201cBeing and Nothingness\u201d, with which the problem of non-being (n\u00e9ant) is closely connected. Sartre asserts the ontological secondary nature of non-being in relation to being. In turn, \u201cnon-being substantiates negation as an act, for it is negation as being\u201d (1: 54). He rejects the Hegelian dialectic of being and nothingness, their logical simultaneity, immanent interpenetration, for in this case the priority of being over non-being is violated. This priority is so \u201cpowerful\u201d that \u201cthe general disappearance of being could not give rise to the dominion of the kingdom of non-being, but, on the contrary, would lead to its complete disappearance: non-being can exist only on the surface of being\u201d (1: 52). Sartre also insists on the ontological priority of the In-itself over the For-itself, as being over non-being-nothing. But since the In-itself cannot give rise to any non-being, it cannot be \u2014 with all its priority! \u2014 the source of the For-itself, which ontologically also cannot give rise to the In-itself, but epistemologically it totally constitutes it, i.e., gives it only that meaning and sense which is \u201cpleasing to its soul\u201d. If ontologically the In-itself and the For-itself cannot give rise to each other, and according to their characteristics are antipodes, then with all the \u201cmechanism of the phenomenon\u201d, their phenomenological description in Sartre again turns into their peculiar dualism. Thus, the philosopher\u2019s thought beats in the \u201csnares of contradictions,\u201d which are as difficult for him to avoid as it is to swim between Scylla and Charybdis.<\/span><\/p>\n

If non-being cannot be born in the womb of the In-itself, then there remains only one source of it – the For-itself, which itself is non-being, nothing, a “hole in being” and has the “magic ability” to introduce non-being into the world through negation (of oneself, the environment, other people, etc.), which plays a fundamental role in Sartre’s ontology. In order for the dense amorphous In-itself to acquire an instrumental organization for man, it is necessary, through the negation of one and the affirmation of another, to “divide and distribute large masses of being” into various complexes and individual things. When something interests a person, the “ray of consciousness” illuminates it from the rest of the mass of being, which is subjected to “neantization”, i.e., plunges into non-being. For example, Pierre in a caf\u00e9 with whom a meeting is scheduled is \u201csnatched out by consciousness\u201d from the general background, the rest of the caf\u00e9 is immersed in non-existence, which is purely relative and anthropologically meaningful: \u201cIt is obvious that non-existence always appears within the boundaries of human expectation\u201d (1: 41) and is accompanied by various existential states: fear, disgust, disappointment, melancholy, but also hope, joy, confidence, etc. That is why Sartre says that non-existence \u201ccolors the world, casting rainbow colors on things\u201d (1: 60). But it is more accurate to compare it with black paint on an artist\u2019s canvas, without which all the objects on it would merge into one amorphous mass. The production of non-existence by consciousness is not its real generation, but the most important element of the constitution of the human world through negation, it is a way of seeing the world, a worldview. Being is given, it cannot be destroyed, one can only change one’s attitude towards it, i.e. be able to place oneself outside being – not outside being in general (this is impossible, since consciousness is always consciousness of some thing), but outside some specific being. So, firstly, negation has a phenomenological and anthropomorphic character. Secondly, negation is not an attribute of development, as in Hegel, but a “principle of organization” of human being. Thirdly, negation realizes the connection between the In-itself and the For-itself. Man first “rests in the bed of being”, and then stands out from it, recognizing it as something alien to himself, as “everything that it is not”. Hence, “the initial attitude to the world is radical negation” (1: 230). But any other attitude to the world is also connected with negation. Since the world is perceived by consciousness as absurd, meaningless and purposeless, and therefore unpredictable, dangerous and hostile, the fundamental attitude towards it is alienation, which extends to the world of other people, where conflict and hatred are much more common than love and harmony. Exploring the phenomenon of love, Sartre speaks more about sadism and masochism than about the joys of love. \u201cNo need for braziers. Hell is others,\u201d says the play \u201cBehind a Locked Door.\u201d And yet, the For-itself with its instability and inconstancy seems to \u201cenvy\u201d the stability and fullness of being of the In-itself and would like to acquire them, becoming the unity of the In-itself-for-itself, with all the fullness of their characteristics.If this were possible, says Sartre, then man would become God, but, alas, this \u201cAbsolute\u201d is unattainable, and there is no God. \u201cMan\u2019s main project\u201d is to become something significant, permanent, to achieve \u201cthe fullness of being,\u201d but in reality man is \u201cnothing special,\u201d because he \u201csuffers a fiasco\u201d in his life: \u201cHuman reality is suffering in its being. It is by nature an unhappy consciousness, without the possibility of overcoming an unhappy state\u201d (2: 134). One of the American Sartre scholars called his book dedicated to \u201cBeing and Nothingness,\u201d \u201cThe Tragic Ending\u201d (1960), which fully reflects the main \u201cmindset\u201d of this book.<\/span><\/p>\n

Absolute freedom.<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0Denial in existential ontology performs another, perhaps the most important function: it provides a person with freedom in a hostile world. \u201cNegation has led us to freedom\u201d (1:115) \u2014 Sartre categorically declares and develops his famous concept of \u201cabsolute freedom\u201d in \u201cBeing and Nothingness\u201d. He does not quite adequately believe that a similar understanding of freedom already existed in ancient times among the Stoics (absolute spiritual freedom), and then in modern times among Descartes (absolute freedom of thought). Just as \u201cno one can die for me\u201d (Heidegger), so \u201cno one can think for me\u201d (Descartes). In the end, one must say yes or no and \u201cdecide alone on the truth of the entire Universe,\u201d as Sartre interprets Descartes in his article \u201cCartesian Freedom,\u201d preceding the publication of texts from Descartes\u2019s works in 1946. In it, the philosopher gives the following formula for freedom: \u201cTo be free does not mean to achieve what one wants, but to want what one can,\u201d for if one cannot realize a particular action, one can refrain from wanting to realize it. The ability to deny certain projects unlimitedly expands the scope of our possibilities, as evidenced by \u201cabsolute freedom.\u201d In \u201cBeing and Nothingness,\u201d Sartre distinguishes his \u201cphilosophical\u201d understanding of freedom from the \u201cordinary\u201d one (\u201cto achieve what one wants\u201d) and gives its definition: freedom means \u201cautonomy of choice, i.e., its independence from the causal connections of the world.\u201d This is about spiritual, internal freedom, freedom of consciousness, \u201ctherefore, success means nothing for freedom.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Freedom is a mode of being of consciousness, its fundamental essence, hence consciousness must be the consciousness of freedom. Since every person is gifted with consciousness by nature, freedom is a universal ontological property of man. That is why Sartre insists that \u201cman could not be free and then a slave: he is always and completely free or he does not exist\u201d (1:516). Denying \u201cdegrees of freedom\u201d and stages of its realization, he affirms its absolute and unconditional givenness as the essence of spirit and consciousness. Free consciousness knows no other motivation than itself: \u201cOtherwise, one would have to assume that the active consciousness is not conscious of itself\u201d (1:22). Hence, Sartre forms a sharp opposition to Freud, for whom consciousness is determined by the unconscious.<\/span><\/p>\n

Claiming to have a \u201cphilosophy of the concrete,\u201d the philosopher places freedom in a situation. It is a question of the relationship between concrete autonomous choice and \u201cfacticity,\u201d \u201cthe given.\u201d First of all, Sartre hastens to declare that no situation can determine freedom, it is neither a \u201ccause,\u201d nor a \u201ccondition,\u201d nor a \u201cfoundation\u201d of freedom, but only a concrete background for human projects: some problems are for the slave, others for the master, others for the bourgeois, others for the worker, etc.: \u201cThe coefficient of hostility of things cannot be an argument against our freedom, since it is precisely thanks to us, i.e., through the preliminary setting of a goal, that it arises\u201d (1: 562). Let us cite Sartre\u2019s famous example of a rock, which, depending on our project (\u201cto move\u201d it or to survey a beautiful landscape from it), will act either as an insurmountable obstacle or an excellent means of realizing our choice. In any situation, by denying undesirable or impossible choices, we can defend the sovereignty of our consciousness, i.e., \u201cabsolute freedom.\u201d Based on this, Sartre draws the following conclusions: 1) \u201cthere is no situation in which the given could stifle freedom with its weight\u201d; 2) there is no situation in which the For-itself would be freer than in other situations\u201d (1: 634). The formula of man in accordance with the principle of subjectivity: \u201cMan is what he makes of himself.\u201d Man is causa sui. From \u201cabsolute freedom\u201d logically follows \u201cabsolute responsibility\u201d for oneself and for everything that happens in the world. \u201cMan bears the weight of the whole world on his shoulders,\u201d says Sartre. He has an absurd thought at first glance: \u201cNever have we been freer than during the German occupation of France,\u201d but if we replace just one word in it, it acquires its own profound meaning: \u201cNever have we been more responsible than during the German occupation of France,\u201d because then every Frenchman had to decide: to collaborate with the Germans or to join the Resistance movement. In many ways, the very idea of \u200b\u200b\u201cabsolute freedom\u201d arose in him during the period of the Nazi threat, which had to be said \u201cno.\u201d Hence the emphasis on negative freedom, independence from any hostile situation, any grave necessity. Quite logically, Sartre does not accept the well-known definition \u201cFreedom is recognized necessity.\u201d Rather, for him, \u201cfreedom is overcome necessity.\u201d Although he does not have this formula, it fully reflects his interpretation of the relationship between freedom and necessity. In human existence, Sartre believes, the principle of causality is not essential, because in it \u201cdeterminism arises at the basis of the project \u2013 the Future is the determining being\u2026\u201d (1: 170, 172). Of all the time dimensions, man is more drawn to the future than \u201csettles\u201d in the past or present. This psychological phenomenon was noted by Pascal, who said that \u201cwe do not live, but only intend to live.\u201dBut for Sartre, this \u201cpsychological curiosity\u201d is a necessary element of the existentialist vision of man as a \u201csubject of unlimited possibilities,\u201d and not as an \u201cobject of wretched reality.\u201d Existence in this sense \u201cprecedes essence,\u201d and therefore in human reality, instead of the law of causality, the principle of \u201ctransformed causality\u201d operates: the dominant cause is not what is, but \u201cwhat is not yet,\u201d which acts as a possibility in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

With all the variety of problems in Being and Nothingness (here are the problems of the dialectic of the In-itself and the For-itself, and a scrupulous analysis of Temporality, and the problems of alienation, interpersonal relations with Others, etc.), in this treatise Sartre acts first of all as a \u201csinger of freedom\u201d, concerned with defending human freedom \u201cat all costs\u201d, in any situation. And yet one question \u201ctormented\u201d him and he posed it on the last page: \u201cCan freedom, which is an end in itself, avoid any situation or, on the contrary, does it depend on it?\u201d (2: 722). He will answer it positively in the Critique of Dialectical Reason and demonstrate the evolution of his views under the influence of K. Marx. Sartre himself felt another \u201cweakness\u201d of his concept of \u201cabsolute freedom\u201d: a \u201ctilt\u201d towards the negative \u201cfreedom\u00a0<\/span>from\u201d<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0and the underdevelopment of the positive \u201cfreedom\u00a0<\/span>for\u201d.<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0He will correct this “defect” of his concept in the post-war years. However, with all its shortcomings and “vulnerability” to criticism, the concept of “absolute freedom” posed a number of real problems of human spiritual freedom: 1) denial and overcoming of “hostile factuality”, 2) eternal search and aspiration to the future, 3) creative search at the moment of choice, 4) moral honesty in choice, 5) deep personal responsibility for one’s choice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Post-war evolution.<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0Sartre had become acquainted with Marx’s Capital and The German Ideology while still a student at the Sorbonne, but this reading did not change him at all. The conscious assimilation of Marxism began after the war and, according to his subjective conviction, in 10 years he was “brought from existentialism to Marxism”, everything had to be “rethought in the light of Marxism”, so he wrote Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960).<\/span><\/p>\n

Further, this unambiguous assessment is clarified, made more specific and turns out to be quite contradictory. Sartre cannot be \u201csimply a Marxist\u201d, because he agrees with \u201cMarx himself\u201d and sharply opposes \u201cmodern Marxism\u201d, accusing it of both \u201cbetraying the revolution\u201d and of \u201cstagnation of theoretical thought\u201d, which Marx did not have. In addition, he accepts Marx\u2019s historical materialism and rejects Engels\u2019s dialectical materialism, considering his \u201cdialectics of nature\u201d to be an \u201cillegitimate extrapolation\u201d of Marx\u2019s social dialectic, because already in Being and Nothingness Sartre substantiated the impossibility of dialectics in Being-in-itself: dialectics can only be inherent in human reality. \u201cProblems of Method\u201d (1957) precedes \u201cCritique of Dialectical Reason\u201d, and then enters into it in its entirety, and is devoted to the criticism of Marxism and an attempt to \u201csupplement\u201d Marxism with a number of \u201cintermediate links\u201d. Sartre highly values \u200b\u200b\u201cMarx\u2019s discoveries\u201d and his specific socio-historical studies, especially \u201cThe 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte\u201d: \u201cMarxism is not only a grand attempt to create history\u2026 it is also an attempt to master history practically and theoretically\u2026\u201d \u201cIt remains the philosophy of our time: it cannot be overcome, because the circumstances that gave rise to it have not yet been overcome\u201d (6: 110, 36).<\/span><\/p>\n

As for existentialism, he now calls it a \u201cparasitic system,\u201d an \u201cideology\u201d that opposes knowledge (Kierkegaard), and is now trying to integrate into it (Jaspers). But he does not consider his existentialism as such, because it \u201cdeveloped on the border of Marxism, and not in opposition to it\u201d (6: 9, 20). If \u201cany other\u201d existentialism \u201cis undergoing decline,\u201d then \u201chis own, native, Sartrean\u201d has bright prospects in \u201csynthesis with Marxism.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sartre sees in Marx\u2019s \u201ckey concept\u201d of praxis the foundation for his current interpretation of man and history, for \u201cpeople make their own history, but on the basis of preceding circumstances\u201d \u2013 this discovery can no longer be questioned. It appeals to a philosopher who has experienced war and comprehended not only the \u201cpower of reason\u201d but also the \u201cpower of things\u201d, who wants to understand the concrete person as an active agent, a creator of history. Sartre has changed his \u201cformula for man\u201d: he is no longer a \u201cpure causa sui\u201d, but is \u201cwhat he manages to make out of what has been made of him\u201d (6: 112). He also agrees with Marx that \u201clabor defines man\u201d, mediates his relations with the world, nature and other people, being \u201cthe real basis for the organization of social relations\u201d. And this discovery, too, can no longer be questioned (2: 1, 225). Labor activity is realized through “syntheses of processed matter” (technology, tools, instruments of labor as “the materialized labor of previous generations”). “The inert integrity of matter” as “the social memory of all” ensures “the overcoming of each historical situation in the general process of history” (2: 1, 200). “The force of inertia of matter” can present active creators of history with “its own surprises” in the form of results that were not expected, which Sartre expresses with the concept of “counter-finality” (counter-final goal), i.e. a goal realized “without an author.” By this he wants to emphasize the objective course of the historical process and declares this in his own spirit: “the historical law ends by avoiding everyone” (2: 1, 133).<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking out against the “Robinsonade” in history, he pays great attention to the “theory of practical ensembles”, highlighting active associations – groups, passive “collectives and series” (like “wax molecules sealed with a seal”) and classes, which can be both active and passive. The more the goals and tasks of an association are “transparent”, understandable to specific actors, the more active they are, while in “bureaucratized associations” the activity of actors drops sharply (such are modern Communist parties, according to Sartre). A class that has not recognized itself “as a class” experiences “inert practice” (pratico-inerte, as opposed to praxis), which is its necessity and fate, alienation and inhumanity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Agreeing with Marxist positions on the role of the base in society, the conflict of productive forces and production relations, class struggle as the \u201cmotor of history\u201d, \u201cobjectification and deobjectification\u201d of practice, etc., Sartre, as an existentialist, pays special attention to the \u201cconcrete man\u201d with his experiences, consciousness and freedom. He now recognizes both the social determinations of the individual and the \u201cpre-created being of man\u201d, i.e. his \u201ca priori essence\u201d as a representative of one class or another (2: 1, 289, 294), but man is still defined by him through a \u201cproject\u201d (taking into account instrumental possibilities, material conditions), and most importantly, through \u201covercoming situations\u201d (in work, actions, deeds, the struggle for freedom). He realized the inadequacy of \u201cnegative freedom\u201d and began to speak of positive freedom as the \u201clogic of creative action\u201d (2: 1, 156). Naturally, he considers praxis to be free, and not pratico-inerte. And now he calls \u201cexistence not a stable, self-resting substance, but a constant loss of equilibrium,\u201d \u201covercoming ourselves with all our strength\u201d (6: 186).<\/span><\/p>\n

However, “modern lazy Marxism”, according to Sartre, frozen in abstract schemes of “macroanalysis” of social movements, classes, collectives and other “large forms”, does not want to see “concrete real people” behind them, turning them into “symbols of their myths” or making them the subject of “absurd Pavlovian psychology”. He refers to G. Luk\u00e1cs, who could not understand either the philosophy or the personality of Heidegger, trying to “squeeze him into pre-cast forms”, without bothering to either read or delve into their meaning. Incidentally, Luk\u00e1cs himself, Sartre ironically, called this Marxist “pseudo-philosophy voluntaristic idealism” (6: 66, 103, 46, 33). Marxists consider their “abstract schemes”, Sartre believes, to be a ready-made knowledge of history, whereas it has yet to be created. He wants to supplement Marxist macroanalysis with an existential \u201cmicroanalysis\u201d of the family, small groups, specific people, in a word, \u201cthe existential dimensions of being.\u201d For this purpose, he proposes a \u201csystem of intermediary links\u201d: 1) the socio-historical method of Henri Lefebvre with a phase of phenomenological description; 2) a specific sociological analysis; 3) an existential psychoanalysis of childhood (in contrast to Freud\u2019s sexual absolutizations), which Sartre demonstrated in the story \u201cWords\u201d; 4) a progressive-regressive method of \u201cunderstanding\u201d the practice of real actors with an ascending movement from the present to the future, and then a descending movement from the future to the present and the past, revealing both the final goals and results of action, and all its initial conditions. The success of \u201cunderstanding\u201d the practice of another depends both on the \u201cdegree of participation\u201d in it and on the discernment of the \u201cinner springs\u201d of human thoughts, feelings, and actions. He distinguishes \u201cunderstanding\u201d both from the intellectualism of Absolute Knowledge and from irrationalism in the spirit of Kierkegaard.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the complexity, ambiguity and contradictoriness of Sartre’s post-war worldview, one can note a certain evolution of his existentialism under the influence of Marx. From the philosophy of the cogito in Being and Nothingness he moves to the philosophy of practice in Critique of Dialectical Reason, from man causa sui to a socially determined personality, from “absolute negative freedom” to the positive freedom of creative action, from a purely phenomenological method to a variety of methods for studying human reality, from the dualism of the In-itself and the For-itself to their synthesis in praxis, from an absurdist interpretation of the surrounding world to finding its meaning through historical action, from a sharp alienation between people to the affirmation of their solidarity in the struggle for social justice, democracy and freedom. And yet Sartre remained a kind of existentialist with his cult of the sovereign individual, militant humanism, emphasis on \u201covercoming the situation\u201d through a \u201cproject,\u201d and the denial of the once and for all given essence of man. So in this sense he did not abandon the formula: \u201cExistence precedes essence.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Literature<\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\n

1. Sartre JP<\/span><\/em>\u00a0The Night and the Nether. P., 1948.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Sartre JP<\/span><\/em>\u00a0Critique of the reason for dialectic, Vol. 1, P., 1960<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Sartre J.-P.<\/span><\/em>\u00a0Being and Nothingness. Moscow, 2000.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Sartre J.-P.<\/span><\/em>\u00a0Wall (“Nausea”, “Flies”, “Words”, etc.). M., 1992<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Sartre J.-P.<\/span><\/em>\u00a0Existentialism is humanism \/\/ Twilight of the Gods, M., 1989.<\/span><\/p>\n

6. Sartre J.-P.<\/span><\/em>\u00a0Problems of Method (\u201cMarxism and Existentialism\u201d and others) M., 1994.<\/span><\/p>\n

7. T. Kuznetsov V. N.<\/span><\/em>\u00a0Sartre and existentialism. Moscow, 1969.<\/span><\/p>\n

8. Streltsova G. Ya.<\/span><\/em>\u00a0Critique of the existentialist concept of dialectics (Analysis of the philosophical views of J.-P. Sartre). Moscow, 1974.<\/span><\/p>\n

9. Filippov L. I.<\/span><\/em>\u00a0Philosophical anthropology of Sartre, M., 1977.<\/span><\/p>\n

10. Kissel M.A.<\/span><\/em>\u00a0Philosophical evolution of Sartre. K., 1976.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was born in Paris to a naval officer, Jean-Baptiste Sartre (who died when his son was only two years old), and Anne-Marie Schweitzer. The future writer and philosopher grew up in the family of his grandfather, Charles Schweitzer (the famous humanist thinker Albert Schweitzer was his nephew), an academic teacher and author of textbooks in the spirit of Voltairean freethinking and hatred of any tyranny. His grandfather\u2019s huge library nourished his grandson\u2019s young mind…<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":692,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,40],"tags":[186,53],"class_list":{"0":"post-691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-modern-philosophy","8":"category-philosophy","9":"tag-being","10":"tag-consciousness"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":694,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691\/revisions\/694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}