Reality
According to Sartre's existential philosophy, there are two types of reality. There is the reality of existence in itself, and the reality of existence for itself. Admittedly, this stuff gets rather tricky, so hold on!
If something exists in itself, it simply is because it is. Rather than living consciously for itself, it is an object of consciousness. Take the screen you're now staring at. It's a screen simply because it's a screen. Without consciousness or pride in being a screen, it can do nothing more than be a screen. It just exists in itself as a screen.
On the contrary, if something exists for itself it has consciousness and choice. It has a desire for being. It is not bound to some predetermined path of what it should be. It is the master of its own course, the captain of its own ship!
Absurdity
According to Sartre's famous work, 'Being and Nothingness,' we humans have traded in the reality of an existence for ourselves for a life of existence in ourselves. Stating it simply, we've let our governments, our money, and our religions turn us into objects. Rather than living a life of choice and possibility, we're just screens regurgitating what we've been programmed to regurgitate.
According to Sartre and his existential cronies, absolute freedom to choose is what makes us human. Therefore, we must stop trading freedom for absurdity, the idea that things must be as they are simply because they are as they are!
Really working to hit this point home in the aforementioned, 'Being and Nothingness', Sartre used a story of a waiter. It went something like this:
While observing the waiter, Sartre became appalled by how seriously the waiter took his job. The waiter walked briskly, stood at attention, and spoke ever so perfectly to his customers. He bowed, he schmoozed, and he placated.
Witnessing this, Sartre was hit with the realization that the waiter was more waiter than human. He had let his job (and his attachment to the money he gets from his job) turn him into an object that was doing the job, rather than a person that just so happened to have the job. Gone was his sense of freedom and possibility. It had been traded in for an apron and a tray.
Bad Faith
Using the example of the waiter, Sartre takes the position that we all have traded in life for what he coined bad faith. To Sartre, bad faith is the belief that things have to be a certain way. In short, we are victims to circumstance rather than victors with consciousness. Sartre argues that we have done this due to anguish. Anguish is caused by the reality that we are free to choose.
Unlike our inanimate screens, we live with the knowledge of our own limits and mortality. In other words, it's pretty scary to own up to the idea that the buck stops here. As a consequence of this anguish, we have swallowed our governments' and our religions' bad faith ideas that yell, 'necessity is a part of reality!' Sartre would say that just because our churches tell us it's necessary to believe a certain way, or just because our governments tell us it's compulsory to act a certain way, that doesn't mean it is. We are free to create our own realities.
Sartre argued that anguish can ultimately propel us to live freely. To him, the anguish of knowing we are mortal should push us to grab every opportunity we can. Since life is short, we should live it to the fullest!
Lesson Summary
Jean Paul Sartre was a famous 20th century existentialist who authored many works, including 'Existentialism and Humanism,' and 'Being and Nothingness.' Sartre espoused existentialism, which recognizes a person as free to decide the course of his or her own life and actions.
Sartre believed in two types of reality: existence in itself, and existence for itself. If something exists in itself, it simply is because it is. Like a computer screen, it is an object of consciousness. If something exists for itself, it has consciousness and choice. It is not bound to a predetermined path.
In 'Being and Nothingness', Sartre asserts that humans have traded in the reality of existence for ourselves for a life of existence in ourselves. We have fallen prey to absurdity, the idea that things must be as they are simply because they are as they are.
To illustrate this, Sartre used the example of a waiter who had given up his freedom of existence. The waiter had chosen to live in bad faith. He believed that things have to be a certain way.
Sartre believed humans give into bad faith due to anguish. Anguish is caused by the reality that we are free to choose. Rather than taking hold of freedom, we let anguish convince us to buy into the controlling propaganda of money, government, and religion. Despite this, anguish can ultimately lead us to freedom.
Learning Outcomes
When you finish this lesson, you should be able to:
- Define existentialism
- Describe Jean Paul Sartre's ideas pertaining to existentialism
- Identify the theme behind Sartre's 'Being and Nothingness' and falling prey to absurdity
