Being & Nothingness, Part 2

Moral Minority

In Part 2, we wrap up our consideration of Jean-Paul Sartre's midcentury magnum opus by exploring how we move from the inaccessible interiority of consciousness to our concrete relations with others. The latter half of Being & Nothingness takes up the question of what aspects of our being are revealed to us in confrontation with the Other. Sartre famously argues here that it is the Other's look, the omnipresent possibility of being seen, judged, and evaluated by another consciousness that discloses the objectivity of our being through and for the Other. As soon as the Other enters the scene, a fundamental aspect of our being is alienated from us; captured in the Other's appropriating gaze. The various attempts by the for-itself to retrieve this alienated being and penetrate the Other's essential freedom play a determinate role in shaping the contours of our fundamental projects, that is the immanently revisable set of possibilities, meaning, and value we pro-ject into the world. In the final sections of the book, Sartre sketches an alternative to Freudian psychoanalysis, asks us to reframe our conception of the autonomous will and the role of giving and asking for reasons, and gestures towards an ethics grounded in criterionless choice.

Please consider becoming a paying subscriber to our Patreon to get exclusive bonus episodes, early access releases, and bookish merch: https://www.patreon.com/MoralMinority

Follow us on Twitter(X).
Devin: @DevinGoure
Charles: @satireredacted
Email us at: [email protected]