TWENTIETH CENTURY PHILOSOPHY: Intellectual Heroes and Key Themes

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TWENTIETH CENTURY PHILOSOPHY Intellectual
Heroes and Key Themes

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LECTURES

1. The pariah as rebel.
2. The hope of the hopeless.
3. Message in a bottle.
4. Absolute free.
5. Human flourishing.
6. Genealogy as critique.

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IV. ABSOLUTE FREE
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• PHENOMENOLOGY
• Is there an adequate philosophical method?
• BAD FAITH AND THE GAZE
• What does individual freedom mean for others?
• EXISTENTIALISM AND MARXISM
• How to conceive the relation between agency and
  structure?

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1. PHENOMENOLOGY
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JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

• BIOGRAPHICAL DATA
• 1905 Born June 21, in Paris.
• 1907 Death of his father.
• 1915-1922 Secondary school.
• 1924-1928 Studies philosophy at the École
  Normale Supérieure in Paris where he meets Simone
  de Beauvoir.
• 1931-1933 Teacher at a secondary school in Le
  Havre.
• 1933-1934 Scholarship to study in Berlin.
• 1934-1936 Again teacher at a secondary school in
  Le Havre.
• 1936-1937 Teacher at a secondary school in Laon.
• 1937-1939 Teacher at a secondary school in
  Paris.
• 1940-1941 Prisoner of war.
• 1942-1944 Joins the Paris Resistance Movement.
• 1952-1956 Sympathizes with communism and
  criticizes it.
• 1958-1962 Sets his face against the War on
  Algeria.
• 1964 Refuses to get the Noble prize for
  literature.
• 1968 Supports the student movement and sets his
  face against the Vietnam war.
• 1970 Becomes almost totally blind and cooperates
  with Pierre Victor.
• 1980 Died April 15, in Paris.

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MAJOR WORKS

• La nausé (1938).
• Le mur (1939).
• Esquise dune théorie des émotions (1939).
• Lêtre et le néant (1943).
• Huis clos (1944).
• Les chemins de la liberté (1945-1949).
• Lexistentialisme est un humanisme (1946).
• Situations (1947 etc.).
• Les mains sales (1948).
• Saint Genet, comédien et martyr (1952).
• Questions de méthode (1957).
• Critique de la raison dialectique (1960).
• Les mots (1964).
• Lidiot de la familie (1971-1972).

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HEURISTIC VALUE

1. Psychology (Pontalis amongst others).
2. Cinematography (Allen amongst others).
3. Sociology (Goffman amongst others).
4. Feminism (Beauvoir amongst others)
5. Literature (Camus amongst others).
6. Philosophy (Lévi amongst others).
7. Fine Arts (Giacometti amongst others).

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ENGAGEMENT

• Sartre was THE intellectual of the 20th century
  he was the embodiment of political engagement.
• According to him an intellectual should leave his
  ivory tower its his responsibility to do that.
• His political engagement was famous gt World War
  II Algerian War, Vietnam War, etc.
• Sartre description of the intellectual
  (intellectuel engagé) gt someone who deals with
  issues that are not his concern.
• Engagement does not only imply involvement (one
  is nolens volens inescapably engaged in the
  world), but also public deliberation about the
  political ends one freely chooses.

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PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE

• Sartre is the author of different kinds of texts
  philosophical works, screenplays, novels, plays,
  short stories, manifests, essays and
  (auto)biographies.
• Outside of the academic world, he was mainly
  operating within three spheres philosophy,
  politics and literature.
• Although his novels, short stories and plays are
  not merely illustrations of his philosophical
  theories, they circle around philosophical issues.

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CARTESIAN TRADITION

• The philosophy of Sartre belongs clearly to the
  cartesian tradition gt rationalism.
• As in the work of Descartes consciousness is also
  a central concept in Sartres philosophy.
• However, there especially three other
  philosophers that influenced Sartre
• 1. Husserl.
• 2 Heidegger.
• 3. Hegel.

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PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHOD

• Husserl gt consciousness is not a thing, as in the
  work of Descartes (res cogitans gt a thinking
  thing), but a being-directed-to-something.
• Intentionality gt consciousness is always
  consciousness of something.
• Phenomenology gt the study of the phenomena that
  appear to the consciousness of an individual.
• Phenomenon gt being as it appears.
• Method gt Epoché.
• Epoché gt putting into parentheses all ideas one
  has about the existence of the world in order to
  examine consciousness independently of the
  question of any worldly existence.
• However, Sartres focus is on consciousness
  in-the-world.

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THE TRANSCENDENTAL EGO

• Husserl pressupposes a transcendental ego gt an
  I (ego) orders different activities of his
  consciousness without such an I there would be
  chaos.
• Sartres La transcendance de légo gt Husserl
  doesnt take intentionality seriously, when he
  presupposes an ordering I within the
  consciousness.
• According to Sartre the objects of ones
  consciousness create an order and not the I.
• Because the I transcends consciousness its like
  the objects a thing.

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TYPES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

• Sartres I is based on the distinction between
  two types of consciousness
• 1. Unreflective consciousness gt no knowledge
  but an implicit consciousness of being
  consciousness of an object (the pre-reflective
  cogito).
• 2. Reflective consciousness gt the attempt of
  the consciousness to become its own object (the
  reflective cogito).
• An I figures only with the reflective
  consciousness.

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FUNDAMENTAL ONTOLOGY

• For Sartre phenomenology should reflect on the
  concrete existence of human beings.
• Heideggers analysis of das Dasein
  (being-there) inspired him.
• Question what is the meaning of being-there as a
  conscious being?
• Fundamental ontology is about the articulation of
  the difference between human and non-human
  beings.
• A fundamental ontology should be based upon
  phenomenological descriptions.
• For instance a phenomenological description of
  the absurdity of human existence, i.e. its
  unjustifiable contingency.
• Nausea (nausée) gt the fundamental taste of the
  contingency and facticity of human being.

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THE RELATION BETWEEN THE MASTER AND THE SLAVE

• Hegel delivers Sartre the vocabulary to develop
  his own fundamental ontology.
• Sartre translates two of the core concepts of
  Hegels philosophy
• 1. An-sich gt en-soi (in-itself).
• 2. Für-sich gt pour-soi (for-itself).
• These concepts give him not only the opportunity
  to describe the differences between human and
  non-human beings, but also to describe the
  interaction between people in terms of the master
  and the slave.
• To objectify other people means trying to make
  them to a kind of slave.

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2. BAD FAITH AND THE GAZE
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A DUALISTIC ONTOLOGY

• The core of Lêtre et le néant is a distinction
  between two kinds of being the in-self (en-soi)
  and the for-itself (pour-soi).
• Being-in-itself (être-en-soi) gt the
  non-conscious being that is as it is.
• Being-for-itself (être-pour-soi) gt the nihilation
  of being-in-itself the consciousness conceived
  as a lack of being or the desire of being.
• The nihilation is based upon the capacity to
  nihilate (néantir) gt the creation of a
  nothingness by the consciousness between the
  consciousness and its object.
• The for-itself creates a hole (trou) in the
  in-itself.

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SARTRES DUALISM
IN-ITSELF FOR-ITSELF
It coincides with itself It never coincides with itself
It is only what it is It is walking ahead
It is something, because it has a substance It is nothing (néant), because it is not a thing (the empty consciousness).
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MEGALOMANIAC

• The title of Sartres major philosophical work -
  Lêtre et le néant is the most megalomaniac in
  the history of philosophy.
• A book about Being and nothingness is
  all-embracing.
• Being (être) encompasses being-in-itself and
  being-for-itself.
• Nothingness (néant) doesnt have being, but is
  supported by it due to the for-itself it comes
  into the world.

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FREEDOM

• The characterization of the for-itself underlies
  Sartres concept of freedom.
• Due to the for-itself the human being can
  transcend everything.
• The human being is condemned to be absolute free.
• Even during World War II a Dutch or British
  citizen was free, because it has the choice to
  collaborate with the Germans or resist them.
• Because of this freedom of choice agents are
  responsible for their actions.

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BAD FAITH

• Against the background of his ideas about freedom
  Sartre discusses the value of authenticity
  (authenticité).
• Being not authentic or insincere gt bad faith
  (mauvaise foi).
• Bad faith gt an individual that lies to itself it
  denies in fact its freedom.
• Through bad faith an individual seeks to escape
  its absolute freedom.
• Bad faith gt a vacillation between facticity and
  transcendence.

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EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE

• Sartre argues that existence precedes essence
  (existence précède l'essence).
• Herewith he criticizes traditional philosophy
  that declares essence as more fundamental.
• Existence gt the concrete individual here and now
  standing out from itself (being in ecstasies).
• Essence gt what has been made by individuals.
• Through the pour-soi people can transcend the
  essence.
• Simone de Beauvoir argues in this line One is
  not born a woman, but becomes one".

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BEING-FOR OTHERS

• Besides the being-in-itself (être-en-soi) and the
  being-for-itself (être-pour-soi) Sartre also
  talks about the being-for-others
  (être-pour-autrui).
• The being-for-others gt the self that is an object
  for others.
• This implies a perpetual conflict, because people
  cant reduced to an object.
• Nevertheless the for-itself wants to make out of
  the other for-itself an in-itself.
• This will lead to a fiasco (echec), because this
  is impossible.

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BEING OBJECTIFIED

• It is especially due to the gaze that an
  individual experiences the existence of others.
• The gaze triggers the experience of being
  objectified by someone else, becoming some-thing.
• At the same time one becomes aware that the other
  is a subject.
• Shame is an emotion that often results from being
  objectified in an embarrassing situation.
• For instance, when an individual becomes aware
  that another person sees that he is looking as a
  voyeur through a keyhole.
• Such an embarrassing situation makes the
  individual conscious about the existence of the
  other.

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3. EXISTENTIALISM AND MARXISM
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AGENCY AND STRUCTURE

• Sartre tries to deal with a classical issue the
  agency-structure problem.
• Central question how to reconcile the freedom of
  the individual an its facticity?
• In other words, how to bridge the gap between
  existentialism and Marxism?
• Existentialism gt emphasizes the freedom of the
  individual, i.e. its agency.
• Marxism gt emphasizes the socio-economic
  structures that limit the freedom of the
  individual.

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HISTORICAL MARXISM

• Sartre wants to rescue Marxism from lazy
  dogmatism.
• Dogmatism implies a kind of reductionism gt to
  reduce all individual behaviour to socio-economic
  inequalities, i.e. class relations.
• From a political perspective Sartre defends a
  kind of libertarian socialism.
• Marxists have to figure out the constraints of a
  specific historical situation.

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DIALECTICAL REASON

• The aim of Critique de la raison dialectique is
  to use a Hegelian dialectic to integrate the idea
  of individual responsibility in a Marxist
  analysis of class relations.
• Sartre developed a progressive-regressive method.
• This method encompasses
• 1. A regressive analysis of static
  socio-economic structures.
• 2. A progressive analysis of the active
  permutation of these structures by the actions
  of individuals and groups.

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THE PRACTICO-INERT

• Practice (praxis) gt the actions of individuals
  that transcend the given constraints.
• The practico-inert (practico-inerte) gt the
  results of practice that become constraints for
  individuals, i.e. the sedimentation of their
  previous actions.
• Point of departure of any practice gt deficiency
  (manque), scarcity (rareté) and need (besoin).
• The mediating third (tiers régulateur) gt being an
  individual in a group that is involved in a
  struggle of recognition.
• Sartre denies the possibility of a dyad of an
  individual and a group gt although they stay
  outsiders to each other they can become a
  mediating third.

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SOLIDARITY

• Sartre makes a distinction between collectives
  and groups.
• Collectives gt individuals who are gathered and
  miss the unity for mutual recognition and
  collective action.
• Threatening circumstances can trigger the
  transformation of collectives into groups.
• This can be the basis of solidarity.

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GROUP STRUGGLE

• Sartre argues that group struggle is the driving
  force in human history.
• Basic ontological distinction
• 1. Individual praxis the actions of
  individuals.
• 2. Group praxis the actions of groups.
• Although a group can be characterized by a
  collective intentionality it is not an organism.
• Individuals are organisms that can create a
  group.
• Types of groups fusing groups, fledge groups,
  organizations and institutions.

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FLAUBERT

• Lidiot de la familie consists of several volumes
  about the life and times of the French novelist
  Gustave Flaubert from a existentialist-marxist
  perspective.
• He applies his progressive-regressive method.
• Sartre tries to reconstruct how Flaubert
  incarnates (i.e. internalizes) the major events
  and values of his time and gives expression to
  it.
• He is again dealing with the agency-structure
  problem.

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RECOMMENDED

• Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Mots translations in
  several languages.
• Jean-Paul Sartre, Lêtre et le néant
  translations in several languages.
• Annie Cohen-Solal, Sartre, 1905-1980
  translations in several languages.