It seems to me that bad faith is something next to impossible to escape from, especially considering sincerity, for Sartre, is also “a phenomenon of bad faith.” Does Sartre offer any clue as to how one might escape bad faith and how authenticity is possible?
In class the other day it was mentioned that Sartre’s dialectic had no fixed direction. However, from this reading it seemed to me that Sartre thinks being-for-itself is constantly trying to become being-in-itself. Am I mistaken in thinking this is a direction?
Just to use the waiter example, Sartre says the man is acting in bad faith because he is pretending to be something he is not and is denying himself the freedom to choose by clinging to this insincere choice of who he wants to be. But later he says "to the extent that human reality can not be finally defined by patterns of conduct, I am not one.” So does Sartre believe that it is bad faith to assign any sort of label to yourself at all?
I was confused by how Sartre continuously defined man and consciousness through a series of contradictions such as being what it is not. For instance, he says "bad faith is not restricted to denying the qualities which I possess, to not seeing the being which I am. It attempts also to constitute myself as being what I am not." I couldn't get past that contradiction.
1. He's very analytical and semi critical of the waiter, almost as if he's waiting or expecting him to fail. 2. I never have fully understood, why is so critical about consciousness and quick to claim and call out every way a person is not consciousness, instead of how they are.
At the opening of this section, Sartre describes a person, who is pretending to be waiter. Sartre compares him and his actions to those of an automaton, later suggesting “society demands that he limit himself to his function…” of a similar person. Although it is not the same, I see some similarities between Sartre’s criticism of this behavior and Marx’s words on the alienation of labor. It seems to me that a more authentic life (i.e. without bad faith) according to Sartre aligns fairly well with the type of artisanal labor Marx champions, insofar is it minimizes alienation. When Sartre goes on to compare “good faith” (as an ideal) to “sincerity” I can’t help but wonder about his epistemology, especially when Sartre says “Every belief is a belief that falls short; one never wholly believes what one believes.” This seems like a Skeptical outlook on belief, although I know Sartre was heavily influenced by Husserl who (in my understanding) was more interested in phenomenology, like that of Hegel, than the Skepticism of Descartes. I wonder how much of Descartes’ skepticism was alive in Sartre at the time of his writing Being and Nothingness.
Existentialist ethics seem to stem directly from the existentialists diagnosis of the human ontological condition. One is not the epistemological cartoon of the self as we are so easily lead to believe by the world around us. But rather we are the unitive dimension of the local human system I.E. consciousness.
My only critique of this view is that the existentialists seem to believe consciousness is an all or nothing phenomenon. This may have made sense within the context of the 20th century body of knowledge; however should one explore different materialistic theories of consciousness, one will find that some theories such as integrated information theory treat consciousness as a spectrum. In my own experience as consciousness I have found more reason to belie that it is something of a spectrum that can itself change from moment to moment.
I find Satre's concept of good faith to be quite interesting. He mentions that good faith has to do with being sincere and true to one's self. However, I believe that by this definition good faith is nearly impossible to have in society. Everyday someone must do work and or speak to and interact with someone they do not want to. They truly do not want to participate in these actions but participating is the only way to survive in the world because one needs money and relationships to survive.
When talking about bad faith although it is a strange topic I find it to be true. If you are not honest with yourself in your interactions with others you are showing bad faith. The waiter example use by Satre is a perfect example. By pretending to be a waiter the person is showing bad faith because he is not honest. The only point I would bring up is the importance of bad faith in survival
It seems to me that bad faith is something next to impossible to escape from, especially considering sincerity, for Sartre, is also “a phenomenon of bad faith.” Does Sartre offer any clue as to how one might escape bad faith and how authenticity is possible?
ReplyDeleteIn class the other day it was mentioned that Sartre’s dialectic had no fixed direction. However, from this reading it seemed to me that Sartre thinks being-for-itself is constantly trying to become being-in-itself. Am I mistaken in thinking this is a direction?
Just to use the waiter example, Sartre says the man is acting in bad faith because he is pretending to be something he is not and is denying himself the freedom to choose by clinging to this insincere choice of who he wants to be. But later he says "to the extent that human reality can not be finally defined by patterns of conduct, I am not one.” So does Sartre believe that it is bad faith to assign any sort of label to yourself at all?
ReplyDeleteI was confused by how Sartre continuously defined man and consciousness through a series of contradictions such as being what it is not. For instance, he says "bad faith is not restricted to denying the qualities which I possess, to not seeing the being which I am. It attempts also to constitute myself as being what I am not." I couldn't get past that contradiction.
1. He's very analytical and semi critical of the waiter, almost as if he's waiting or expecting him to fail.
ReplyDelete2. I never have fully understood, why is so critical about consciousness and quick to claim and call out every way a person is not consciousness, instead of how they are.
At the opening of this section, Sartre describes a person, who is pretending to be waiter. Sartre compares him and his actions to those of an automaton, later suggesting “society demands that he limit himself to his function…” of a similar person. Although it is not the same, I see some similarities between Sartre’s criticism of this behavior and Marx’s words on the alienation of labor. It seems to me that a more authentic life (i.e. without bad faith) according to Sartre aligns fairly well with the type of artisanal labor Marx champions, insofar is it minimizes alienation.
ReplyDeleteWhen Sartre goes on to compare “good faith” (as an ideal) to “sincerity” I can’t help but wonder about his epistemology, especially when Sartre says “Every belief is a belief that falls short; one never wholly believes what one believes.” This seems like a Skeptical outlook on belief, although I know Sartre was heavily influenced by Husserl who (in my understanding) was more interested in phenomenology, like that of Hegel, than the Skepticism of Descartes. I wonder how much of Descartes’ skepticism was alive in Sartre at the time of his writing Being and Nothingness.
Existentialist ethics seem to stem directly from the existentialists diagnosis of the human ontological condition. One is not the epistemological cartoon of the self as we are so easily lead to believe by the world around us. But rather we are the unitive dimension of the local human system I.E. consciousness.
ReplyDeleteMy only critique of this view is that the existentialists seem to believe consciousness is an all or nothing phenomenon. This may have made sense within the context of the 20th century body of knowledge; however should one explore different materialistic theories of consciousness, one will find that some theories such as integrated information theory treat consciousness as a spectrum. In my own experience as consciousness I have found more reason to belie that it is something of a spectrum that can itself change from moment to moment.
I find Satre's concept of good faith to be quite interesting. He mentions that good faith has to do with being sincere and true to one's self. However, I believe that by this definition good faith is nearly impossible to have in society. Everyday someone must do work and or speak to and interact with someone they do not want to. They truly do not want to participate in these actions but participating is the only way to survive in the world because one needs money and relationships to survive.
ReplyDeleteWhen talking about bad faith although it is a strange topic I find it to be true. If you are not honest with yourself in your interactions with others you are showing bad faith. The waiter example use by Satre is a perfect example. By pretending to be a waiter the person is showing bad faith because he is not honest. The only point I would bring up is the importance of bad faith in survival