Jean-Paul Sartre哲學一智 493032351 蘇昊

Sartre

This night, I make a dream, in this dream Sciences in 2105 make a machine that can make us communicate to the soul, science think it’s very helpful to those people who lost their family members, I went to use this machine to finish my English work.
At first, I visited the SBI( Soul Bureau of Investigation) where set many soul-, it located in S6879 area, it surrounded by many beautiful falls. A baroque style building float on the lake that all falls flow into there.
“It’s beautiful.” I said.
When the door of the building open, I fell some blackout and my body is disappear.
“Don’t worry” a voice like robot said “now, we proceed to change space-time.
Suddenly, I heart a voice like an old man “Are you ok? Let us start”

being-in-itself Vs being-for-itself
William: My name is William, I come from another era, I am interest in your work, could you tell me what is “being-in-itself” in your work?
Sartre: My “being-in-itself” represents the idea that only concrete phenomena have ontological status; only the concrete is real. In other word, the being is a kind of no consciousness, its essence precedes existence.
William: What are concrete phenomena?
Sartre: concrete phenomena is a phenomena it exist by a form of material, for example, the world before the appearance of humankind are concrete phenomena.
William: And what is ”being-for-itself”? your another theory foundation.
Sartre: It’s a state of self-awareness and control. My ”being-for-itself” describe human consciousness as possessing the characteristic of incompleteness and potency, with an indeterminate structure. Its existence precedes essence.
William: According to your definition, man is a thing “existence precedes essence”, do we have to create our essence?
Sartre: Yes, man must create his own essence. It is in throwing himself into the word, suffering there, struggling there, that he gradually defines himself. And the definition always remains open ended: we cannot say what this man is before he dies, or what mankind is before it has disappeared. Many people wrongly quote “existence precedes essence” as if that summarized existentialism. I was merely stating that man, as the only sentient being on earth, was forced to define who to define who he was through living, while objects are what they are until destroyed. With our ability to think, grow, and change, mankind is in the unique position of defining itself. We are each in charge of defining our own lives. The most important of all,” He is what he is, “might be the best description of everyone.

Freedom & Religion
William: “freedom” is a important idea in your work, what definition you give of freedom?
Sartre: I considered freedom a subjective experience. Freedom is the ability to define and assign meaning to things and events, it oppose being.
William: So, man is a kind of nothingness, so he is free.
Sartre: Yes. Man is condemned to be free. But without thought, we could not be free.
William: You have said “religion is a form of bad faith”, why?
Sartre: Starting with the theory than man is inherently nothingness or free will, I developed what he considered was a logical argument for atheism. In the absence of a Creator, individuals feel abandoned, with a sense of anger at the universe. Anger and despair lead to a tendency to embrace "Bad Faith." Bad Faith represents a self-deception in which the person views self as an object, not as a person with free will. As an object, a person is without responsibility. Religion, for me, was a form of bad faith, teaching that previous humans, namely Adam and Eve, were responsible for human frailty. The unconscious is also a form of bad faith, allowing people to deny their thoughts.
William: Make a long story short, religion make us lost freedom, isn’t it?
Sartre: Yes, because it is a kind of self-deception, religion views self as an object, not as a person with free.

Morality & Freedom
William: For you what is existential morality? And do you think it will be oppose to “freedom” ?
Sartre: Existential morality arises from the fact that all choices affect others, physically and emotionally. Social responsibility results from the interdependencies of individuals. Since any living person is engaged in the process of defining self and others, ethics develop accordingly. Since the existentialist values free will and wants others to respect his or her freedom, the ethical system developed is based upon free expression.

An anarchist?
William: After May 1968 you said to us: "If one rereads all my books, one will realize that I have not changed profoundly, and that I have always remained an anarchist." When do you become anarchist? Are you still an anarchist? Sartre: That is true. And it will be evident in the television broadcasts I am preparing. Still, I have changed in the sense that I was an anarchist without knowing it when I wrote Nausea: I did not realize that what I was writing there could have an anarchist interpretation; I saw only the relation with the metaphysical idea of "nausea," the metaphysical idea of existence. Then, by way of philosophy, I discovered the anarchist being in me. But when I discovered it I did not call it that, because today's anarchy no longer has anything to do with the anarchy of 1890.

God
William: Can one take a place of God?
Sartre: Toward the end of Being and Nothingness I argues that it is man's basic wish to fuse his openness and freedom with the impermeability of things, to achieve a state of being in which the being-in-itself and being-for-itself are synthesized. This ideal, says I, one can call God, and "man is the being who wants to be God." The chapter ends: "But the idea of God is contradictory... man is a useless passion."

Objectivity and Subjectivity
William: Can’t a truth be expressed independently of the person who expresses it?
Sartre: It is no longer interesting then. It removes the individual and the person from the world and goes no farther than objective truths. One can attain objective truths without thinking of one's own truth. But if it is a question of speaking of both one's objectivity and the subjectivity that is behind this objectivity, and which is just as much a part of the man as his objectivity, at this point it is necessary to write: "I, Sartre." And, as this is not possible at the present time, because we do not know each other well enough, the detour of fiction allows for a more effective approach to this objective-subjective totality.

Nobel Prize
William: Why did you refuse the Nobel Prize? This thing often misunderstood by many people.
Sartre: It is not the same thing if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner. A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form. A writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution.