Jean-Paul Sartre by Churchill Steven; Reynolds Dr. Jack;

Author:Churchill, Steven; Reynolds, Dr. Jack;
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 1782470
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Freedom and negation

My lack of self-identity, my standing apart from myself, can also be approached by means of an analysis of freedom. On Sartre’s view, every free action involves a double negation. On the one hand, to act is to attempt to bring about a state of affairs that currently is not. On the other hand, every act is also an attempt to negate what currently is. For example, suppose that I feel cold and consequently get up and put on a sweater. By this action I attempt to bring about a desideratum (a state of affairs in which I feel warm and comfortable) that currently is not, and I attempt to overturn the present situation (one in which I feel cold and uncomfortable). Such double negativity characterizes the way of being of all consciousnesses. I am constantly oriented towards, aiming at, and striving for, what is not; and I do so on the basis of a standing apart from, and a fleeing from, what is.

Moreover, that towards which I strive both is and is not me. It is me in the sense that I conceive of myself as persisting over time, so that the future I am attempting to bring about is my future, rather than someone else’s. But it is not me in the sense that I am temporally separated from it, and it is to some degree beyond my present capacity to control (for example, perhaps I will not be able to find my sweater; or, if I do, it might fail to make me warm). Similarly, I both am and am not everything that characterizes me at present, such as my age, my nationality, my occupation, my social role, my current emotional state, or even my “ego”. I obviously am them in the sense that they do accurately pertain to me and describe me, such that it would be folly to deny that I am, for example, an American philosophy professor in his fifties. But I am not them in the sense that I put a distance between myself and all of these facticities as soon as I perceive them or think about them. At that point they become not so much me as objects for me. I evaluate them, adopt attitudes toward them, and undertake projects on the basis of them or in spite of them. They are neither me nor my actions, but rather constitute that on the basis of which I act as I attempt to negate what is and to bring about what is not.

It is in this way that my way of being differs most radically from that of non-conscious things. A rock or a chair neither aims towards what is not nor attempts to negate what is. It forms no attitude towards any aspect of itself and does not take itself for an object. Thus, it fails to stand apart from itself, but rather coincides with itself perfectly. It is what it is. A conscious being, by contrast, escapes, evades and negates itself at every turn.

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