英国作业：存在主义哲学

让·保罗·萨尔的存在主义哲学-Existentialist philosophy of Jean Paul Sarter

 

Based on an examination of the nature of phenomena, he describes the nature of two kinds of being, being-in-itself and being-for-itself.

 

Being-in-itself is something that can only be approximated, a sort of being that can only be imagined as itself if it is imagined without a witnessing consciousness, being-for-itself is the being of consciousness

 

Sarter says that "Ethical behavior acknowledges our freedom in the world and we commended to be free ,one of the the major achievements of modern philosophy has been to free us of the kind of dualism.

 

Being in-it-self is a creat object, we create our self by our choice and actions, recreation of self is always possible.

 

Sarter illustrates that by the story in BEING AND NOTHINGNESS (1942) Sartre's existentialist ethics

 

Sartre gives the story in Being and Nothingness (1942) of his student who came to see him regarding a problem: This was during the Nazi occupation of France in World War Two. The student's father was a Nazi sympathizer and the student's brother had been killed. The student was the only remaining son of his mother and the bond was close.

 

The student asked Sartre if he should stay with his mother in France or join the French Resistance in England (to fight Germany) where the outcome was uncertain. Kant's "categorical imperative" gives no answer here as either the mother is the means and the cause the end or vice-versa. Sartre's answer became existentialist ethics. He refused to advise the student knowing that he had to create himself through his choices and the path he took would forever close the other path. Sartre was also aware that the student had already really made his choice before asking for advice (as is often the case).

 

自身的存在-Being for-it-self

 

"Who I really am based on the sum of all of my past actions; existence leads to essence (nature). Eg Linda is a kind person because she has shown herself to be so by her actions."

 

Being-For-Itself - Being has several dimensions. Being-for-itself is defined "as being what it is not and not being what it is" (Sartre, 1956: lxv). It is our potentiality to be more than we are being. The For-Itself is perpetually designing itself not to be the In-Itself. If Dave is In-Itself, and David is For-Itself, we can say the following: Dave is being David, which Dave is not, and at the same time Dave what Dave is. I am a plurality: Dave is part of my being, and David is part of my being, and so is the nothingness that I have negated in both Dave and David. I see a certain lack in David, but a number of lacks no longer available to David. David is a line of flight away from Dave; fleeing the being David was, and fleeing the being which David is not. David is not a meat-eater, not an alcohol consumer, and not a Harley owner. Can I be joyful without Harley> I am the being David, along with the being Dave which I am denying in acts of nihilation. Being-For-Itself is an act of my self reflection of David making a conscious act to become what I am not yet being; Dave is completing himself in becoming David. For example, Dave is a workaholic (and write-a-holic) who is in David about to become balanced (in work, leisure, spirit, joy and passion). David-For-Itself reflect upon parts of David, such as finding balance, that is not yet. While being Dave, I had this wondrous Harley-Davidson motorcycle. To become David, I sold the Hawg, stopped wearing all black clothes, black boots, and headed off to a new adventure. Being-For-Itself became redefined as post-Harley lifestyle. For-Itself is a witness of reflection, reflecting upon a form of flight in the face of being (Sartre, 1956: 1213). Post-Harley is a line of flight by Being-For-Itself, without Harley.

 

To not-be what it is - For-It-Self has to be its being, being what It-Is. A nothingness of facticity separates Dave from David. David is still just being Dave, trying to not-be what Dave is. David can neither get rid of Dave, nor merge with it. You do not escape the Past; it is always bearing witness to David non-being David. As Sartre says, when "I have finished drinking," I have drunk the ensemble slips into the past (Sartre, 1956: 141).

To be what it is not - is the game of David reflecting on what he is not being. David, is never what David is, even with vegetarian practices, David is not fully vegetarian; even as Vegan, there are practices yet to be achieved. David seeks to not be alcoholic, to not be Dave drinking, but David is always alcoholic, haunted by a craving to taste the red wines of France. David is always apprehending himself as a certain lack, and it is this lacking, that prompts my desire to be what Dave is not. "To drink or to be drinking means never to have finished drinking, to have still to be drinking beyond the drinking which I am (Sartre, 1956: 141). You see Dave is the unachieved totality of David, to be what it is not, that is the question, I ponder.

To be what it is not and to not-be what it is -- within the unity of a perpetual referring - is my David =:= Dave perpetual game of reflected-reflecting. I am plurality and a unity of one, and the lines of flight my selves are taking. Whenever I reflect upon both David and Dave, one comes to mine and the other escapes my grasp. "It is this game of musical chairs at the heart of the For-itself which is Presence to being" (Sartre, 1956: 142). My Present, Past, and Future are all at the same time, me dispersing in three directions. No one has ontological priority over the other except in the fictive imagination of the storyteller. Yet Sartre accuses Heidegger of putting the accept on the future ekstasis, and I accuse Sartre of putting the accent on the present (here and now) one

 

他人的存在-Being-for-other

 

"being-for-others", how others perceive me. It should be close to "being-for-self". It follows "being-for-self" like a shadow.

 

Some key terms

 

"Being-for-others" is the impression I leave behind me in the memories of others, eg you live for two years in a certain city, the memory you leave behind there is your "being-for-others".

 

"BFS can differ from BFO, eg if society distrusts and ill-treats Jews then a Jew's BFO will be poor compared to the person's actual conduct (BFS); this is a real limit to freedom.

 

"The dead are at the mercy of the living" (Sartre) – once you die one person leaves the narrative and you are at the mercy of others who choose how to define you, eg in 1980 in China it was said that Mao Zedong was "70% right and 30% wrong".

 

Sartre states that many relationships are created by people's attraction not to another person but rather how that person makes them feel about themselves by how they look at them. This is a state of emotional alienation whereby a person avoids experiencing their subjectivity by identifying themselves with "the look" of the other. The consequence is conflict. In order to keep the person's own being the person must control the other, but must control the freedom of the other "as freedom". These relationships are a profound manifestation of "bad faith" as the for-itself is replaced with the other's freedom. The purpose of either participant is not to exist but to maintain the other participant's looking at them. This system is often mistakenly called love, but is in fact nothing more than emotional alienation and a denial of freedom through conflict with the other. Sartre believes that it is often created as a means of making the unbearable anguish of a person's relationship to their "Facticity" (all of the concrete details against the background of which human freedom exists and is limited, such as birthplace and time) bearable. At its extreme, the alienation can become so intense that due to the guilt of being so radically enslaved by "the look" and therefore radically missing their own freedoms, the participants can experience masochistic and sadistic attitudes. This happens when the participants cause pain to each other, in attempting to prove their control over the other's look, which they cannot escape because they believe themselves to be so enslaved to the look that experiencing their own subjectivity would be equally unbearable.#p#分页标题#e#

 

不守信用-Bad Faith

 

Bad faith is the attempt to escape anguish by pretending to ourselves that we are not free. We try to convince ourselves that our attitudes and actions are determined by our character, our situation, our role in life, or anything other than ourselves.

 

Although circumstances may limit individuals , they cannot force persons as radically free beings to follow one course over another. For this reason, individuals choose in anguish: they know that they must make a choice, and that it will have consequences. For Sartre, to claim that one amongst many conscious possibilities takes undeniable precedence (for instance, "I cannot risk my life, because I must support my family") is to assume the role of an object in the world, merely at the mercy of circumstance

 

萨尔的例子-Sartre's Examples

 

The cafe waiter who is doing his job just a little too keenly; he is obviously 'acting the part'. If there is bad faith here, it is that he is trying to identify himself completely with the role of waiter, to pretend that this particular role determines his every action and attitude. Whereas the truth is that he has chosen to take on the job, and is free to give it up at any time. He is not essentially a waiter, but is rather consciously deceiving himself. [1]

Another of Sartre's example of bad faith. He pictures a girl sitting with a man who she knows very well would like to seduce her. But when he takes her hand, she tries to avoid the painful necessity of a decision to accept or reject him, by pretending not to notice, leaving her hand in his as if she were not aware of it. She pretends to herself that she is a passive object, a thing, rather than what she really is, a conscious being who is free.

Sartre tells us that by acting in bad faith, the waiter and the woman are denying their own freedom, but actively using this freedom itself. They manifestly know they are free but do not acknowledge it,when acting in bad faith, a person is both aware and, in a sense, unaware that they are free.