| Phi 110 Fall 2015 |
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The collection Existentialism and Human Emotions contains material from two different sources. It includes “Existentialism is a Humanism,” the published version of a lecture Sartre delivered in 1945 (which is titled simply “Existentialism” in this collection), as well as several selections from near the end of Sartre’s major work, Being and Nothingness (1943). We’ll discuss the lecture and two of the selections from Being and Nothingness.
Thurs. 11/19: “Existentialism is a Humanism” (Existentialism and Human Emotions, pp. 9-29)
Tues. 12/1: cont’d (Existentialism and Human Emotions, pp. 29-51)
Thurs. 12/3: Being and Nothingness, pt. 4, ch. 1, sect. 3, and concl., sect. 2 (Existentialism and Human Emotions, pp. 52-59, 91-96)
“Existentialism is a Humanism” is like Mill’s Utilitarianism in being orgainized as a series of responses to objections. It might be divided roughly into the following parts:
• an introductory discussion of the meaning of ‘existentialism’ focusing on the idea of “existence preceding essence” (pp. 9-18)
• a discussion of the three terms ‘anguish’ (pp. 18-21), ‘forlornness’ (pp. 21-29), and ‘despair’ (pp. 29-36)
• a comment on the ideas of subjectivism and universality (pp. 36-40)
• responses to a series of three related objections stated on p. 40: one concerning the absence of rules (pp. 41-44), a second concerning the possibility of judgment (pp. 44-48), and a third concerning arbitrariness (pp. 48f)
• a conclusion (pp. 49-51) commenting on the sense of ‘humanism’ that is appropriate for existentialism
The first of the selections from Being and Nothingness, a section titled “Freedom and Responsibility,” reflects in somewhat different terms some of the ideas in the lecture, ending with a term, ‘bad faith’, that might be used to capture the “dishonesty” mentioned in the lecture (p. 45). Near the beginning of this selection, you will encounter the term ‘for-itself’, and that term appears often in the second selection (which is the last section of Sartre’s book). Very roughly, the terms ‘being for-itself’ and ‘being in-itself’ are intended to provide a way of capturing a distinction between conscious and unconscious beings.