Sartre proposes that one of the ways humans do this is through bad faith. While humans can recognize negations in the world and in themselves, they can also create negations. Being is both born from nothingness and synonymous with it. Nothingness is an essential characteristic of human existence.

He argues that humans contain both, and that both are essentially the same idea. In Part I, Sartre makes a case for being and nothingness. Any conception of the world that does not embrace meaninglessness tints understanding and separates oneself from an authentic life. The best way to understand existence is by taking in appearances-by using perception to engage with the world and to analyze being through phenomenon. He argues that philosophers need to set aside their belief systems to look objectively at being. By placing emphasis upon phenomenology, philosophers can better understand what it means to be human and to exist. He argues that belief in a “true nature” clouds the judgment about the reality of the human experience. Sartre rejects the notion of essences, a principle of existence that had permeated philosophical inquiry since Ancient Rome. The author uses the Introduction to detail the basic structure of his argument and to refute early conceptualizations of ontology (i.e.

Sartre’s opus is considered the first clear outlining of existentialist principles as an entire movement.īeing and Nothingness embraces three important themes that will be explored in this guide: The Importance of Authenticity, The Myth of Essence and Identity, and Ways of Being. Instead, they should acknowledge the absurdity of their existence, design their own morality, and make choices based upon their own free will. He argues that humans should reject their notions of ethics, theology, and laws that are outlined by, and based upon, external ideas of higher authority and power. Sartre proposes that the only clear choice is to live authentically, to make decisions for oneself based upon one’s own values and ideas independent of accepted tradition and societal moral values. Humans are handed an inheritance of struggle: They are faced with trying to make sense of a senseless world, to muddle through life, which offers them an abundance of freedom and no clear roadmap for what actions to take. He challenged the idea that humans are endowed with an essence at birth and argued that the world is suspended in meaninglessness. In Being and Nothingness, named in honor of Heidegger’s work, Sartre outlined the foundational principles of existentialism.

Sartre had read Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time and was excited by the early existentialist ideas presented there. This guide uses the 2018 edition by the Washington Square Press, translated by Sarah Richmond.įrench philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre penned Being and Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology in 1941 while a prisoner in a Nazi war camp.

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