Jean-Paul Sartre

Heidegger AI Textual Research Investigations: Letter on Humanism (GA 9). By Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Copyright©2026 Daniel Fidel Ferrer. All rights reserved. Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND. Imprint 1.0. 2026. WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) digital. 1- 36 pages. Warning. Warning: this is an AI Working Zone. Warning. Perhaps an impending danger of unexpected, unknown texts. This is an AI investigation into Martin Heidegger’s texts. Daniel Fidel Ferrer as the “Prompt Artist”. AI conducted by ©Daniel Fidel Ferrer, 2026. Maestro. I could consider myself (...) the Maestro suggeritore. Heidegger sources. Martin Heidegger’s Brief über den »Humanismus«. Wegmarken. 1919-58 (GA 9) [In English Pathmarks]. Brief über den Humanismus (1946) Letter on Humanism Letter written by Martin Heidegger in December 1946 in response to a series of questions by Jean Beaufret (10 November 1946). Jean Beaufret (1907-1982). Heidegger’s famous remark attacking Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980). Auch muss auf Heidegger zurückgegangen werden! (shrink)

Note on Version 1.1 Version 1.1 clarifies that the second layer is not an independent agent of judgement or narrativisation, but rather the level at which the results of first-layer processing are displayed in a serial and linguistic form. It also redefines the third layer, not as a higher-order observer, but as a re-referencing loop through which second-layer representations are returned as meaningful input to first-layer processing. In addition, this version draws a clearer distinction between Sartre’s phenomenological and ontological concepts (...) and the functional account proposed by the three-layer model. -/- Abstract This paper re-examines Sartre’s concepts of being-for-itself, nihilation, the transcendence of the ego, bad faith, and freedom through a three-layer model of consciousness. In this model, the first layer consists of non-linguistic, parallel processing; the second layer consists of the linguistic display of selected results of that processing; and the third layer consists of a re-referencing loop through which displayed contents are returned to the first layer for further processing. From this perspective, human self-descriptions are not identical with the whole of experience. Rather, they are provisional representations in which only part of a complex field of processing is rendered into language. Such representations may be reinforced through repeated processing, but they may also be revised. This paper relates the gap between self-description and the wider field of experience to the self-non-coincidence that characterises Sartre’s being-for-itself. Bad faith is further interpreted as a process in which a provisional self-description becomes fixed through repetition and is treated as though it expressed an immutable essence. Freedom, on this account, does not mean the capacity to choose anything whatsoever independently of constraint. It means that one’s present self-description is not closed as a final essence, but remains capable of revision through action and new experience. The aim of this paper is not to reduce Sartre’s philosophy to cognitive science. Rather, it is to open a possible dialogue between Sartre’s phenomenological insights and the functional account offered by the three-layer model. -/- . (shrink)

The following essay is a critical analysis of Jean-Paul Sartre’s phenomenological and psychological investigations into the radical heterogeneity between consciousness and its objects. The essay’s primary aim is to shed light upon Sartre’s uncompromising dualism between consciousness (i.e., the “For-itself,” or the Pour-soi) and Being (i.e., the “In-itself,” or the En-soi), and how such a “bifurcation” creates an irreconcilable gulf between the “nothingness” of imagination and the “infinite density” of reality. Rather than conducting a survey of the entirety of Sartre’s (...) diverse and extensive corpus, this investigation concerns itself, in the main, with the theory of perception and imagination expounded in the philosopher’s 1940 work of phenomenological psychology, The Imaginary. Nevertheless, just as a distinct “figure” is appreciable only insofar as it is in communion with a contextual “ground,” pertinent ideas from Sartre’s other works (e.g., The Transcendence of the Ego from 1936, and Being and Nothingness from 1943) are introduced to supplement and clarify the theoretical Gestalten within which Sartre’s suggestive thoughts unfold. The present essay begins by sketching the unique architecture of the Sartrean consciousness. Next, it drafts an outline of what Sartre identifies as the perceptual, the conceptual, and the imaginative ways of being conscious (i.e., the basic, diverse modes in which a consciousness can be a consciousness of something)—none of the three species of consciousness being identical with, nor reducible to, one another. Following the discussion of Sartre’s classification of consciousness, this essay discloses a puzzle latently slumbering within, and entailed by, the philosopher’s emphasis on the “emptiness” of imaginative consciousness and the “fullness” of Being—two spheres that he leaves “coupled apart.”. (shrink)

This paper advances an original ontological thesis I call Anti-Affirmative Ontology: genuine being does not require, and is not authenticated by, alteration of the world. Contrary to a widespread assumption in modern thought—popularized in existentialist readings of action and agency—that one confirms one’s existence by changing the world, I argue that such world-altering activity is frequently an expression of virtuality or non-authenticity: a reactive drive to secure identity through external effects rather than a disclosure of being itself. I develop this (...) thesis by (1) clarifying key concepts (existence, authenticity, virtuality/virtual-nothingness, world-alteration, confirmation); (2) diagnosing the philosophical genealogy that makes confirmation by world-alteration plausible (particularly certain readings of Sartre and modern action metaphysics); (3) offering a reordering of the ontological relations among authenticity, nothingness (virtuality), existence, and essence; (4) defending the view against natural counterclaims drawn from existentialist agency and pragmatic accounts of selfhood; and (5) showing how non-Western resources—notably Daoist and Zen insights concerning wu-wei and non-attachment—can supplement an ontology that refuses external confirmation as the criterion of being. The result is a sustained argument that reframes the metaphysical stakes of action: to exist truly is not to act so as to be seen to have acted, but to be disclosed in a self-sufficient way that precedes and resists instrumental proof. (shrink)

The existentialism of Sartre and Beauvoir presents us with a puzzle: on one hand, all values depend on our free choices. On the other hand, one value—freedom—seems to be normatively binding on all agents. In this paper I aim to resolve the puzzle through a reconstruction of the ethics of Sartre and especially Beauvoir as versions of constitutivism. Constitutivism holds that agency has some constitutive aim(s) and that norms derived from such aims are therefore binding on all agents. I argue (...) that Sartre can be read, and Beauvoir should be read, as a constitutivist: free agency necessarily aims at freedom, and this means that as agents we necessarily aim to expand rather than constrict freedom, whether in ourselves or others. After presenting the core argument supporting Beauvoir’s conclusion, I proceed to respond to two sorts of objections to Beauvoirean constitutivism. The first claims that if the aim of freedom is constitutive of agency, it is impossible to fail to pursue the aim. The second claims that Beauvoir can at best give us a purely subjectivist ethics. I argue that Beauvoir has a well-developed account of how agents can deviate from the aim of freedom, and there are both textual and theoretical reasons why her appeal to an objective value should manifest itself as subjectivism. (shrink)

The paradoxical nature of intentional self-deception has led many philosophers to view self-deception as predominantly non-intentional. I propose that approaching self-deception from an agency-theoretic perspective allows us to rescue the idea that self-deception can at least be driven by intention. By modeling the ‘acting as if’ method of self-deception with agential layering, developed by Nguyen [2020. Games: Agency as Art. New York: Oxford University Press], I argue that intention-driven self-deception is no more mysterious than other activities that involve self-effacing ends: (...) ends we must pursue indirectly. That is, self-deception can occur when agents pursue the self-effacing end of forming what they take to be an epistemically unjustified belief by submerging themselves in a layer of agency in which they can act as if they already hold that belief. By intentionally adopting this pretense and shaping their agency around it, they forget that their agency is layered at all, and may thereby form a full-fledged belief. This model avoids objections to views that treat self-deception itself as intentional and does so while appealing only to resources already used to explain our everyday activities. I then apply my model to a core case of bad faith from Sartre to show that intention-driven self-deception can clarify how we are responsible for inauthenticity. (shrink)

In Being and Nothingness, Sartre claims that consciousness is absolutely and inevitably free. This article defends his ontological conception of freedom against the charge that it cannot account for our experience of limitation, coercion, and external causal determination. I argue that Sartre's claim should not be understood as asserting the imperviousness of consciousness to external limitations or causes but rather its irreducibility to them. Because its activity cannot be exhaustively explained by appealing to them alone, consciousness always contributes to the (...) constitution of its own experience as a free act of self‐determination. After examining Sartre's critiques of determinism and indeterminism, I argue that ontological freedom can be understood in terms of a dialectic between external determination and self‐determination, such that consciousness realizes its freedom in and through conditions limiting it. (shrink)

I reply to three critical discussions of my book, Transparency and Reflection (Oxford, 2024). The replies discuss the basic structure of my “reflectivist” account of self-knowledge, the bearing of my account on the distinction between rational and nonrational minds, the question of how to respond to Hume’s challenge to our entitlement to attribute our thoughts to a single self, the relation between awareness of ourselves as conscious subjects and knowledge of our existence as embodied objects, and the relation of my (...) views on self-awareness to the views of Immanuel Kant. (shrink)

The Enlightenment-humanist tradition places the rational, autonomous individual at the heart of its inquiries into human nature. Much of phenomenology, following Edmund Husserl, carries forward this tradition, placing the rational individual at the heart of its investigations. Existential phenomenology, as developed, for example, by Jean-Paul Sartre, applies this approach and seeks to answer questions related to the meaninglessness of life and human freedom. This tradition was criticized in the latter half of the twentieth century by posthumanist authors emphasizing the importance (...) of the social, power, or the unconscious as decisive factors explaining human behavior. One author relevant to this discussion is Émile Durkheim, who embodies elements of both traditions. He embraces Cartesian rationalism as a means to understand the social world, and yet, a consequence of his sociology is a deconstruction of the individual to show how the social pre-figures and shapes individual consciousness. This text draws out the similarities between Durkheim’s work and the existential-phenomenological tradition. It details the existential problematic that arises from Durkheim’s sociology, which demonstrates the social construction of reality and thus its inherent meaninglessness. It also builds on Durkheim’s observation that the gods are dead and that a unique, socio-historically developed form of individual subjectivity is the hallmark of modernity and indeed the sociological pre-condition for the emergence of existentialism itself. From there it uses the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche and Sartre to develop a notion of Durkheimian existential ethics, what I call amor societatis, that reconciles the social with the problems of freedom, subjectivity, and absurdity. Akin to Nietzsche’s amor fati, the Durkheimian amor societatis recognizes the absurdity of the social world and its obligations, but fully embraces them as a necessary component of life, indeed as that which makes us fully human. (shrink)

This study redefines the origins of existentialism by positioning the Italian poet and philosopher Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) as the initiator of atheistic existentialism. In his notebooks, the Zibaldone, Leopardi formulates what can be read as the foundational principle of existentialism: ‘existence precedes essence’. Throughout his writings he also expresses the typical affective states of existentialism: existential boredom, anguish, alienation, and the absurd. Leopardi offers the first integrated formulation of both the existentialist principle and the existentialist Stimmung. The existentialist principle underpins (...) Leopardi’s work entirely. The main consequences of such principle are the absence of God, the absurdity of existence, and the freedom of the individual. These points place Leopardi in remarkable alignment with 20th-century atheist existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, and Martin Heidegger. Previous scholarship has limited itself to tracing isolated affinities between Leopardi and single existentialists. This project demonstrates that their alignment is both more profound and more systematic than has previously been acknowledged. Through such mediators as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Unamuno, and others, Leopardi’s works can be shown to have influenced, more or less directly, the existentialists. Leopardi also pioneers a mode of literature-philosophy that rejects formal logic and embraces poetry as a means of creating meaning in an otherwise meaningless existence. Indeed, poetry is the only means to create values that can sustain us in the face of existential absurdity. Many of these elements are to be found in Kierkegaard, yet neither atheism nor the idea that existence precedes essence are present in his work. Kierkegaard must therefore be regarded as the initiator of religious existentialism only, while it is Leopardi who stands at the roots of its atheistic form. (shrink)

In 1961, Stan Brakhage made Sartre’s Nausea for a public television introduction to existentialism hosted by Sartre scholar Hazel Barnes. He returned to that work, editing and directly intervening on it to make Black Vision (1965), which he says was inspired by “the only passage in Jean-Paul Sartre’s writings which has ever specifically concerned me – the passage from Nausea wherein the protagonist sits in a park and imagines his suicide” (Film-Makers’ Co-op). Despite Brakhage’s ambivalence towards Sartre, we argue that (...) he informs our understanding of Sartre by demonstrating continuities between hypnagogic consciousness and nausea, despite Sartre’s sharp distinction between those. We additionally argue that Brakhage was likely the most appropriate filmmaker for “adapting” Nausea, due to his careerlong grasp of how the experience of radical contingency could permeate not only individual consciousness, but also the filmmaking medium itself. (shrink)

Dead people can take part in gameplay. These playful possibilities reflect two broad trends in the social perception of human finitude: death acceptance and death denial. Some of the playful practices discussed in this article align with perspectives that regard mortality as a foundational -- and even affirmative -- aspect of human existence. These are games and videogames designed to sustain a sense of continuity and familiarity with the departed. Other games adopt a more antagonistic stance toward the dead, trivializing (...) and commodifying their personal and historical significance. Among the latter, this article devotes particular attention to a family of playful practices known as “dead pool games,” playful folk phenomena that have thus far been overlooked within game studies. -/- Foregrounding the representational and ethical stakes of playing with the dead, the second half of the article traces the historical development of dead pool games and examines the ethically contentious design decisions that shape this genre. The inquiry culminates in an ethics-oriented analysis of the gameplay and design of Fantamorto -- a popular contemporary Italian instantiation of the dead pool game formula, with particular attention to how its rules frame death and human suffering as ludic resources within a competitive game economy. (shrink)

This paper proposes a reconstruction of Sartre’s ontology of interpersonal relations organized around the concept of recognition. It begins with Honneth’s critique of Sartre, taking it as an opportunity to clarify the distinctive character of Sartre’s ontological approach to recognition. Central to this approach is the idea that a tension exists between intersubjective intimacy and existential separation, which Sartre regards as constitutive of the self-other relation. His analysis of this tension hinges on the concept of original recognition, as embodied in (...) our affective response to the look of the Other. This recognition, however, is inherently ambiguous. While attesting to an original generosity of our interpersonal relations, it is also the source of potential conflict – a conflict that need not be perpetual but can be constructively overcome. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs Sartre’s theory of perception in Being and Nothingness and related texts through the lens of the representationalism/naïve realism debate. I argue that Sartre’s position can be best understood as a fundamentally relational view that incorporates certain insights of intentionalism, resulting in what I term an ‘intentional relationalism’. For Sartre, perception is simultaneously a real, immediate relation with the perceived object and a contentful, intentional exploration of that object. It has a two-dimensional structure, in which the dimension of (...) relationality is explanatorily more basic. The paper discusses the intellectual lineage of this distinctive view in Sartre’s engagement with his philosophical predecessors and examines how he develops this approach through his theory of consciousness as nihilation. (shrink)

萨特的他人学说与胡塞尔现象学构成了多层次的对话。本文不仅关注萨特对胡塞尔同感理论的明确批评，更聚焦于他对“交互身体性”理论方向的隐含拒斥，以此凸显其“目光”学说的独特路径。本文将这一路径诠释为一种基于 “想象变更”的哲学尝试：即便在思想实验中悬置了身体的触觉自反性结构，他人依然可以通过“目光”经验被给予我们。目光经验是一种具身情感经验：在他人目光下，我为自身感到羞耻。这种羞耻是对自身脆弱性和他人超越 性的承认，表达了诸具身意识间存在的统一。以目光经验为前提，萨特理论中的同感不仅是对他人作为对象的直接知觉，而且是对他人脆弱性的守护。.

Detendo-se na liberdade como um manter-se fora do alcance do sere um guardar-se imune a sua ação em um para além de um nada, Sartre assinala a angústia como reconhecimento de uma possibilidade como sua possibilidade e identificação da ruptura em relação a sua essência pelo nada. Dessa forma, angustiar-se diante de sié o que se impõe à liberdade em um movimento que encerra o nada enquanto “porquê”, tratando-se de reconhecimento pelo existente humano de uma possibilidade como sua possibilidade. Consistindo (...) a angústia na captação reflexiva da liberdade por ela mesma, o seremerge “como” angústia “sendo-angústia” para da angústia fugir, conforme defende Sartre, que assinala oato original através do qual o humano existente é para si mesmo seu próprio nadacomo o que se impõe à descoberta na imanência absoluta enquanto subjetividade pura do cogito instantâneo em um processo que encerra a questão envolvendo a consciência e o seu modus essendicomo fundamento que possibilita ao existente humano surgir no mundo como o ser que é seu próprio nada e como o ser através do qual o nada vem ao mundo. Assim, tendo em vista a construção teórico-conceitual de Sartre como o encontro consigo mesmo no porvir e a possibilidade de não achar-se, na medida em que assinalaum ser para o qual em seu próprio ser impõe-se a consciência do nada de seu ser entre a má-fé e a mentira, o Prof. Luiz Carlos Mariano Da Rosa, em consonância com o princípio hermenêutico-fenomenológico-ontológico-existencial,sublinha que,se somos-angústia-para-dela-fugir na unidade de uma mesma consciência, a possibilidade de má-fé implica a necessidade da unidade do ser e do não ser, isto é, o ser-para-não ser, convergindo para a identificação da consciência através de uma definição que não se circunscreve as fronteiras de um ser para o qual em seu próprio ser impõe-se o seu ser enquanto este ser implica um outro ser que não si mesmo, mantendo-se concomitantemente sob a égide de um ser para o qual em seu próprio ser impõe-se a consciência do nada de seu ser. (shrink)

El presente trabajo analiza un fragmento de El existencialismo es un humanismo de Jean-Paul Sartre centrado en la tesis según la cual la existencia precede a la esencia. A partir del examen de conceptos como subjetividad, proyecto, libertad y responsabilidad, se expone la concepción existencialista del ser humano como un ente que se configura a sí mismo mediante sus elecciones y acciones. Asimismo, se estudian las consecuencias éticas y antropológicas derivadas de esta propuesta. Finalmente, se ofrece una valoración crítica de (...) los problemas que plantea la negación de toda esencia humana y la defensa de una libertad absoluta. (shrink)

Abstract: This essay undertakes a Kantian transcendental deduction of Greimas’s narratological “Modèle actantiel,” elevating it into a general principle of action. Action is first divided into the phenomenological agentive—the experience of voluntary autonomy—and the ontological acted—its unknowable noumenal ground. The actantial model is then reconstructed across three axes: the axis of desire (Subject/Object), the axis of communication (Sender/Receiver), and, most extensively, the unfinished axis of power (Helper/Opponent). The essay identifies a critical omission in Greimas’s power-axis: the bystander, an undifferentiated neutral (...) matrix from which helpers and opponents emerge. The bystander’s capacity for le regard (the gaze) is shown to produce profound power effects—objectification, transparentization of the action-field, and an inhibiting effect that suppresses differentiation itself. The second part unfolds a typology of the action-field into four irreducible dimensions: the physical field (spatio-temporal form), the logical field (cognitive form), the social field (intersubjective form, grounded in mutual perception and the gaze), and the cultural field (the historical synthesis of the first three dimensions, where cognitive schemas are sedimented and transformed). The argument draws on Husserl, Schopenhauer, Sartre, Foucault, Fichte, and Berkeley to establish a phenomenology of action in which the field and its neutral bystanders are constitutive transcendental conditions. Keywords: phenomenology of action; actantial model; agentive and acted; action-field; bystander; the gaze (le regard); transcendental deduction; axis of power; intersubjectivity; objectification; panopticism; différance; Greimas; Schopenhauer; Sartre. (shrink)

We live surrounded by digital things, yet we do not know what digital means. Binary, discrete, data, information—every definition we rely on is either misleading or imprecise. The result is a cognitive fog that haunts our discourse, from philosophy to daily life, with consequences we are only beginning to grasp. -/- In Digital: Definition and Condition, I strips away the confusion to isolate a single, rigorous definition. From this foundation, I dismantles the myths we live by—the illusion of digital intelligence, (...) the anonymity imposed by the count, the fragility of our digital ecosystem, the poverty of experience behind seamless interfaces. Across telephony, vinyl, maps, art, and online meetings, I reconstructs an onto-phenomenology of the digital that exposes both the power and the precarity of the world we have built. -/- Analogue is; Digital wants to be. (shrink)

This conversation between Ronald Aronson and Jonathan Judaken explores Sartre's evolving views on anti-Semitism, Israel, racism, and the Palestinian struggle. Sartre first became a significant cultural-political force as a critic of anti-Semitism and as a supporter of the national liberation struggle of Israeli Jews. Then, faced with the Israeli-Arab and then the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he refused to abandon his support for Israeli Jews even while embracing the validity of the Palestinian cause, including at times the use of ‘terrorism as a (...) weapon of the weak’. His nuanced, situated, and insightful views prove valuable to revisit in light of October 7 and the ensuing war. (shrink)

_Dasein_ is the German term for concrete existence in general. In phenomenology, it is best known as the key term of Martin Heidegger’s _Being and Time_ (1927), where it specifically designates the existential, factical, and situated “being-there” of the concrete and individual human being, as opposed to the Husserlian understanding of transcendental subjectivity. In Heidegger’s fundamental ontology, the existential analytic of Dasein as dynamic and finite being-in-the-world and care aims to elaborate the fundamentally temporal structure of Dasein’s existence; this was (...) to serve as a pathway to articulating the temporal structure of meaningful being in general. In Heidegger’s later thought, the focus is on the _Da_, the “there” of Dasein as the situated and singular locus, site, or place for the event (_Ereignis_) of being. The Heideggerian Dasein has been a particularly influential concept within existential philosophy and existential psychology, and has also had repercussions in political theory. (shrink)

Some thirty years ago, the metanarratives of Sartre's thinking entered their fourth stage, the genetical stage. An important subject of genetical study has become the period prior to the publication of L’être et le néant. This article examines what Sartre read in the 1920s and what formed his philosophical matrix, into which he later incorporated concepts from Husserl, Heidegger and Hegel (3Hs). An important result is that Sartre's main focus in the 1920s was already on the subject's freedom and the (...) contingency of the world. In this respect, philosophers such as Henri Bergson, Arthur Schopenhauer, the pragmatists and Karl Jaspers were more influential than the 3Hs, who were prominently present mainly in the writings of the 1940s. We can observe the importance of psychology and sociology for Sartre at that time, which later manifested itself in his psychological works of the 1930s and his biographies and socio-anthropological texts of the 1950s to the 1970s. (shrink)

This research examines the philosophical concepts of freedom and responsibility in the existentialist thoughts of Jean-Paul Sartre, with a focus on their implications for Nigerian youths. It explores the Inescapable burden of choice and the responsibility that freedom entails. But how can this radical freedom be embraced by the Nigerian youth who are plagued by societal constraints, peer pressure, and economic adversities? Why do many young people evade their responsibilities, living in what Sartre termed Bad Faith, where they deny their (...) freedom by attributing their failures to external forces? What does it mean for Nigerian youth to take authentic ownership of their lives in a society overflowing with limitations? This research aims to answer these pressing questions by examining Sartre’s existentialist ideas such as Existence Precedes Essence, Bad Faith, Facticity, and Transcendence. The researcher seeks to decode how Sartre’s assertion that individuals must create their own essence through conscious choice can be applied to empower Nigerian youths to navigate the realities of life. Employing the hermeneutic approach, the researcher, drawing from Sartre’s existentialist philosophy, proposes philosophical ideas for nurturing authenticity and responsibility among young Nigerians. The findings of this research maintain that Nigerian youths must grapple with the weight of their freedom by rejecting self-deception (Bad Faith) and conformity (Deference to the They). In essence, this research submits that Nigerian youths can only live a well-fulfilled life and transcend societal constraints by embracing their freedom and its accompanying burden of responsibility in an authentic fashion. Sartre’s existentialist philosophy supplies not only a critique of evasion but also a call to action: to live fully, freely, and responsibly in the face of life’s challenges. (shrink)

Barbara Klaw, Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, and Margaret A. Simons with Marybeth Timmermann (eds), Simone de Beauvoir: Diary of a Philosophy Student, Volume 3, 1926–1930, trans. Barbara Klaw (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2024), xxvi, 249 pp. ISBN 978-0252045646.

Reported encounters with advanced non-human intelligences represent a growing body of perplexing and unexplainable experiences. While academic exploration of these encounters has historically been dominated by approaches that suggest these experiences exist in the mind alone, the climate may be shifting with the recent official acknowledgment of the existence of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). I examine encounters with alleged non-human intelligences (NHI) through the lens of Sartrean phenomenology. In a society that does not officially recognize non-human intelligences as “real” these (...) encounters are existentially disruptive and often traumatic. In encounters that involve apparent NHI, subjects are faced with an Other who is unaccounted for and believed by mainstream society not to exist. Faced with an encounter with the seemingly impossible, experiencers undergo ontological shock, existential rupture, and abjection, questioning the boundaries of self, other, and the world. I conclude by giving suggestions for authentic existentialist responses to these alleged encounters. (shrink)

This chapter proposes a critical reading of Sartre's phenomenology of physical images and provides some points of comparison with Husserl's position. The first necessary step is to distill Sartre's view on physical images from his overarching theory of imagination. The physical images considered here are paintings and photographs (i.e., ordinary physical images), schematic drawings (e.g., stick figures and silhouettes), and images by chance (e.g., faces in clouds). For Sartre, the further we move away from ordinary physical images, which appear at (...) a glance, the more the bodily movements of the beholder actively contribute to the constitution of the image. On this basis, Sartre's theory can accommodate the diversity of pictorial phenomena. However, this view raises some concerns and risks overemphasizing the role of the beholder. Husserl's theory of physical imaging posits that all pictorial phenomena have the same structure: their differences do not stem from their constitutive processes. He puts forward a distinction between the extensity and intensity of depiction that can be used to track their diversity. The final section suggests that Sartre's position aggravates a critical issue in Husserl's theory–the idea that image consciousness depends on an apprehension that bestows meaning on the available sensuous contents–and hints at the direction for novel research into the phenomenology of the pictorial. (shrink)

Contemporary ontology faces a fundamental challenge: How can entities exist in relation to their environments without reducing them to mere relations or isolated substances? This paper develops a spatial ontology that goes beyond the relationism-substantialism debate by examining how entities relate to their surroundings through what I term “spatial weavings”. Drawing on phenomenological analysis and biological examples, I argue that entities exist through dynamic spatial engagements that are neither reducible to network effects nor explicable as interactions between pre-given objects. Using (...) Heidegger’s analysis of spatial existence and Sartre’s inversion of essence and existence, I demonstrate that spatiality is not a container for entities, but the fundamental structure through which entities become what they are. This approach contributes to post-correlationist ontology by grounding ontology in the concrete spatial practices through which entities encounter their environments. The paper concludes by extending this analysis beyond human existence to develop a general theory of spatial being that encompasses biological, technical, and material entities. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs Sartre’s account of the “circuit of ipseity” as an integral theory of the experiential, agentive and normative aspects of self-consciousness. At the core of this theory is a conception of human (self-)consciousness as lacking, and the correlation between lacking and ideal. In Section 1, I show how this theory manages to satisfy the apparently incompatible requirements generated by the idea of a pre-reflective cogito. Section 2 discusses practical self-consciousness, in particular the agent’s consciousness of herself as self-determined (...) in the projection and pursuit of ends, and how this is accounted for in Sartre’s theory by the correlation of lack and ideal. Section 3 first clarifies the Sartrean conception of the ideal by comparing it with Korsgaard’s, and then reconstructs Sartre’s account of practical normativity by showing how it can be read as emerging from a critical engagement with Heidegger. (shrink)

I argue that Sartre's conception of freedom is best understood when read in light of the Cartesian Meditations. Drawing on the often-neglected article on ‘Cartesian Freedom’, I demonstrate how Sartre, in Being and Nothingness, re-enacts the transition from the Third to Fourth Meditation – from the causal proof of God's existence to the problem of error and free will defence. Using a Cartesian-like distinction between objective and formal reality, Sartre argues for the ontological independence of the in-itself, committing to compatibilism (...) about freedom. He addresses the Cartesian challenge of non-being and freedom as the ability to do otherwise, finally resolving the paradox of freedom by viewing situations as ambiguously shaped by absolute freedom and partial dependence on reality. Thus, my approach illuminates the historical and systematic depth of Sartre's middle ground between libertarianism and determinism. (shrink)

I argue that Sartre’s conception of freedom is best understood when read in light of the Cartesian Meditations. Drawing on the neglected article on Cartesian Freedom, I demonstrate how Sartre, in Being and Nothingness, reenacts the transition from the Third to Fourth Meditation—from the causal proof of God’s existence to the problem of error and free will defense. Using a Cartesian-like distinction between objective and formal reality, Sartre argues for the ontological independence of the In-itself, committing to compatibilism about freedom. (...) He addresses the Cartesian challenge of non-being and freedom as the ability to do otherwise, finally resolving the paradox of freedom by viewing situations as ambiguously shaped by absolute freedom and partial dependence on reality. Thus, my approach illuminates the historical and systematic depth of Sartre’s middle ground between libertarianism and determinism. (shrink)

The Introduction to Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (B&N) contains a condensed, cryptic argument – the ‘ontological proof’ – that is meant to establish a position ‘beyond realism and idealism’. Despite its role in establishing the fundamental ontological distinction of B&N – the distinction between being-for-itself and being-in-itself – the ontological proof has received very little scholarly attention. My goal is to fill this lacuna. I begin by clarifying the idealist position Sartre attacks in the Introduction to B&N: Husserl’s idealism as (...) interpreted by Aron Gurwitsch and Roman Ingarden. I then propose a new interpretation of the ontological proof that gives a central role to the transparency of experience. On this interpretation, Sartre argues from the ‘emptiness’ of consciousness – its purely relational nature – to the existence of mind-independent substance (being-in-itself). In assessing the strengths and weaknesses of Sartre’s case against idealism, I put him in critical dialogue with contemporary work in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

It has long been recognized that Sartre’s description of “being-in-itself” in the Introduction to Being and Nothingness (B&N) is reminiscent of Eleatic monism, the view traditionally attributed to Parmenides on which there is only one mind-independent entity, which is undifferentiated and atemporal. I reconstruct two arguments from premises Sartre endorses in B&N for Eleatic monism. These arguments are interesting not only because they give new life to an old reading of B&N, but also because there has recently been a revival (...) of interest in monism in analytic metaphysics. (shrink)

Both classical phenomenology and contemporary first-person realism accord a special metaphysical status to perspectives. Yet ‘inegalitarian’ forms of first-person realism are, I argue, vulnerable to Sartre’s response to the problem of other minds in Being and Nothingness. After discussing the special status Sartre accords to the first-person perspective (‘ipseity’) and signaling its affinities with first-person realism, I argue that Sartre’s description of encountering the other undermines Giovanni Merlo’s argument for metaphysical solipsism. I then show how a metaphysical notion of standpoint (...) borrowed from the first-person realist literature irons out a wrinkle in Sartre’s transcendental argument regarding other minds. I close by suggesting a kinship between Sartre’s notion of a ‘detotalized totality’ and the ‘fragmentalist’ idea embraced by some first-person realists that reality does not form a coherent whole. (shrink)

Sartre remains an exemplary case for the sociology of intellectuals because of the unique way that he combined a prominent role in public life with achievements as a philosopher, novelist and playwright. Sartre's success has been examined by Patrick Baert through the lens of his theory of positioning, according to which specific actions and events serve to give a writer the edge in unfolding social games of recognition. This article argues that Baert's scepticism about Sartre's motives spills over into unwarranted (...) cynicism and that this is made possible by methodological ambiguity surrounding the role of intentions in positioning theory. Baert's narrow periodisation of Sartre's success, and his insinuation that in the immediate post-occupation period Sartre betrayed his earlier philosophical ideas in pursuit of public attention are both rejected. At the same time the discussion finds that, detached from Baert's negative interpretation of Sartre, the idea of positioning may have potential for further development. (shrink)

Sartre’s thinking in L’être et le néant is driven by a conceptual choice that radically breaks with the philosophical spirit of Sein und Zeit and, in the same gesture, problematizes it. This rupture involves three moments. The first moment appears when Sartre transforms Heidegger’s emphasis on ‘being and time’ into ‘being and nothingness’. The second moment occurs when that transformation effectuates a conceptual shift which results in the inversion of the relationship that Heidegger establishes between anxiety and freedom: whereas in (...) Sein und Zeit anxiety is the precondition of freedom, in Sartre freedom becomes the precondition of anxiety. Finally, in the third moment, the absolute primacy of spontaneity in L’être et le néant ultimately serves as the cornerstone for Sartre’s reevaluation of truth, challenging the fundamental concept of ‘Geworfenheit’ in Sein und Zeit. Unlike Heidegger’s view where truth (alètheia) coincides with existence, in L’être et le néant, truth is portrayed as an ongoing struggle: consciousness must consistently fight against it in bad faith or forcefully liberate it from bad faith. Together, these three moments constitute the primary components of Sartre’s originality in relation to Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. (shrink)

Francis Jeanson (1922-2009) produced a number of books and articles about the economic and political situation in French-colonized Algeria, which accompanied his concrete political involvement in support of the Algerian national liberation struggle. He eventually offered his reinterpretation of his own political action, which goes hand in hand with his view of the role of the philosopher. This article looks at Jeanson's interpretations of this engagement, in order to explore the connections he made between political action and philosophy in practice (...) as well as in theory. The concept of concrete solidarity provides a thread to move backward through his studies, statements, and recollections on Algeria, anti-colonialism, and democracy both within the metropole and in relation to its colony. (shrink)