Jean-Paul Satre.

sw0o0sh · Jul 4, 2009

Anybody ever read any of this guys work or looked into him and what he had to say? He wasn't an acid-head but he sure had a lot to say about the ego and it's transcendence, not to mention his idea's in philosophy are pretty interesting to say the least... while making some sense at the same time.

The conflict between oppressive, spiritually-destructive conformity (mauvaise foi, literally, "bad faith") and an "authentic" way of "being" became the dominant theme of Sartre's early work, a theme embodied in his principal philosophical work L'Être et le Néant (Being and Nothingness) (1943).[9]
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^ I guess in Laymens you "could" say, this guy looked into the faults of modern society and conforming into it (which usually had a spritually destructive nature), and then escaping from it, a form of enlightenment in a sense from this.

The basis of Sartre's existentialism can be found in The Transcendence of the Ego. To begin with, the thing-in-itself is infinite and overflowing. Sartre refers to any direct consciousness of the thing-in-itself as a "pre-reflective consciousness." Any attempt to describe, understand, historicize etc. the thing-in-itself, Sartre calls "reflective consciousness." There is no way for the reflective consciousness to subsume the pre-reflective, and so reflection is fated to a form of anxiety, i.e. the human condition. The reflective consciousness in all its forms, (scientific, artistic or otherwise) can only limit the thing-in-itself by virtue of its attempt to understand or describe it. It follows, therefore, that any attempt at self-knowledge (self-consciousness - a reflective consciousness of an overflowing infinite) is a construct that fails no matter how often it is attempted. Consciousness is consciousness of itself insofar as it is consciousness of a transcendent object.

The same holds true about knowledge of the "Other." The "Other" (meaning simply beings or objects that are not the self) is a construct of reflective consciousness. A volitional entity must be careful to understand this more as a form of warning than as an ontological statement. However, there is an implication of solipsism here that Sartre considers fundamental to any coherent description of the human condition.[25] Sartre overcomes this solipsism by a kind of ritual. Self consciousness needs "the Other" to prove (display) its own existence. It has a "masochistic desire" to be limited, i.e. limited by the reflective consciousness of another subject. This is expressed metaphorically in the famous line of dialogue from No Exit, "Hell is other people."

The main idea of Jean-Paul Sartre is that we are, as humans, "condemned to be free."[26] This theory relies upon his atheism, and is formed using the example of the paper-knife. Sartre says that if one considered a paper-knife, one would assume that the creator would have had a plan for it: an essence. Sartre said that human beings have no essence before their existence because, there is no Creator. Thus: "existence precedes essence".[27] So, and just for that, the Sartrian man with his freedom will become a god, but he will remain always only a bankrupt god.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre

Awesome.

indian~summer · Jul 4, 2009

very good book
i like sartre

opel diamond · Jul 4, 2009

indian~summer said:

very good book
i like sartre
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i've got that book on my shelf and am yet to read it.

might be my next one now

MisterMorningGlory · Jul 6, 2009

Taking existentialism at college this fall! Sooo excited, lots of Satre!

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Jean-Paul Satre.

sw0o0sh Banned

indian~summer yo ho & a bottle of yum

opel diamond burn out

MisterMorningGlory Member

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Jean-Paul Satre.

sw0o0sh Banned

indian~summer yo ho & a bottle of yum

opel diamond burn out

MisterMorningGlory Member

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