Sartre Reading Notes

Introduction

I – The phenomenon • (1) evaluation of phenomenological account of being o Means of overcoming dualisms (interior/exterior) ▪ Rejects interiority of phenomenon as secret nature of being ▪ Rejects exterior phenomenon as the layer which hides the true nature of being ▪ There is no true nature of being (which is hidden by exterior and found in interior) • Phenomenon = totality of infinite series of manifested appearances • (4) no action indicates anything which is behind itself • (4) dualism of being/appearance no longer considered a law in philosophy • (4) appearance = total series of appearances • (4) being of existent = exactly what it appears • (4) phenomenon = absolutely indicative of itself • (4/5) Proust example • (5) Dualism of appearance/essence is rejected o Appearance = essence / reveals essence • (5) essence = law that presides over succession of appearances o Synthetic unity of manifestations of appearance o Yet essence remains simply an appearance • (5) phenomenonal being manifests itself and essence/existence • (5) phenomenal being is a connected series of manifested appearances • (5) falls back into finite/infinite dualism • (5) infinite number of appearances of phenomenon (the existent is always changing) o appearances are relations to a changing subject • (5) reality of being is replaced by objectivity of phenomenon o Based on appeal to infinity • (6) if subject is to reveal itself as transcendent, subject must transcend the appearance (singular) towards the total series to which it belongs • (6) infinite/finite dualism replaces being/phenomenon dualism • (6) the phenomenon is inexhaustible o infinity of possible appearances o implies transcendence/reference to the infinite o Essence is severed from individual appearance ▪ As it is that which must be able to be manifested by infinite series of individual appearances • (6) ALL dualisms are thus replaced by single dualism: infinite/finite • (7) essence is an ‘appearing’ which is no longer opposed to being o Problem of the ‘being of appearing’ ▪ Such is the frst major concern Sartre approaches
II: Phenomenon of being / Being of phenomenon • (7) the being of appearance • (7) appearance has its own being / is not supported by anything different than itself • (7) there must be a phenomenon of being / an appearance of being • (7) can pass from concrete phenomenon to essence through eidic reduction (Husserlian) • (8) Being is not a quality • (8) essence is not the meaning of the object / nor found within it • (8) essence is the principle of the series of appearances which disclose it • (8) Both presence / absence disclose being • (8) being is not participated in / possessed o Being simply ‘is’ o Object does not hide or disclose being • Being is the condition for revelation o Being is being-for-revealing / NOT revealed being • (8) when passing beyond something toward its being, you suddenly shift focus towards the ‘phenomenon of being’ o here, the phenomenon of being no longer is the condition of revelation, but rather itself is something revealed-as-appearance ▪ This appearance needs a being on the basis of which to reveal itself • (8) If being of phenomenon is not revealed in a phenomenon of being, you cannot say anything about being without considering being-of-phenomenon o (8/9) You must establish the relation of being to the being-of-phenomenon • (9) if being is not considered as the condition of revelation, but rather as an appearance determined by concepts: o Being cannot be accounted for by knowledge along