Terms to Know. Sartre Essence is Process. Existentialism. "Existence precedes essence" Sartre's description of the human condition

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1 Sartre Terms to Know First Attitude Toward Others: Love, Language, Masochism "Existence precedes essence" Sartre's description of the human condition Essence: the idea of our humanity that God had in mind when she created us Like the builder of a chair the chair builder has an idea of a chair in mind when he creates it Existence: that moment when God created us according to the idea she had in mind 1 2 Existentialism Essence is Process Theological View: most theological views think our essence precedes our existence Sartre turned this around Sartre thinks each of us exists before we can be defined We define our existence while living it This lived definition is our essence Defining our essence is a process It is not fixed and static, once defined never to change The process of defining or living our essence ends with death At death, the definition of our essence is fixed by the totality of our actions So, existence precedes essence 3 4

2 Human Condition Universal Value Sartre thinks of the human condition as captured by two states of existence Being-in-itself (facticity): there are facts to our existence that are unchanging Past actions and experiences, genetic make-up, family, etc. Being-for-itself (freedom): our being-for-itself is that part of our existence which constitutes our freedom We are free to choose present actions and define ourselves by these actions At the same time, we create our facticity through our actions and continually create a new essence "Furthermore, although it is impossible to find in each and every man a universal essence that can be called human nature, there is nevertheless a human universality of condition...but what never vary are the necessities of being in the world, of having to labor and to die there. These limitations are neither subjective nor objective, or rather there is both a subjective and an objective aspect of them. Objective, because we meet with them everywhere and they are everywhere recognisable: and subjective because they are lived and are nothing if man does not live them if, that is to say, he does not freely determine himself and his existence in relation to them. And, diverse though man s purpose may be, at least none of them is wholly foreign to me, since every human purpose presents itself as an attempt either to surpass these limitations, or to widen them, or else to deny or to accommodate oneself to them. Consequently every purpose, however individual it may be, is of universal value." Sartre, "Existentialism is a Humanism 5 6 Living in Bad Faith Existentialism Through the Eyes of Love The human condition involves both our facticity and our freedom Failure to recognize this about ourselves is to live in "bad faith" to ourselves As much as we may like, we cannot deny our family heritage, upbringing, and familial influences In addition, we may define ourselves by some external activity which is, in fact, of our own creation (e.g., works, social relations, sports) Sartre uses love as a means of understanding the human existential condition The psychological aspect of love and a lover is the means for understanding the tension between the subject and object Or, we may refuse to accept responsibility for our freedom and declare, "That is who I am." 7 8

3 Love Love is an Enterprise What is Love? Or, what is Love not? How does love fit into Sartre's existentialism? What is the purpose of love? "...love is an enterprise; i.e., an organic ensemble of projects toward my own possibilities. But it is the ideal of love, its motivation and its end, its unique value. Love as the primitive relation to the Other is the ensemble of the projects by which I aim at realizing this value." (203) What is the "it"? The unrealizable ideal. What is this? "To be other to oneself the ideal always aimed at concretely in the form of being this Other to oneself is the primary value of my relations with the Other." (203) 9 10 Lover Loved Free Love is Not Enough He asks, "Why does the lover want to be loved?" (answer on 204) To "capture a consciousness." Why? How? What about the beloved's consciousness does one want to capture? (see 204) The Other's freedom "He wants to possess a freedom as freedom." (204) The lover wants not just that the Other freely gives himself The lover wants the Other to become captive to the love given The lover, "wishes that the Other's freedom should determine itself to become love...and at the same time he wants this freedom to be captured by itself, to turn back upon itself, as in madness, as in a dream, so as to will its own captivity." (204) The lover wants to be "the whole World" to the beloved 11 12

4 Security is the Goal Attained Why Does One Become Secure in the Other's Consciousness? "Thus to want to be loved is to infest the Other with one's own facticity; it is to wish to compel him to re-create you perpetually as the condition of a freedom which submits itself and which is engaged; it is to wish both that freedom found fact and that fact have preeminence over freedom. If this end could be attained, it would result in the first place in my being secure within the Other's consciousness." (205) Because if the Other loves me, then I know I am viewed as an absolute end I know that the Other does not view me as a means As an absolute end, I become in the Other's eyes, the center of reference of all instrumental things Why Does the Lover Want to Be Loved? What is the Purpose of Love for the Lover? "Thus to want to be loved is to want to be placed beyond the whole system of values posited by the Other and to be the condition of all valorization and the objective foundation of all values." (205) It justifies one's existence When the Other freely consents to love me in all my "facticity," then I come to see myself and all my facticity in a different light I no longer see my facticity as a fact of my existence I see my facticity as my right "I am because I give myself away." (206) 15 16

5 Why Do I Need the Other? New Contradiction I need the Other in order for me to see myself as essence as a free, creative being Love of the Other makes possible my awareness of myself as meaningful object Love gives my essence its meaning and foundation "Our objective essence implies the existence of the Other, and conversely it is the Other's freedom which founds our essence. If we could manage to interiorize the whole system, we should be our own foundation." (207) Each person wishes to be loved as an essence At the same time, no person wants from the other that he treat one as a "project of being-loved" The very desire to be loved means one must offer oneself as an object of love One relinquishes one's freedom in the very act of trying to affirm one's freedom Alienation and Existence Love is Conflict "My freedom is alienated in the presence of the Other's pure subjectivity which founds my objectivity." (209) One can never assimilate the for-itself in the Other "Here in fact we encounter the true ideal of love's enterprise: alienated freedom. But it is the one who wants to be loved who by the mere fact of wanting someone to love him alienates his freedom." (208) "Love is a contradictory effort to surmount the factual negation while preserving the internal negation." (209) In the very act of the Other loving me as a subject, the Other becomes an object. And if the Other loves me as an object, then the Other realizes her own subjectivity. My subjectivity and freedom is made possible by the Other. But in loving the Other, I attempt to assimilate my subjectivity and freedom with the Other. Never is the Other able to love me as pure subjectivity without denying her own subjectivity. But, that attempt at assimilation would vanquish the Other, the very thing that causes my subjectivity to exist, 19 20