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asaris · 09-03-2004, 10:15 AM

(Caveat: I've only read Being and Nothingness by Sartre, so if my view of his views is incomplete, that's why)

The problem with Sartre and the social world is not simply a matter of his appropriation of Heideggerian thrownness. Heidegger's divide between the ontic and the ontological allows him to comment on the ontological nature of thrownness and being-in-the-world without abstractizing the social world in its ontic being. Then, when Sartre takes up Heideggerian thrownness, the waters get deeply muddled, since Sartre explicitly rejects the distinction between the ontic and the ontological (in his essay Transcendence and the Ego, which I should read one of these days).

It's not clear at all that freedom of choice, for Sartre, is something merely in principle. Certainly that's one way to read him (and the best way, IMHO, of making sense of him), but certainly at least some of his formulations imply that we always have absolute freedom of choice.

I find it interesting the way in which different philosophers of the time period characterize our first encounter with the Other. For Heidegger, it's primarily through things; we experience our neighbor first as the owner of that ready-to-hand object. For Sartre, it's through shame. But both of these are primarily negative ways of relating to the Other. To encounter the Other through his possessions is to reduce him to just another entity ready-to-hand in the world (at best, though his analysis tends to make me think we actually encounter people primordially as present-at-hand); and in encountering her primoridally as an obstacle to our own being-for-ourselves, we deny her her own status as a being-for-itself. Levinas' analysis (you knew this was coming) seems much happier -- we encounter others primordially through enjoyment. But I seem to have digressed. I'll post more later, I think.

09-03-2004, 10:15 AM	#9 (permalink)
asaris Mad Philosopher Location: Washington, DC	(Caveat: I've only read Being and Nothingness by Sartre, so if my view of his views is incomplete, that's why) The problem with Sartre and the social world is not simply a matter of his appropriation of Heideggerian thrownness. Heidegger's divide between the ontic and the ontological allows him to comment on the ontological nature of thrownness and being-in-the-world without abstractizing the social world in its ontic being. Then, when Sartre takes up Heideggerian thrownness, the waters get deeply muddled, since Sartre explicitly rejects the distinction between the ontic and the ontological (in his essay Transcendence and the Ego, which I should read one of these days). It's not clear at all that freedom of choice, for Sartre, is something merely in principle. Certainly that's one way to read him (and the best way, IMHO, of making sense of him), but certainly at least some of his formulations imply that we always have absolute freedom of choice. I find it interesting the way in which different philosophers of the time period characterize our first encounter with the Other. For Heidegger, it's primarily through things; we experience our neighbor first as the owner of that ready-to-hand object. For Sartre, it's through shame. But both of these are primarily negative ways of relating to the Other. To encounter the Other through his possessions is to reduce him to just another entity ready-to-hand in the world (at best, though his analysis tends to make me think we actually encounter people primordially as present-at-hand); and in encountering her primoridally as an obstacle to our own being-for-ourselves, we deny her her own status as a being-for-itself. Levinas' analysis (you knew this was coming) seems much happier -- we encounter others primordially through enjoyment. But I seem to have digressed. I'll post more later, I think. __________________ "Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht." "The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm." -- Friedrich Nietzsche