class synopsis

In class on Wednesday we talked about John P. Sartre (1908-1980). He was a French philosopher who believed philosophy is about a lived experience. He also believed that Existentialism is Humanism, meaning we are all free individuals and we are also responsible for our own actions. He thought this to be true for reasons like “existence preceding essence”. This was the idea that man appears on the scene and afterwards defines himself. For example when a person goes to make a paper cutter, he or she knows the idea of the purpose and duty of the paper cutter before they create it, leaving it determined. In contrast to the human being of atheistic existentialism who has no essence of what it is to be human, our “existence precedes our essence”. It was mentioned a story of a man who created many animals and gave them all a task. Within his creations he also made man, however, he forgot to give man a task. A second man comes along and inspected the creator’s work seeing that all was good, except that of the human. The inspector desired for the human to be destroyed for his lack of a task; for without a task man has nothing and no identity. The creator then thinks to give man hope, resulting in the human task being giving ourselves self essence.

There are two camps of existentialism: Atheist and Theist. Within the Atheist camp everything is up to you, man cuts God off, allowing them to define themselves; leaving all to bear the yoke of responsibility of the world not god. Within the Theist camp man is determined for God gives him or her a task.

We also talked about the idea of INTENTIONALITY whereas consciousness is geared toward something. It always has an object, with the starting point being the subject. There are two meanings to subjectivism, one the individual chooses and makes himself and two it is impossible for man to transcend human subjectivity. When man chooses his own self, everyone does the same. But when making that choice man also chooses all men. Sartre also thinks “Human was condemned to be free”. This determines us, therefore we must make choices. Anguish, responsibility and despair come from freedom. One can only understand freedom once they recognize themselves as a subject. With freedom comes responsibility for decisions, therefore one can not do what he or she pleases because of responsibility. Every truth and action implies human setting and subjectivity; creating ideas of what it is to be a human being.

We also discussed the idea of Bad Faith. This is the idea that one cannot transcend their situations in order to realize what they must be and what they are not. Living a life defined by an occupation, social, racial or economic class is essence of bad faith. For example, a waiter who seems to be the perfect waiter, identifies with that of a waiter, but is aware he is not a waiter but still acts “waiterish”. To make a choice is to define your self. To be different is to acknowledge and become responsibility for it that choice and change it. Virtue is to recognize you have a problem. There is no man that isn’t freedom.

There were also the Ideas of subject and object. The first was Being for itself, in which a person is completely free. The second was Being in itself in which all is thrown in to a world that is determined and the third Being with others which is a constant play of inter-subjectivity. Your freedom is your choice. To be a victim is because of your choice to be an object. Facticity acknowledges facts of the matter can be something more: object. Transcendence are facts of the matter that don’t really matter. I don’t ever study, wish over facts, rape never happened: subject.