A Guide to Philosophy in Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes (6 page)

Existentialism is not a science.

In existentialism, the whole is not a mechanism, the sum of the components always means something more than the sum total.
Let us imagine that the words which form a sentence are not just a quantity of words but also a meaning.
Between the way of seeing man as object, from the outside, characteristic of medicine, of psychology, of history, etc., and that of existentialism, which is to feel, so to speak,
from the inside
, within his being, there is an
ABYSS.

Monday, May 5, 1969

Existentialism

Existentialism is subjectivity.

Personally, I am quite subjective and it seems to me that this attitude corresponds to reality.

Subjective
man
Concrete
man.

Not a concept of man, but Pierre or François, since the concept of man does not exist, says Kierkegaard.

Because of this, it is monstrously difficult for existentialism to make arguments, since arguments are based on concepts, and only thanks to Heidegger’s betrayal which took hold of the phenomenological method, can one speak [
sentence incomplete
].

The existentialist is a
subjective, free
man.
He has what one calls free will, unlike a man viewed from the scientific outside, who is always subject to causality, like a mechanism.

This bold theory that man is free seems absolutely mad in a world where everything is cause and effect.
It relies on an elementary sensation: we are free and there is no way to convince me that if I
move my left hand it is not because I want to.
It is not easy to specify what this possibility of freedom is based on.

I imagine that it is based on a difference in time.
Time for man is not the past but the future.
If one does something, it is not
because of
but rather
in order to
.
“I read in order to remind myself,”
etc.

If in the past, you have causality, in the future, in man’s existence, we are dealing with the future.

One can say, more profoundly, that in our consciousness one finds the same internal rupture, which reveals itself, for example, in the physical.

Man, that being
for himself
, is divided in two (with a hole).
It is in this nothingness, in this void (the hole), that the concept of
freedom
is introduced.
Freedom has an enormous role for Sartre, because it is the foundation of his moral system.

Sartre is a moralist, and it is curious that the same deviation observed by Husserl in Descartes is produced again in French philosophy.

Descartes, in an extremely categorical way, reduces thought to a single description of consciousness, but suddenly,
frightened
by the annihilation of God, of the world, he betrays himself.
He recognized
God’s existence.
This already deduces, from the existence of God, the existence of the world.

Now, in Sartre, in my view, we are dealing with the same cowardice.
There are perhaps fifteen pages in
Being and Nothingness
where Sartre makes some dramatic efforts to logically justify a phenomenon which seems absolutely evident, the existence of a man other than “self.”
For example, the phenomenon of Witold’s existence is the same as that of a chair.

Sartre analyzes all the systems: Kant, Hegel, Husserl, and he demonstrates that none of them has any possibility of recognizing the other man.
Why?
Because to be man is to be subject.
It is to have a consciousness which recognizes everything else as object.
If I admitted that Witold too has a consciousness, then inevitably I myself am an object for Witold, who is the subject.
It is impossible to be subject and object at the same time.
Here Sartre was frightened.
His highly developed ethics refuses to admit that there is no other man because there are no longer any moral obligations.
The other being object.

Sartre, who was always torn between Marxism (scientific) and existentialism (the opposite), was frightened just like Descartes.
He stated quite simply
and honestly that even though it was impossible to recognize the existence of others, there is no other way than to recognize it as an obvious fact.
There all of Sartre’s philosophy, all its creative potential, dramatically collapses, and this man, gifted with extraordinary genius, becomes a sad fellow (Marxism-existentialism) who, essentially, is obliged to produce a philosophy of concessions.
His thinking became a compromise between Marxism and existentialism.
And so all his books became the basis of a moral system in which everything already serves to support a preconceived theory.
Now the basis of this moral system is the well-known
Sartrean freedom
.

He says, “I am free, I feel free.
Therefore I always have the possibility to choose.
This choice is limited because man is always in a situation, and he can choose only within that situation.
Example: I can stay on the bed or I can walk, but I cannot choose to fly because I do not have wings.
There is free choice for which man is responsible.
If I refuse to choose between two possibilities, this is also a way of choosing a third position.
If one does not want to choose between communism and anti-communism, there is neutrality.”
Sartre also says that man is the creator of values.
This is the direct consequence of a
stubborn atheism, the most consistent in all of philosophy.

Such is the situation: since we have lost the notion of God, so we ourselves become
creators of values
, because of our absolute freedom.
And, in this sense, we can do what we want.
Example: I can, if it is my choice, find it a good idea to assassinate X or not to assassinate him.
The two possibilities exist, but in choosing them, I choose myself as assassin, or not.

Here I believe I recognize an excess of intellectualism and decadence (the weakening) of sensitivity in philosophy.
Philosophers, except Schopenhauer, seem to be people comfortably seated in their easy chairs who treat pain with absolutely Olympian disdain, which will vanish the day they go to the dentist and cry
ouch, ouch, Doctor
.
Sartre, in his theoretical disdain for pain, states that for a man who chooses pain as good, torture can become a celestial pleasure.
This assertion seems very doubtful to me and characteristic of the French bourgeoisie, which, very fortunately, was spared for a long time from great pain.
Despite Sartre’s assertion that freedom is limited by the situation and what is called “facticity” (the fact, for example, that we have a body, that we
are a fact, a phenomenon, in the world), despite all his limitations, he goes too far.

Existential man is
concrete
,
alone
,
made of nothingness
,
thus free
.

He is condemned to freedom and he can
choose
himself.

What happens if we choose, for example, frivolity and not authenticity, falseness and not truth?
As there is no hell, there is no punishment.
From the existential point of view, the only punishment is that this man has no true existence.
Therefore he is not an extant thing.
Here is a play on words, as much from Heidegger as from Sartre, which the one who chose the supposed non-existence will really make fun of.

What is the future of existentialism?

Very great.

I do not agree with the superficial judgments for which existentialism is a trend.
Existentialism is a consequence of a basic fact of the internal rupture of consciousness which is manifested not only in man’s inherent qualities, but—extremely curious fact—is
evident in physics for example, where you have two ways of perceiving reality:
—corpuscular

—undulatory

Example: theories of light.

Now, both theories are right, as experience demonstrates, but they are contradictory.
You have the same phenomenon in the physics concept concerning electrons, where there are two different ways of seeing them, both of which are correct and contradictory.
Now, in my view, man is divided between the subjective and the objective, irreparably and for all time.
This is a kind of wound we have which is impossible to heal, and of which we are more and more conscious.
In a number of years, it will be even “bloodier,” since it can only grow with the evolution of consciousness.

The profound truth of Hegel’s dialectics (thesissynthesis) appears here.
It is impossible, under these conditions, to ask that a man be harmonious, that he be able to resolve anything.
Fundamental impotence.

No solution at all.

In the light of these thoughts, literature which considers that we can organize the world is the most idiotic thing imaginable.

A sad writer who thinks himself master of reality is a ridiculous thing.
Hah!
Hah!
Hah!
Phew!

Tuesday, May 6, 1969

Freedom in Sartre

Freedom is an experience.

It is linked to future time, which is the time of human existence.

It is marked by finality, which is the opposite of
causality
.
In the world of
causality
, one does something because one is obliged by a cause to do so.
In the world of finality, one does something for something.
I pick up the pipe in order to smoke.
Freedom is always achieved in a
situation
, that is, that in each situation I have a freedom of choice, but I cannot choose something which is outside of the situation.
For example, I can walk or sit, but I cannot fly.

Finally, it is freedom which is the foundation of all value.
We must not forget that atheism is at the root of all Sartrean existentialism.
He said that it is not as easy to follow atheism through to the end as
he did.
When one is there, at the limit, one sees that, since God does not exist, all qualities are established by me, by my freedom.
I can, for example, establish torture as the supreme good: the moral and the immoral are two things which are decided in complete freedom.
But as in all of Sartre’s work, we immediately notice a retreat.
One would think that he is the most absolute immoralist, but no.
He is 100 percent moralist.
If I understand this aspect of Sartrean philosophy correctly, it is rather artificial.

1.
Man in his freedom chooses himself by choosing his
values
(replace quality by value).
This depends on his free choice.
But on my choice depends what Heidegger called authentic existence and consequently, real life or a different world.

2.
Consequently, man is responsible for his self, but man is responsible also for the world, since
to choose oneself
means to choose the world.
Therefore I can choose myself as Hitlerite, Nazi, and choose a Nazi world.

Sartre was asked: why cannot we choose Hitlerism if we are the free creator of our values, and what obliges me, for example to choose Marxism?

This rather elementary contradiction was not, according to my humble opinion, sufficiently clarified
by Sartre, because evidently morality is a limitation of freedom, even if reasons are needed for choosing that limitation.

Here on the subject of freedom, Sartre is very categorical.
He says that the choice depends only on us, there are no pre-established values, it is our choice which creates them.
One could imagine that man, with all his freedom, is nevertheless condemned to satisfy the fundamental necessities of life, such as eating.
But this also depends on me.
If I choose suicide, food loses all value for me.
And from this absolute responsibility of man to himself is born the characteristic anguish of existentialism, as much for Heidegger as for Kierkegaard and Sartre.

This anguish is the anguish of nothingness.
When I am afraid, says Heidegger, I am afraid of something, such as a tiger.
But if I do not fear anything specific, that is anguish.
This anguish is born, according to Sartre, from our responsibility regarding our existence.
One could ask, for instance, how can I be absolutely free to choose myself, if, born short, I want to be tall?
Now the choice is not the choice of a fact, it is the choice of a value.
I cannot freely choose my height, but that depends on my considering smallness as a quality or a defect.

There are still other impossibilities for our freedom, deriving from what one calls man’s
facticity
.
We must not forget that man by his body, by his mechanism, belongs to the world dictated by causality, since if we are stabbed, evidently we are going to bleed, like every other animal.
Freedom manifests itself only in existence, in that specific being which is the Being for itself.

Anguish is anguish before myself, such that I am not yet, since I must choose myself.
It comes from the consciousness of freedom and it is the fundamental structure of man.
Most people do not feel it, because they flee from these problems and in fleeing it they affirm it.

Sartre defines this as an act of
bad faith
, which is, according to him, an act by which we want to deceive (distort) ourselves, to lie to ourselves, and these people reject will, but this act of rejection is also free, and they know it.
From there, the reassuring myth which lets us forget our terrible solitude, and our responsibility to ourselves.
Sartre calls that man who hides from this responsibility a “bastard.”

There is a famous short story by Sartre,
L’Enfance d’un chef
, in which a young man, panicked in the face of his homosexual tendencies, in order
not to choose to be homosexual, chooses to be anti-Semitic, and he becomes anti-Semitic for everyone.
This is his characteristic, his duty,
etc.
In fleeing from our fundamental responsibility, we choose to be another character, or we choose absolute values such as God, the laws of nature,
etc.
So now, Sartre defines what his own morality consists of.

It is choosing freedom and affirming freedom.