Бытие и ничто: Опыт феноменологической онтологии

1943 book by Jean Paul Sartre

Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology , sometimes published with the subtitle A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology, is a 1943 book by the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre. In the book, Sartre develops a philosophical account in support of his existentialism, dealing with topics such as consciousness, perception, social philosophy, self deception, the existence of "nothingness", psychoanalysis, and the question of free will. While a prisoner of war in 1940 and 1941, Sartre read Martin Heidegger's Being and Time (1927), which uses the method of Husserlian phenomenology as a lens for examining ontology. Sartre attributed the course of his own philosophical inquiries to his exposure to this work. Though influenced by Heidegger, Sartre was profoundly skeptical of any measure by which humanity could achieve a kind of personal state of fulfillment comparable to the hypothetical Heideggerian "re encounter with Being". In Sartre's account, man is a creature haunted by a vision of "completion" (what Sartre calls the ens causa sui, meaning literally "a being that causes itself"), which many religions and philosophers identify as God. Born into the material reality of one's body, in a material universe, one finds oneself inserted into being. In accordance with Husserl's notion that consciousness can only exist as consciousness of something, Sartre develops the idea that there can be no form of self that is "hidden" inside consciousness. On these grounds, Sartre goes on to offer a philosophical critique of Sigmund Freud's theories, based on the claim that consciousness is essentially self conscious. Being and Nothingness is regarded as both the most important non fiction expression of Sartre's existentialism and his most influential philosophical work, original despite its debt to Heidegger. Many have praised the book's central notion that "existence precedes essence", its introduction of the concept of bad faith, and its exploration of "nothingness", as well as its novel contributions to the philosophy of sex. However, the book has been criticized for its abstruseness and for its treatment of Freud.

Sartre's existentialism shares its philosophical starting point with René Descartes: The first thing we can be aware of is our existence, even when doubting everything else (Cogito ergo sum). In Nausea, the main character's feeling of dizziness towards his own existence is induced by things, not thinking. This dizziness occurs "in the face of one's freedom and responsibility for giving a meaning to reality". As an important break with Descartes, Sartre rejects the primacy of knowledge (a rejection summed up in the phrase "Existence precedes essence") and offers a different conception of knowledge and consciousness.

Important ideas in Being and Nothingness build on Edmund Husserl's phenomenology. To both philosophers, consciousness is intentional, meaning that there is only consciousness of something. For Sartre, intentionality implies that there is no form of self that is hidden inside consciousness (such as Husserl's transcendental ego). An ego must be a structure outside consciousness, so that there can be consciousness of the ego.

In the introduction, Sartre sketches his own theory of consciousness, being, and phenomena through criticism of both earlier phenomenologists (most notably Husserl and Heidegger) as well as idealists, rationalists, and empiricists. According to him, one of the major achievements of modern philosophy is phenomenology because it disproved the kinds of dualism that set the existent up as having a "hidden" nature (such as Immanuel Kant's noumenon); Phenomenology has removed "the illusion of worlds behind the scene". Based on an examination of the nature of phenomena, he describes the nature of two types of being, being in itself (the being of things) and being for itself. While being in itself is something that can only be approximated by human being, being for itself is the being of consciousness.

From Sartre's phenomenological point of view, nothingness is an experienced reality and cannot be a merely subjective mistake. The absence of a friend and absence of money hint at a being of nothingness. It is part of reality. In the first chapter, Sartre develops a theory of nothingness which is central to the whole book, especially to his account for bad faith and freedom. For him, nothingness is not just a mental concept that sums up negative judgements such as "Pierre is not here" and "I have no money". Though "it is evident that non being always appears within the limits of a human expectation", the concrete nothingness differs from mere abstract inexistence, such as the square circle. A concrete nothingness, e. g. not being able to see, is part of a totality: the life of the blind man in this world. This totality is modified by the nothingness which is part of it. In the totality of consciousness and phenomenon (Heidegger's being in the world), both can be considered separately, but exist only as a whole (intentionality of consciousness). The human attitude of inquiry, of asking questions, puts consciousness at distance from the world. Every question brings up the possibility of a negative answer, of non being, e. g. "Who is entering? No one." For Sartre, this is how nothingness can exist at all. Non being can neither be part of the being in itself nor can it be as a complement of it. Being for itself is the origin of negation. The relation between being for itself and being in itself is one of questioning the latter. By bringing nothingness into the world, consciousness does not annihilate the being of things, but changes its relation to it.