SARTRE : MAN IS FREEDOM

Transcription

1 CHAPTER 3 SARTRE : MAN IS FREEDOM Sartre was born on 21 st June1905, in French. Since his birth, Sartre has to struggle hard. But he immersed himself out of these situations. Later on, he becomes famous not only as an existential philosopher but also as a literary genius. He turned his hand to almost all branches of literature. In 1964 Sartre was offered prestigious Noble Prize for literature. But Sartre did not accept it. On the other hand, during his life time Sartre was criticized vehemently for his exceptional works. However, still he is considered as the last Hegel and last Marx of the twentieth century. He is treated as the modern successor of Voltaire, Victor Hugo and Emile Zola. He died on 15 th April Sartre emphasizes on the problems and possibilities of concrete man. He believes that everyone should live an authentic life with full freedom. Sartre attempts to study total aspects of man including ontology of man s being, man s ethical reality, social and political life. He wants to determine the authentic existence of man. According to Sartre, existentialism aims to transform the lives of individuals. Sartre considers that freedom is the basic condition of the existence of man. Freedom of man is the centre of his philosophical study. In Existentialism and Human Emotions (1957:66) Sartre says, Freedom is existence, and in it, existence precedes essence. The upsurge freedom is immediate and concrete and to be distinguished from its choice; that is from the person himself. But the structure under consideration can be called the truth of freedom, that is, it is the human meaning of freedom. It can be stated here that before Sartre, Jaspers discusses about man s personal freedom, potentialities, and the incommunicable uniqueness in man. Sartre also admits that man has an incommunicable uniqueness about him/her and it is exercised through freedom. Sartre does not admit any kind of determinism. His interpretation of man is related to freedom and man s power of self analysis. Therefore, his philosophy is

2 sometimes called philosophy of freedom. Like other existentialists, Sartre also emphasizes on freedom rather than self consciousness. He considers freedom as the chief characteristic of the human being. Sartre says that man is a free being. For him man and his/her freedom are not different Man is freedom. Sartre says that only man is free. In this context, he says that in man existence precedes essence. He emphasizes on freedom and holds that rather it is man s freedom that precedes his/her essence. For Sartre freedom implies the existence of conscious being. Sartre insists that man exists as freedom. It is not that man first exists then becomes free in subsequent moment. So, Sartre calls man is freedom. Now, before going to discuss about Man is freedom we should attempt to know Sartre s method. Sartre applies the phenomenological method in his existential philosophy. So, to understand Sartre s philosophy of freedom we should have some knowledge of his method. 3.1 METHOD OF SARTRE Sartre wants to analyze the life of concrete man. He studies man s experience, perception, emotion and various aspects of mental life. Sartre wants to discover human reality through phenomenological method. Sartre shares with Husserl and Heidegger the basic idea of phenomenology. But he develops a phenomenological method in his own way. Husserl s phenomenological method is primarily concerned with the analysis of the structures of consciousness that constitute the world. But Husserl does not show as to how consciousness is related with the main purpose of life. Heidegger speaks of the purpose, goal, meaning and possibility of human being. But, in him, it is not found that the human being can have a purpose because of the spontaneous nature of consciousness. Sartre only attempts to reveal the structure of consciousness with reference to the purpose of human life. He attempts to

3 show as to how the authentic project of human life and its development can be understood with reference to man s relations with the world and other human beings. Sartre s phenomenological analysis tries to understand the nature of human life and the way of its development to realize the ultimate purpose of life. It is related with the fundamental project of man what he/she wishes to be. Human reality is not the abstraction from the world. Therefore, Sartre emphasizes on the concrete situations of man. He believes that phenomenological analysis gives us a positive study of man in situations. As man is compelled to act, man tries to change the world. Man struggles to exist. By the use of phenomenological method in his own way, Sartre wants to show how human reality can be grasped properly. In his discussion of phenomenological method, Sartre wants to explain the nature of consciousness for ontological clarification. Sartre admits with Husserl that consciousness is defined by intentionality. Intentionality is the very essence of consciousness. Consciousness is openness to, relation to. Sartre says that the self or ego is not the foundation of consciousness. Consciousness is prior to self or ego. Self or ego is the product of consciousness. He says, The Ego is not the proprietor of consciousness, it is its object (Sartre 2012:45). Sartre rejects Husserl s theory of Transcendental Ego to make consciousness empty from all contents. Consciousness has no contents. It is absolute, insubstantial and transparent (Sartre 2012: viii). Intentionality in turn shows that consciousness is experienced as nothing. In other words, consciousness is not an object. It has no content and transparent. Sartre says that all physical objects, psycho-physical and psychic objects, all truths and all values are outside of consciousness. Sartre admits phenomenological reduction of Husserl. For Sartre the transcendental I is not found in our pre-reflective experience. In our true immediate experience we have to reject the transcendental ego. For Sartre this may be called as the phenomenological reduction. Sartre considers that what remains after the reduction is not

4 the Transcendental Ego, but the transcendental sphere of consciousness purified of all egological structure. By it he means that if we have to be true to what is given immediately to our experience, in that situation we have to reject the transcendental ego. He emphasizes on immediate experiences. Here, Sartre admits modified sense of phenomenological bracketing. For Sartre phenomenological bracketing means those facts which we accept that are given in our immediate experience. As the world is independent of consciousness, it has no meaning for the individual. But man creates world according to his/her acts. Therefore, Sartre s dynamic phenomenology as it is called, wants to discover - the fundamental project of man, how this project reflects man, how this project is related to other subordinate projects. To elaborate Sartre s Man is freedom we shall now discuss who is a man or to whom we call a man that has freedom. 3.2 MAN AND BEING-IN-ITSELF In his ontology, Sartre states that there are two types of being - Being-in-itself (en-soi) and Being-for-itself (pour-soi). Moreover, Sartre admits another type of being, Being-forothers (pour-autrui). Sartre says, Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is (Sartre 1957:lxvi). Sartre considers that only man is free. According to Heidegger free man acts in the world. On the other hand, for Jaspers freedom or the power of self- transcendence is the peculiar foundation of man. Sartre admits this distinction of the spheres of man or conscious being and non-human. For Sartre freedom implies the existence of conscious being. In Being and Nothingness Sartre discusses human existence. In this discussion he introduces the distinction between human and other existence. Sartre uses the term being-for-itself to mean human being or conscious being. He says that being-for-itself has no essential nature. It is not complete. Sartre says that being-

5 for-itself or man is not complete. It is a desire to achieve completeness. The lack found in the being-for-itself appears in the world along with the emergences of human realty. What beingfor-itself lacks is its totality. But man cannot achieve this totality. Though man carries various possibilities, man cannot lose its consciousness to achieve completeness. So, man is not what he/she is. Man has nothingness in him/her. Sartre considers human being as conscious being. Conscious being does not coincide itself in a full equivalence. Only being-in-itself has such equivalence. Bing-for-itself is always becoming. It always searches for its completeness which is unattainable. A human being is a being with unrealized potentiality. According to Sartre man invents within him/herself lack of something which cannot be fulfilled during his/her life. As it is always becoming, it creates new situations and can react to it accordingly. Therefore, Sartre defines being-for-itself as being what it is not and not being what it is (Sartre 1957:lxv). According to him it can be defined in another way also, that is, The for-itself is a being such that in its being, its being is in question in so far as this being is essentially a certain way of not being a being which it posits simultaneously as other than itself (Sartre 1957:174). It is impossible to define human nature. When man dies then he/she can be said what he/she was. Sartre describes human being with the help of transcendental ego of Husserl. Sartre says that to be a man is to be conscious. Otherwise man cannot be the foundation of consciousness. Moreover, the states of consciousness which are concerned with momentary aspects of our knowledge are discrete and fragmentary. From these man cannot have a unified knowledge. Sartre thinks that for the possibility of knowledge man must have an awareness of a permanent ego. Kant rejects the idea of permanent ego. However, Kant feels that there is a logical necessity of transcendental ego for organizing the moments of knowledge. But Sartre does not admit that unity of consciousness is the foundation of our experience. For Sartre the unity and the identity of the material objects known by us are enough to unify moments of consciousness. Again, Husserl says that the I behind each

6 consciousness is a necessary structure of consciousness. Sartre rejects the need of unifying and individualizing I. Regarding the nature of human consciousness, Sartre wants to speak about the Cartesian formula of cogito. Through his dictum cogito ergo sum Descartes wanted to establish the existence of a thinking substance. According to Sartre what Descartes means by the term cogito ergo sum actually is the reflective consciousness. It is the consciousness of being conscious. Cartesian consciousness is deliberate in its nature. According to Sartre my awareness of a chair and my deliberate thinking of that awareness are different. The first kind of consciousness is the non-positional or pre-reflective consciousness. It is the consciousness of being of the world. On the other hand, in the second kind of consciousness one is explicitly positing him/her awareness or himself/herself as an object of reflection. It is called by him as positional or reflective consciousness. According to him reflective consciousness is awareness of being aware or knowing of consciousness. He uses the term non-thetic and thetic self consciousness to mean them. According to Sartre, Descartes has confused spontaneous doubt, which is a consciousness with methodological doubt, which is an act (Sartre1957:ix). He suggests that we should start from pr-reflective consciousness. Sartre states that by understanding the nature of consciousness we can describe human reality. Like Husserl, Sartre also admits that all consciousness is consciousness of something. Sartre believes that as every consciousness is intentional, it refers to an object outside of it. It implies the existence of an object to which man is conscious. On the other hand, for the knowledge of consciousness of that object, every consciousness must be conscious of itself. Sartre says that consciousness implies distinction between consciousness and its object. For Sartre consciousness is supported by a being different from it. Sartre (1957: lxii) says, Consciousness is a being such that in its being, its being is in question in so far as this being implies a being other than itself. Sartre considers it as an ontological proof of the existence of being-in-itself.

7 He states that if consciousness is consciousness of something, then that something must be existent when consciousness reveals it. He says that being is everywhere and it is the condition of all revelation. According to Sartre being-in-itself is non-human being. It is perfectly identified with itself. There is no nothingness in being-in-itself. So, the question of transition, becoming etc. is not related to being-in-itself. It is what it is. It is full positivity. It is not related to temporality. It simply is. It has no possibility. According to Sartre being-in-itself is complete, solid and full positivity. It cannot be derived from other being nor reduced to it. It needs nothing to explain its essence or nature. Sartre (1957: lxvi) says, that consciousness absolutely cannot derive being from anything, either from another being, or from a possibility, or from a necessary law. Uncreated, without reason for being, without connection with another being being-in-itself is the de trop for eternity. Sartre states that man exists in the world of things. According to him (Sartre 2000:180) I am in the midst of Things, which cannot be given names. Alone, wordless, defenceless, they surround me, under me, behind me, above me. They demand nothing, they do not impose themselves, they are there. Thus, Sartre admits two regions of being the being of the pre-reflective cogito and the being of the phenomenon. In the discussion of human being of Sartre, Descartes s notion of cogito ergo sum is significant from another standpoint. It emphasizes on the autonomy of thought or that one is free to doubt, to reject. According to Sartre Descartes s notion of freedom includes two senses 1) Man is actively free to act, to judge, to create 2) Man is free to avoid error.

8 Descartes uses limitless freedom to deny the false and the limited freedom to invent rules. He admitted that we are totally free to accept or reject the false; the true and the right are given to us. But Sartre rejects this view and says that man must be able to invent his/her own good to be free completely. According to him freedom and man are not different. Sartre considers that consciousness cannot exist in isolation. According to him there is a relation between conscious man and the world. Heidegger calls the specific relation between man and the world as being-in-the-world. Sartre states that to be being-in-theworld there must be a relation between being-in-itself and being-for-itself. Man must possess something to make such relation possible. With these understandings, now we shall make an attempt to describe Sartre s freedom. In this context, we can state that Sartre s view of freedom has two stages. In the first stage he emphasizes on absolute individual freedom. On the other hand, in the later stage he accepts group freedom. We shall discuss both these aspects of freedom one by one. 3.3 FREEDOM Sartre says that the debate between free will and determinism is based on human action. The supporters of the free will say that there is no prior cause which determines human action. In contrast to it, for the supporters of determinism there is no action without cause. Sartre says that every action is intentional. Each action has an end. The end in turn is referred to a cause. So, an act without a cause is to admit the act without intentional structure. From the standpoint of the free will the act will be absurd. Again, if we admit the existence of a cause then there could be any freedom of will. For Sartre cause-intention-act-end is the complex structure of human action. He says, cause, act and end constitute a continuum, a plenum

9 (Sartre 1957:440). Causes, motives and ends and mode of apprehending them are organized in a unity within the scope of freedom and understood in terms of it. Sartre admits that as we are free, we can flee from a situation towards our possibilities or by nihilating it we can modify a given situation. Every act of man is the expression of freedom. Freedom makes itself an act organizing the causes, motives and ends which the act implies. Sartre considers cause and motive as correlative. Cause is the objective appreciation of the situation. On the other hand, motive is the ensemble of the desires, emotions and passions which influence to perform certain act. My act is choosing freely. Freedom is the condition without which no action can take place. On the other hand, man as an existent being expresses freedom through his/her action. So, freedom can be understood by describing the structure of the human actions. Every action is defined by intentions. If there is an intention then it is considered as action. By intention Sartre understands a choice of the end. Sartre says that freedom is the foundation of my essence. I cannot describe a freedom which is common to all. I am an existent who learn my freedom through my act. I am also an existent whose individual and unique existence temporalizes itself as freedom. I am necessarily conscious of my freedom. My freedom is not a quality added on or a property of my nature. It is the stuff of my being. Like my being is in question, my freedom also in question. Freedom implies the nihilating power of man. Due to freedom man is always something other than what can be said of him/her. My surpassing toward my possibilities refers that I am free. Yet, I am conscious of the causes of my action which are outsiders. But I can escape them by my very existence because I exist over my essence, over the causes and over the motives of my acts. Because the for-itself has to be what it is not and to say that it is what it is not, while not being what it is, is to say that in it existence precedes essence. Sartre says, no limits to my freedom can be found except freedom

10 itself we are not free to cease being free (Sartre 1957:439). However, free man attempts to hide nothingness and freedom from itself. For Sartre human reality and freedom are identical. In this context we can state the difference between freedom of Sartre with that of Kant. Kant describes freedom with the autonomy of rationality. Kant considers freedom as the pre-supposition of moral action. Sartre s discussion of freedom also differs from the notion of the spiritual freedom offered by the theists. The theists consider that freedom can be obtained by grace. In Being and Nothingness Sartre discusses freedom by opposing the Marxist dictum that freedom is the appreciation of necessity (Chatterjee 1973:51). For Sartre to be is to invent. Freedom is the unique characteristic of for-itself or man. If one refuses freedom then he/she is to apprehend him/herself as being-in-itself. Freedom is closely related to nothingness. Man is not a complete being. Man has been separated by nothingness from what it is and from what it will be. Man s present being is itself nothingness in the form of the reflection-reflecting. Man is not him/herself but presence to him/herself. Free man makes himself instead of to be. He has the power to choose his/her course of action. Sartre says, to be is to choose oneself (Sartre1957:440). We choose our actions as well as our characters. I am alone capable of choosing anything for me. Freedom is the being of man. So, Man cannot be sometimes slave and sometimes free; he is wholly and forever free or he is not free at all (Sartre 1957:441). Sartre states that for common people free acts are identical with voluntary acts. Human reality appears as a free power besieged by an ensemble of determined processes. We can distinguish between free acts and determined processes over which free will has power, and processes which on principle escape the human will. The will is the manifestation of freedom. Human will pre-supposes the foundation of freedom. Human reality chooses its ends. It defines its being by its ends. Freedom is the foundation of ends.

11 Sartre says that a conscious being, who separates itself from others, who decides its past in the form of tradition in the light of future, who makes to know itself by means of something other than it - is called free existent. By freedom it is not meant a pure capricious, unlawful, gratuitous and incomprehensible contingency. Sartre says, freedom does not mean that my act can be anything whatsoever or even that it is unforeseeable (Sartre 1957:453). If my act can be understood neither in terms of the state of the world, nor in terms of ensemble of my past, how could it possibly be anything but gratituous? Sartre, in this context states that I can choose anything as I am free. A choice is said to be free if it could have been other than what it is. Here, he takes the example of fatigue of the person who goes out on a hike with friends. He can continue his walk or take a rest which is his choice. According to him a reflective consciousness is directed upon his fatigue in order to live it and to confer on it a value and a practical relation to him. Thus, fatigue appears to him either bearable or intolerable. Sartre says To abandon oneself to fatigue, to warmth, to hunger, to thirst, to let oneself fall back upon a chair or a bed with sensual pleasure, to relax, to attempt to let oneself be drunk in by one s own body in the original solitude of the For-itself these types of behavior can ever be confined to itself (Sartre 1957:456). Sartre says that every act is a choice of my own self in the world and discovery of the world. By choosing ourselves we choose the world and its meanings. Choice is identical with self consciousness. He says, One must be conscious in order to choose, and one must choose in order to be conscious (Sartre 1957:462). We are conscious of the choices which we are. For example, my clothing, my furniture, the street on which I live, the city in which I reside etc. are all my choices. Anguish, abandonment, responsibility constitute the quality of our consciousness. My original choice creates causes and motives which guide us to perform action. It also arranges the world with its meanings, its instrumental complexities and its coefficient and adversity. By choosing freely we temporalize a project which we are

12 and make ourselves a future being which we have chosen. New choice is a kind of double negation. It is given as a beginning in so far as it is an end. Again, it is an end in so far as it is a beginning. As I am free I can choose anything, but my choice is limited only by freedom. Everybody s being is a choice. It depends on us to choose ourselves as great or noble or base and humiliated. Thus, the world is revealed as this or that according to the end which is chosen. Human reality can choose itself as it intends but is not able not to choose. Here, not to choose actually means to choose not to choose. Therefore, choice is the foundation of being chosen but not the foundation of choosing. Sartre considers it as the absurdity of freedom. According to him my freedom eats away my freedom (Sartre1957:480). Moreover, the global project which illumines the world in its totality, can be made specific on the occasion of this or that element of the situation and on the basis of the contingency of the world. In this context Sartre discusses the relation between freedom and facticity. Can I choose over my facticity is the problem of freedom FREEDOM AND FACTICITY Sartre states that various events of our life show that we are determined to perform action in a certain way. This means that I am absolutely not free. For Sartre man seems to be made by climate and the earth, race and class, language, the history of the collectivity of which he is a part, heredity, the individual circumstances of his childhood, acquired habits, the great and small events of his life (Sartre 1957:482). Before going into details, in this context, Sartre attempts to explain the philosophical approach to freedom. He says that common people considers freedom as to obtain what one has wished. But philosophically freedom means by oneself to determine oneself to wish. It is different from historical, political and moral standpoint and explanation of freedom which consider it as the ability to obtain the ends chosen. For Sartre philosophically freedom implies the autonomy of choice (Sartre 1957:483). Choice is different from the dream and the wish. In other words, the distinction between willing and being

13 able is the root of the debate between freedom and facticity. Descartes and Stoics also admitted the distinction between freedom of choice and freedom of obtaining. Sartre says that freedom encounters limitations. Generally it is stated that if there is no obstacle, there is no freedom. Though being-for-itself is free but freedom is not its own foundation. Freedom cannot determine its existence by the end which it posits. It is a lack of being in relation to a given being. It is the escape from an engagement in being. It is the nihilation of being which it is. Sartre says that freedom is not free not to be free and that it is not free not to exist (Sartre 1957:486). This means the facticity and contingency of freedom. Sartre says, Facticity is not then a substance of which the for-itself would be the attribute and which would produce thought without exhausting itself in that very production. It simply resides in the for-itself as a memory of being, as its unjustifiable presence in the world (Sartre 1957:84). Thus, freedom is originally a relation to the given. Sartre uses the term situation to mean the contingency of freedom. Sartre states that due to freedom the world develops and reveals the resistances which can render the projected and unrealizable. Human reality encounters resistances and obstacles everywhere which are not created. These resistances and obstacles have meaning only in and through the free choice which human reality is. With his/her freedom man encounters obstacles and resistances. Though they may obstruct human freedom to a certain extent, but in all of them, there is possibility that we can construct a new situation. The paradox of freedom implies that there is freedom only in a situation, and there is a situation only through freedom (Sartre 1957:489). Sartre divided these obstacles and resistances into five heads My place, My past, My environment, My fellow man and My death MY PLACE Sartre states that My place means the spatial order which is first revealed to me on the ground of the world. It is the spot where one lives and arrangements of objects are

14 appeared to him/her. I must have a place otherwise there would be no relation between me and the world. The place is assigned to me by my birth. To be born is to take one s place. Human reality is such that by which place comes to things. Without human reality there would have been place. To be in place is to be far from something or near to something. My free choices reveal the facticity of my place. It appears to me in terms of the changes which I project. It implies freedom. Freedom is the apprehension of my facticity. It creates the obstacles from which we suffer. It establishes the spatial connection among objects. It constitutes its own restriction. Freedom exists as restricted because freedom is choice. Every choice is either elimination or selection choice of finitude. True freedom constitutes facticity as its own restriction. In being born I take a place and responsible for that. Thus, freedom and facticity are interrelated. Without facticity there would be no freedom which is the power of the nihilation and choice. On the other hand, without freedom facticity would not be discovered and would be meaningless MY PAST Sartre says that every man has a past. Freedom cannot modify one s past. Freedom cannot produce itself without a past. One cannot take a new decision except in terms of it. Present and future are dependent on it. The past is present and melts insensibly into the present. I cannot conceive myself without a past. But I am the being through whom the past comes to me and to the world. Freedom is defined in terms of future which it has to be. It is conceived within a narrow connection with what is. The meaning of what is is related to its surpassed towards the future. To realize the future the past is unavoidable. I cannot exist without a past. According to Sartre the meaning of the past is dependent on my present project. He says, I preserve the past with me, and by action I decide its meaning (Sartre1957:498). Meaning of the

15 past comes to it from the future. The urgency of the past comes from the future. Man s association with past is a kind of project for the future. As human reality is condemned to make it past to wait for the future, the past is in suspense. To say that the past is in suspense is to say that man s present is an expecting. Sartre says that though I have a past, I can dissociate me from it. Then it exists as that self which I am no longer. Due to freedom I can posit my past as not to be associated with me. Thus, the past is integrated with the situation when man by its choice of the future confesses on its past facicity a value, an hierarchical order, and an urgency in terms of which its facicity motivates the act and conduct of man MY ENVIRONMENT Sartre considers that my environment means the instrumental things that surround me. By changing place I provide the basis for the appearance of a new environment. On the other hand, environment can be changed by others without interference. In situation I know the objects of my surroundings though sum of these objects cannot by itself alone constitute a situation. The abrupt transformation or the abrupt appearance of another instrument can bring change to situation. Thus, the changes that occur in my environment can bring modification to my projects. Sartre says that the given is demanded by the very existence of freedom instead of being an obstacle to freedom. As I am able to do something and exercise my action upon being which has independent existence, my action does not condition it. Freedom implies that to be free is to-be-free-to-change. It also implies that existence of an environment to be changed, obstacles to be cleared, tools to be used. Though freedom reveals the obstacles by its free choice, it also interpreted their being. Thus, to be free is to-be-free-to-do and it is to-be-free-in-the-world. The very project of freedom is to make a choice. Free choice contains within it the possibility of its future modifications.

16 According to Sartre freedom is the surpassing of the given. Its end is to change the given. It reveals the given in the light of the end chosen. It causes things to manifest them as out of reach, independent, separated from me by nothingness which I carry and by which I secrete which I am. Freedom is condemned to be free. I am both absolutely free and absolutely responsible for my situation MY FELLOWMAN Sartre says that I live in a world with my fellowman. The world is full of instrumental complexities. They have meaning of their own. In every act I found myself engaged in already meaningful world which reflects to me the meanings which I have not put into it. My existence in this world refers to the presence of the Other. I have the existence in-the-world-in-the-presence-of-others. My appearance in this world is revealed to me by my belonging to collectivities, to the human race, to the national collectivity, to the professional and to the family group. But my belonging to a particular group or nation is not derived from the facticity structure of my for-itself. As human being can choose it is responsible for the existence of human race. But foritself can choose itself beyond nationality or race. For-itself arises in a world which is a world for other for itself. So, the meaning of the world is alien to for-itself. It arises in the world which is already given. But for-itself does not suffer the other s existence. It makes to manifest Other s existence in the form of a choice. Due to it, it can apprehend the Other as The-Other-as-subject or as The-Other-as-object. The Other s conduct is revealed in the world as techniques. By choosing itself and by historicizing in the world that the for-itself historicizes the world itself and causes it to be dated by its techniques. This effort does not restrict its freedom.

17 For Sartre it is true that for-itself cannot be a person without being a man/woman, a member of national collectivity, of a class, of family etc. However, these abstract structures are surpassed by for itself by its project. The world which is revealed to for-itself appears as provided with certain meanings correlative with techniques adopted. However, the Other s existence brings a factual limitation to my freedom. By means of the upsurge of the Other there appear certain determinations which I am without having chosen them. For example, I am a Jew, or Aryan, handsome or ugly etc. I am all these for the Other without attempt to change it. But as soon as freedom arises confronting me, I see a meaning conferred upon me. I take responsibility for this meaning. I can react against interdiction by declaring that these are purely a collective fiction. For example, race. Sartre states that only individual exists. On whatever level we place ourselves the limit of freedom is found only in freedom. To come into the world as a freedom confronting Others is to come into the world alienable. We cannot escape this alienable otherwise it would be absurd to think of existence other than in situation. By recognizing the Other I assume my being-for-others which is the link of mine with the Others. Through this assumption I experience my being-outside as outside. Sartre calls the characteristics like professor, waiter, handsome, ugly, Jew, Aryan, spiritual, vulgur etc. as unrealizables. These unrealizables are revealed to for-itself as unrealizables-to-be-realized. They appear as an a- priori limit given to my situation. Thus, by freely choosing itself freedom chooses its limits. Freedom is responsible to make unrealizable limits enter into the situation by choosing to be freedom limited by the Other s freedom. Sartre admits that there is a freedom beyond my freedom. The external limits of freedom can never be a real obstacle for freedom. Freedom is total and infinite.

18 MY DEATH Death is an unavoidable event of life. It is considered as the final boundary of human life. The realists considered death as an immediate contact with the non-human. But for the idealist death as an end of life is interiorized and humanized. For them man cannot encounter anything but the human. There is no other side of life. Death is a human phenomenon. Death is the meaning of life like the resolved chord is the meaning of the melody. Sartre says that death is the personal phenomenon of one s life. It makes life unique because that life does not begin again. But I become responsible for my death as for my life (Sartre 1957:532). Death reveals to us only ourselves from a human point of view. Life is nothing but expectations of death. When death occurs it just put its seal upon life. Heidegger describes it as resolute decision. As death is a personal phenomenon nobody can die for me. But there is no personalizing virtue which is peculiar to my death. My subjectivity is defined by pre-reflective cogito. It makes my death a subjective one that cannot be replaced by other. Sartre maintains that expectation of death and waiting for death are different. I cannot forseen my death at any date and so it cannot be waited. I cannot say that the minute which is passing is bringing death closer to me unless I consider my life is limited. On the other hand, there is considerable difference between death at the old age and sudden death. If death occurs only at the old age I can wait for it, but not for the sudden death. However, to wait for death at the old age is to fall in bad faith. Because we have every chance of dying before we accomplish our task or out living it. Sartre considers death as a possible nihilation of all possibilities. My death is not fixed by me. The sequences of the universe determine it. So, it is not death but life is a long waiting. It is the waiting for the realization of ends and waiting for ourselves.

19 Sartre states that instead of imposing a meaning to life, death removes all meaning from life. If death is an unavoidable event of life, then our life has no meaning because its problems receive no solution and the problems remains undetermined. Waiting for death would be self destructive. It is the negation of all waiting. The relation with all dead is an essential structure of the fundamental relation of being-for-others. Sartre believes that as we are free to choose our own attitude toward the death, it is not possible for us not to choose an attitude. Life makes changing of what it is. But dead life declares that it is all done. Death represents a total dispossession. The existence of death alienates us in our life in the advantage of the other. Death is a contingent fact which on principle escapes me and belongs to my facticity. It comes to us from outside and transforms us into outside. At bottom birth and death are indistinguishable. This identity of birth and death is called facticity. Sartre explains that instead of limiting our freedom death frees us from its so-called constraint. Generally, we believe that death constitutes our finitude. But human reality would remain finite even it were immortal. By choosing itself as human, it makes itself finite. The very act of freedom is the assumption and creation of finitude. By choosing oneself it makes known what is projecting towards possible to find exclusion of others. Death is not an ontological structure of my being so far as my being is for-itself. There is no place for death in-being-for-itself. Death is not the foundation of the finitude of for-itself. It is an external and factual event of my subjectivity. It is certain aspect of facticity and of beingfor-others. According to Sartre it is both absurd that we are born and die. Yet, death represents the future meaning of my actual for-itself for the other. There is a permanent limit of my projects. So, there is basically no difference between the choices by which freedom assumes death as the inapprehensible and inconceivable limit of its subjectivity and by which it chooses to be a freedom limited by the other s freedom. Death is the situation, the

20 limit of the chosen choice. It is the reverse side of my choice. It haunts me at the heart of each of my projects as their inevitable reverse side. Death is not an obstacle of my freedom and to my projects. It does attempt to limit my freedom but freedom never encounters this limit. Freedom always remains total and infinite. Sartre says, I am not free to die, but I am a free mortal (Sartre 1957:547-8). Death is always beyond my subjectivity. We cannot think of death nor wait for it nor arm ourselves against it. On principle our projects are independent of death. Sartre states that free man can create new possibilities out of his/her factcity and obstacles. Every action of man makes him/her unique. Therefore, man has to take responsibility for every deed. In our next discussion we shall consider the relation between freedom and responsibility FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY Sartre says that as man is a free being, he/she is responsible for all deeds. It is because man makes him/her what he/she is. Sartre says, Man makes himself; he is not found ready-made; he makes himself by the choice of his morality, and he cannot but choose a morality, such is the pressure of circumstances upon him. We define man only in relation to his commitments; it is therefore absurd to reproach us for irresponsibility in our choice (Sartre 1960:306). According to Sartre man has to take responsibility for his/her acts on his/her own shoulders. This responsibility is not only for individuality but also for all men. Man has to carry the whole world on his/her shoulder. For Sartre man s responsibility is a logical requirement of the consequences of freedom. It is true that I am responsible for my acts. Everything which happens to me is mine. But, it is also true that what happens to a man through other men and through himself/herself is human. Every situation is the creation of

21 man. It is the result of my free choices. It represents me and symbolizes me. Sartre says that there is no accident in a life. For Sartre, war is also a creation of my acts and choices. Instead of becoming a coward or to attain certain other value I have chosen it. The situation in which war arises, I am a part of it. To live in this war is to choose myself through it and to choose it through my choice of myself. I am unable to live without integrating it in my situation and engaged myself in it wholly. Like it natural disaster also derives its meaning from human consciousness. Thus, I carry the weight of the world by myself alone without anything or any person being able to lighten it (Sartre 1957:555). In choosing for himself/herself one chooses for all men. Thus, he/she is responsible for all men. On the other hand, whatever we choose is always the better and nothing can be better for us unless it is better for all. Therefore, our responsibility concerns mankind as a whole. In this context, Sartre says, if I decide to marry and to have children, even though this decision proceeds simply from my situation, from my pas-sion or my desire, I am thereby committing not only myself, but humanity as a whole, to the practice of monogamy. I am thus responsible for myself and for all men, and I am creat-ing a certain image of man as I would have him to be. In fashioning myself I fashion man. (Sartre1960:292). Sartre states that though I am not the foundation of my being, everything takes place as if I were compelled to be responsible. I am responsible for my desire of fleeing responsibility. So, when a man commits himself to anything, fully realizing that he is not only choosing what he will be, but is thereby at the same time a legislator deciding for the whole of mankind- in such a moment a man cannot escape from the sense of complete and profound responsibility (Sartre 1960:292). Sartre says that I choose my acts and by choosing it I choose myself. My birth is a projective re-construction of my for-itself. Every choice is integrally affected with facticity as I am not able not to choose. In this context, Sartre states that not choosing something is still a choice. According to him man finds him/herself in an organized situation in which he/she is involved. Here, one s choice involves mankind in its entirety and cannot avoid

22 choosing. Thus, whatever may be the situation it is impossible not to take complete responsibility (Sartre1960:305). Sartre says that facticity is everywhere but inapprehensible. I never encounter anything except my responsibility. This responsibility extends to the entire world as a peopled world. Here, being-for-itself apprehends itself in anguish. Sartre says, man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does (Sartre 1960:295). According to Sartre man is such a being which is neither the foundation of its own being nor the foundation of the Other s being nor of the in-itself s which forms the world. However, he/she is compelled to decide the meaning of being within him/her and everywhere outside. Man realizes in anguish his/her condition as being thrown into a responsibility which extends to his/her very abandonment has no longer anything but a freedom which perfectly reveals itself. Man s being resides in this very revelation. Sartre repeats that free man is responsible for his/her acts. But, sometimes, man willingly avoids his/her own freedom. This kind of specific behavior of man is considered as bad faith. He regards bad faith as another aspect of man. Bad faith also related to human freedom BAD FAITH Sartre says that as man is free it can behave according to its choices. It has various possibilities to accept, to reject, to refuse etc. It is unique to conscious being or man that it can deny itself or can take negative attitudes with respect to him/her. But when man realizes that nothingness exists within himself/herself, he/she suffers anguish. At that moment he/she is unable to bear the thought of the boundless freedom. To escape from this anguish man takes help of bad faith. Through bad faith man pretends that he/she is not free as he/she

23 actually is. In this determined attitude of human reality, consciousness, instead of directing its negation outward turns it towards itself. Sartre calls this attitude as bad faith or self deception (mauvaise foi). Sometimes bad faith is considered as identical to falsehood or lying. Sartre says that lying is a negative attitude and it aims at the transcendent. The liar actually knows the truth which he/she is hiding. He/she intends to deceive by affirming truth within himself, denying it in his words (Sartre 1957:48). To lie something there must be a deceiver and a deceived. It pre-supposes the existence of mine and the existence of the Other. My existence is pre-supposed for the other and the existence of the other for me. In contrast to it, bad faith is a lie to oneself. It is an attempt to hiding a displeasing truth or presenting as truth a pleasing untruth. In bad faith one hides truth from him/her only. Therefore, the one to whom the lie is told and the one who lies are one and the same person (Sartre1957:49). Sartre uses the term metastable to mean the changing character of bad faith. According to him bad faith is sometimes accepted as a normal aspect of life. We cannot reject it, but cannot apprehend it also. Bad faith occurs but it is undesirable. It is a self evident fact of proving the existence of the power to conceive no-existence. Human being can conceive any situation what is not true. It can imagine any situation as it like. Bad faith is possible for such attitudes of human being. Sartre considers that the necessary condition for bad faith is the grasping of nothingness, which is identical with the freedom of consciousness. It can be stated with Sartre that Bad faith would not be possible except to a creature who was capable both of self consciousness, in a minimal prereflective manner, and of negation; for it consists in seeing what one is, and denying it; asserting that one is what one is not (Warnock. 2005:100). Sartre repeats that man is absolutely free to act, to choose, to observe the world, to accept truth, to imagine which is not true, to adopt hopeless and useless kind of behavior if he/she wants. Thus, in many more cases man uses freedom. For Sartre Bad faith is an attempt to escape from the anguish which men suffer when they are brought face to face with their own freedom

24 (Warnock 1972:52). As we are free, we are responsible for everything. Free men s responsibility is more than one can bear. We attempt to refuse the burden of our action. We attempt to find excuses, reasons, causes and forces that determine us to act within or without in a certain manner. In that conflicting state we develop tricks and devices for evading it. Bad faith is one of such tricks. Here, we pretend to ourselves and others that things could not be otherwise. We are bound to our way of life and could not escape it though we want to avoid it. Man, who falls in bad faith typically identifies himself/herself with one of his/her characteristics. Sartre says, It is a certain art of forming contradictory concepts which unite in themselves both an idea and the negation of that idea. The basic concept which is thus engendered, utilizes the double property of the human being, who is at once a facticity and a transcendence. These two aspects of human reality are and ought to be capable of a valid coordination. But bad faith does not wish either to coordinate them nor to surmount them in a synthesis. Bad faith seeks to affirm their identity while preserving their differences. It must affirm facticity as being transcendence and transcendence as being facticity, in such a way that at the instant when a person apprehends the one, he can find himself abruptly faced with the other (Sartre 1957:56). Transcendence-facticity is considered by Sartre as one of the instruments of bad faith. Facticity refers to the factual aspect of man. It includes what is happening to us. But transcendence refers to that aspect of man which permits us to go beyond our facticity. Transcendence means the believable ways of our changing behaviour. Nothingness always intervenes between our facticity and us. Person is in bad faith to the extent it affirms its facticity at the expense of transcendence and transcendence at the expense of facticity. Bad faith affirms one at the expense of other. Moreover to be in bad faith human reality must be a being which is what it is not and which is not what it is. If man were complete and what it is, then bad faith ever impossible. Most important condition of bad faith is the being of consciousness.

25 Bad faith is an attempt to escape from responsibility, a deliberate avoiding of freedom and pretending to be determined. The goal of bad faith is to cause me to be what I am, in the mode of not being what one is, or not to be what I am in the mode of being what one is (Sartre 1957:66). Bad faith attempts to put oneself out of reach which is an escape. It is a state when man feels that I am no longer free, I can no longer do what I want (Sartre 2000:22). It attempts to constitute the person what he/she is not. Sartre states two types of bad faith- a) Becoming thing-like b) Playing a part In the first pattern of bad faith man pretends to be a thing or being-in-itself instead of a conscious being or being-for-itself who has no choices. In the second pattern of bad faith man pretends to be being-for-others who acts according to the role that other assigned to him/her. To explain the first pattern of bad faith Sartre takes the example of a woman who has gone out for dating with a particular man. The woman knows the intention of the man when he takes her hand. But the woman leaves the hand as if it were a thing. She attempts neither to consent nor to reject. She begins to talk of lofty and abstract matters. She continues to perform in such a way as to avoid that which she knows. The second pattern of bad faith is concerned with the role played by the individual according to others. This pattern of bad faith is discussed by Sartre in Jean Genet. According to Sartre, generally, we perform action as other suggests. A café waiter actually attempts to play the role of a waiter. He is not only the waiter but also a father, a brother, a husband and or so on. So, the waiter knows that being a waiter is only a role for him and that his consciousness is not identified with this role of being a waiter. He is not identified with the role of the waiter. What he plays the role is the result of bad faith. The waiter is a waiter in the mode of being-what-he-is-not.