85. Jean Paul Sartre

[Music] all right let's attempt in the half an hour so that we have to make as much progress undone jump-offs art as we can alright so I'm going to be somewhat rapid-fire and this presentation but I do want you to know what I'm saying to you don't confuse my sort of paste and moving through this with any implication that it's not important material it's quite important but I'm just feeling I'm feeling the sense of throne Ness as I see the end of the year coming and realize all the things I'm going to feel the aunts the despair I'm not going to get through it you know so jean-paul sartre born 1905 in Paris died 1980 was a cousin to Albert Schweitzer Betty no boo Albert Schweitzer was and better know that name how long you know just make a note of it it's a name you'll run into new trivia he was a cousin of Schweitzer he was influenced as a teenager now I want you to keep this in mind he was influenced as a teenager by cons of Hegel and Heidegger there's not many people in the world who can say I was influenced as a teenager by Kant Hegel you of course and say that but you are a rare species but he read them and was influenced by them by actually reading them he was a genius in 1929 he became romantically tied to Simone de Beauvoir Simone si M o n e de Beauvoir b EA u vo IR they never married but they have a lifelong romance he was a student of HA Cyril and hiding her both he studied under both of these men Haase Roland highly her both had a huge influence on him although he was need that he was not follower of either of them got his Doctor of Philosophy when he was 24 years old and following that taught philosophy for many years he fought for the French in the run-up to World War two so when the Germans were invading in 1940's you know they entered as if you remember of 20th century history they invaded France through Belgium and Sark was there on the frontlines fighting was captured but for whatever reasons I'm not sure how it happened that he was released or escaped one of the other and wound up fighting for the French Resistance during the entire French occupation his most famous writings these I do want you to know have name recognition of these writings one of his most famous in fact his first published work was entitled intimacy intimacy in this work he describes in detail the function of the armpit in lovemaking dye you did here you can reflect on this later the function of the armpit in intimate lovemaking it's quite insightful but not recommended reading second well known work one of his best-known was simply entitled nausea nausea he wrote several plays the most famous of them I would say is the play entitled no exit no exit we had quite a bit more time we'd read some of no exit the most famous lied in no exit is toward the end of the play in which he simply says play has three players in it one of them says I see , hell is other people hell is other people another play that we will read some of next week is we have time time is slipping slipping away from us rapidly but we will read some of the flies he was because of his brilliance as the literary figure offered a Nobel Peace are a Nobel Prize only of the Peace Prize was a Nobel Prize for Literature he refused it thumbed his nose at the institutions of respectability in this culture refused it with disdain I might say no Nobel prizes for Sartre all right so that's kind of a sketch of his life that he was an interesting character his metaphysics is captured in the phrase I gave you yesterday he's the one that made this popular existence precedes essence I'm not going to go back through that because you've mastered that idea from our conversation yesterday but you may get a little flavor for his thought in his anti theistic truth he was an atheist his argument against the existence of God by the way this is interesting you realize that as a rule in the history of philosophy and apologetics you have arguments for the existence of God and criticisms of those arguments right you rarely run into an argument against the existence of God I mean you might get something like Oh God can't be there because the world is filled with evil you know arguments like that but but Sartre actually proposes an argument against the existence of God which is very telling when it comes to understanding his philosophy so I want to give this to you you won't be persuaded by it but it will give you some feel for his thought his basic argument is simply this if man exists God cannot exist if there is man God cannot be his reasoning is this man by any definition must be a subject for subjectivity man must be a subject what he means by that is to be man to be human requires you have that aspect of your life that is private it is your subjective possession nobody can intrude into it it is yours and yours alone there's parts of you obviously that are public stand here before you throwing my market around I know there's parts of my life that are public I'm here you can see me you know something of you know my name my age etc third certain things I can't hide but I'm saying to you right now there is a part of my life that you don't see and you never will it is private it is mine alone and every one of you in this room shares something of that that private piece can I retrieve my and that's what he says is essential to humanity unless you have that you are not human and then he says if God exists you don't have that region of subjectivity because God sees it and if God sees it you are no longer a subject you are only an object and if you are only an object then you are not man so if man is God cannot be you follow that now like I say that's not intended to persuade you but it does give you some idea of the flavor his philosophy he is horrified at the idea that there is in what he calls this absolute voyeur you know what a voyeur is don't you voyeurism do you know that term that somebody who likes to walk around the neighborhood at night look in other people's windows you know you know what that is you've heard of that that's a voyeur case you've never heard of that term and add that to your list of obscure terms that you'll run into it is a crime you should not do it you know you get caught you will go to jail voyeurism is a crime but it is also a description of a certain psychological malady that some people have some people do that hopefully none of you you know but what Sartre is saying is that God is the absolute voyeur God is the one who is there invisibly looking at you and seeing you right down to the very core of your most private thoughts your most private motives all of that is open and laid bare before the eyes of him with whom we have you do Sartre knows that verse and he hates it and he says if there is such a being in the universe then there cannot be man in the same universe because man must have that private part it's untrammeled by a divine foyer yeah he says that man can't be in the university system can he be in the university Isis yeah because not everything else is subject animals he's not concerned about he'd say he would say the one thing that distinguishes humanity from the animals is that we have this subjectivity you wouldn't allow that for an animal to my knowledge this is what distinguishes humanity his play no X that I think is a wonderful dramatic expression of this and though we won't read it if you ever have a chance to read it you should it's you know one of the things about Sartre that I think is worth noting is that unlike Heidegger unlike Hegel unlike Conte unlike compte unlike a lot of the philosophers we've talked about Sartre is not only a very competent philosopher and he can do philosophy at a very philosophical and technical level you know but he's also a popularizer he can write at a popular level Nietzsche could do that Kierkegaard can do that most philosophers can most philosophers are deadly boring you know they are not enjoyable reading reading most philosophers is nothing but work but some of these guys are able to move you know it's like they can they can do this philosophical work and prove they are philosophers but they can also jump to a different level and write in a way that's consistent with their philosophy but popularize it and so the plays of Sartre were popularly accessible to people who would go and see them and so on and that's part of why existential got it existentialism got into the culture so rapidly you know it took COTS philosophy fifty to seventy-five years to get to the bloodstream you'll wait there I see the gaze the glazed eyes you know I can register yeah blood streams is good you know most philosophers it takes them a long time for their philosophy to get into the bloodstream there's the word of the culture Sartre and others like him were able to get past that much more rapidly because they were able to do their own popularizing and no exit is one example of that and the story of no exit is simple enough it involves three people so you know I don't ever do this one and then happily but here's the basic storyline you got three people and all of them go to hell so the entire story is set in hell and these three people are put in a room and they're all kind of surprised because there's no fire there's no brimstone there's no devils running around with pitchforks there's no terror there's no of the none of you know caricatures that he thinks people normally have about hell are present and so first they're sort of relieved well I guess this won't be so bad after all you know we're locked in this room but they could have been a lot worse sort of thing and then as the play unfolds you begin to begin to get a feel for the dynamics of these three people there are two women and one man the man is sexually attracted to one of the women he's drawn to her he likes her she however is a lesbian and is sexually attracted to the other woman who is attracted to the man you got it and then the entire play is a very subtle sort of you know description of the interactions of these three as they gradually become more and more acutely aware of the frustrations of this eternal triad stuck in a room and one of the little details of it one of the little subtleties one of many by the way that shows up in the play is that people in Hell have no eyelids they cannot blink their eyes are always open you feel for it listen everybody in the room is always always under the gaze of everybody else in the room you know how do you feel when somebody's gazing at you and they don't take their eyes off you I mean sometimes we don't mind if I'm you know if I'm teaching a class then in fact I rather like it if people are looking at me as opposed to extraneous things in the room which is what my usually experience you know but because that gives me some idea that people are paying attention I know that's a lot to expect but that's at least the thought but if you're just sitting you know at a Starbucks and you're having a cup of coffee with a friend and the two of you are interacting casually and the night you sort of feel the hair on the back of your neck beginning to prick a little bit because just at the edge of the peripheral vision you realize somebody over in the corner is staring at you never had that experience just took I know had a famous people that happens all the time jean-paul Sartre would add that next week he was a very famous guy in Paris you know he was a hero of the ocean after the war and so on he and his writings etc he was very well known he was very widely respected and he was a famous guy and he liked to go down grab the morning newspaper sent it on the sidewalk at a cafe and along the streets of Paris and and he but he hated the experience of realizing that somebody off a few feet away was you know and they did kind of he called that experience existential self-awareness existential self-awareness that feeling that uneasy feeling that comes over you when you are under the gaze of somebody else we all know we teach little children as they're growing up don't stare it's impolite don't we and we all have this this consciousness of the effect of gazing at someone you know you guys went to Europe last summer you go into an art museum you walk up to a piece of art you stare at the piece of art you may be a great art critic you could stare there and stand there for three hours what happens if you go over and stare at the guard for three hours you know you're gonna create some anxiety little children have a game they play sometimes probably some of you recall playing a Triton's children called stare down you just stare at somebody see who can who can do it for the longest Steven you had a question it was a nice room well furnished there was good food to eat it was not it was not an uncomfortable room yeah there's no sleeping you see there's no I mean it's you're eternally in this locked in this triad that's how he's trying to illustrate that's why he finally says that's why finally reaches the conclusion at the end of no exit you know this final concluding remark is what hell is other people well he believes that's true not only in hell he believes that's true on earth that's the solitude of existentialism existentialism finally leaves you alone and trying to defend yourself against the intrusions of other people so started this believing God so you do believe in heavens don't push the point too far this is myth I mean he's writing this as a little piece of literature to illustrate his philosophical point but yeah he doesn't believe in Hell he doesn't actually believe any of this would ever happen but it's his whole point here is to try to show in some ways Alesha that we are all in Hell right now according to Sartre we're already there we're already locked in these inescapable relationships that violate us [Applause] just a couple of things in Sartre that are a little bit more was that question jQuery go ahead yeah how does he substantiate the idea that man has to be a subject he just separately he just says it because it seems like I've heard at least nowadays a lot of times this kind of I guess but he tells the existential self-awareness be and evidence yeah yeah and and that's why I say you you you wouldn't be persuaded by sart's argument nor does he nor does he expect you to be persuaded in the ordinary sense of the application of logic and reason and so he's an existentialist you and they don't feel very bound to reason it's it's reason is of rather limited importance to a true existentialism but what he is appealing to is is his own sense of his own humanity and I think what you're really here in Sartre is his great anger he is an angry man and you know it's like the the classical atheistic complaint God doesn't exist and I hate him you know I mean that's that's really the flavor you get with Sartre God doesn't exist in boy do I hate him you know that really comes through I think Jacob you're a lot closer to the to the heart of Sartre you think about it that way he's not he's not giving you a geometric proof that's gonna lead you see logistically to this conclusion it's more of a philosophical kind of literary thing Avery why has he didn't eat your man if in all usually evening of behavior people as people that are less social and can't really be said he's one of the few philosophers they can really yeah how does that yep he connects with the general public but I don't think he likes them much did over his his plays that he writes he writes them not because he's at least by all external appearances not because he's interested in in public acclaim or fame or popularity and such thing he said he's a he's a man who's wrapped up in giving expression to his own sort of frustrations about things but he does it in all these various ways he's a very complicated guy very complicated he's worth studying but don't expect to be uplifted by a study of Sartre he's a sad case he really is a sad genius just a couple of things that as I say are a little bit more technical but maybe worth knowing just because you may come across this guy again he makes it a station this is more of as you know kind of as the technical ideas that he works out but he distinguishes between a thing for itself and a thing in itself a thing in itself is an inert thing this is something that is not really aware even in its own existence an animal I think would fit in this category as well whereas a thing for itself is this thing that has some sense of its own subject so that is distinctively human that's his that's it way kind of distinguishes that so he starts with this idea of a thing for itself being aware of itself as they sell I'm aware that I'm here and I'm aware that I'm here in a in a way that is distinguished from the things around me I'm conscious of being conscious of mice my surroundings I'm also conscious of being conscious I'm aware of myself perceiving these things and it's that idea of the self it's hanging there in the middle that it's really kind of at the heart of it now this gives rise then to his whole notion of alienation I'm aware of myself in the south and I'm also aware that I'm alienated from the things around me [Music] so I'm here as a self observing for example a tree you know and in a sense that's the tree which is a thing in itself is what it is but I buy her some of my perception of the tree have been slightly changed by it and so I've never quite what I just was I'm always in a state of this ongoing like a river flowing this is a very you know sort of the Heraclitus aspect everything that happens to me is affecting me changing me shaping me and so the alienation I have is precisely because though I'm surrounded by things that are basically static I'm always dynamic I'm always becoming something slightly different that's why my existence must precede my essence because there is no essence to me to put an essence on me would be to make me static I am a man I am this I'm that but I'm not because I just became something different I just changed ever so slightly and so I'm always the cutting edge of my own changing definition of what I am you know and I do this maybe try may not get through this but so I feel this anxiety I feel this tension between my ever changing dynamically alternating self and the things around me I feel this and I am driven thereby to some sort of effort to overcome the problem and there's basically two ways to overcome it according to Sartre one is to try to marry the things around me to me and say they are all part of me this is what phenomenology does this is what Husserl did this is called solo Susan you ever heard that expression solipsism is that a new term this tucked-away solipsism is a philosophical idea that really all there is is me you guys are all just a little Fig Newton of me I'm all there really is what if there really is in the universe what if there really is what if all there are just my feelings my sensations of the phenomena these things that really all I met there's a scary thought that's solecism and Sartre doesn't like that he doesn't think that it's satisfying do you the other is for me to lose myself in the world kind of like Eastern religion does we're not we're everything doesn't become part of me but I just sort of drift out and become part of everything else you know Hinduism that doesn't work either and so I'll start basically despairs there is no answer to this problem the synthesis is impossible and therefore human life ultimately is basically meaningless so the meaning of your life is that there is no meeting have a lovely weekend [Music] you

Channel: Bruce Gore

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Keywords: Sartre, Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism, Bruce Gore, No Exit

Id: 6Z5NqDq8Tqo

Length: 32min 43sec (1963 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 11 2019