Jean-Paul Sartre: Being and Nothingness [1943] Intro & Part I [HOIS]

Existentialism, arguably the most influential philosophical movement of the 20th Century, is exemplified in the life and works of Jean Paul Sartre, particularly in his magnum opus, Being and Nothingness. Building on the groundbreaking fundamentals of Heidegger’s Being and Time, Sartre articulated a way to live a life without God, in a world devastated by two cataclysmic wars. Loved and hated in probable equal measure, Sartre’s thought indisputably impacted the culture, society, philosophy, psychology, and politics of the post-war era. Let’s explore the relevance of his thought for this troubled century.

Hosted by The History of Ideas Symposium [HOIS] -a Los Angeles-based group of philosophers following the Columbia University Contemporary Civilization syllabus -see link at bottom.

***Join our Meetup and RVSP for Sartre. https://www.meetup.com/History-of-Ideas/events/279851147/

We naturally move to Sartre after Heidegger and puzzle through his L'être et le néant with a new translation due September 2021!

Our schedule (subject to change): 11AM PDT / 2PM EDT
9-12-21: - Introduction & Part 1 The Problem of Nothingness [100 pgs.]

9-26-21: -Part 2: Being-for-Itself, Ch 1 & Ch 2 [100]
10-8-21: -Part 2: Ch 3, "Transcendence" [50]

10-22-21: -Part 3: Being-for-Others, Ch 1 "The Existence of Others" [80]
11-05-21: -Part 3: Ch 2 "The Body" [60]
11-19-21: -Part 3: Ch 3 "Concrete Relations with Others" [70]

12-02-21: -Part 4: Having, Doing and Being, Ch 1 "Freedom" [125]
12-16-21: -Part 4: Ch 2 "Doing and Having" & Conclusion [70]

[the approx. pagination above is from the 1956 edition]

From SEP:
[Sartre] read the leading phenomenologists of the day, Husserl, Heidegger and Scheler. He prized Husserl's restatement of the principle of intentionality (all consciousness aims at or “intends” an other-than-consciousness) that seemed to free the thinker from the inside/outside epistemology inherited from Descartes while retaining the immediacy and certainty that Cartesians prized so highly. What he read of Heidegger at that time is unclear, but he deals with the influential German ontologist explicitly after his return and especially in his masterwork, Being and Nothingness (1943). He exploits the latter's version of Husserlian intentionality by insisting that human reality (Heidegger's Dasein or human way of being) is “in the world” primarily via its practical concerns and not its epistemic relationships. This lends both Heidegger's and Sartre's early philosophies a kind of “pragmatist” character that Sartre, at least, will never abandon. It has been remarked that many of the Heideggerian concepts in Sartre's existentialist writings also occur in those of Bergson, whose “Les Données immediates de la conscience” (Time and Free Will) Sartre once credited with drawing him toward philosophy....

Any attendees who have not read the text will be invited to pose questions via the Zoom Chat.

Edition (available from your public library, bookstore and online):
Jean-Paul Sartre. Being and nothingness: an essay in phenomenological ontology... All editions translated by Hazel E. Barnes.

Washington Square Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780671867805. 864 pgs.
Citadel Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780806522760. 553 pgs. [Abridged] Routledge Paperback, 2003. ISBN: 9780415278485. 688 pgs.

New Translation by Sarah Richmond:
Routledge 2018. ISBN: 9780367461409. 909 pgs. [Hardbound]
Washington Square Press, 2021. 9781982105457. 928 pgs. [ppbk]

Please recommend to the group any secondary sources you find especially helpful.

Search YouTube for audiobook and secondary videos:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=being+and+nothingness

Paste the link here in your browser for a draft syllabus for our course of study. http://www.college.columbia.edu/core/sites/core/files/pages/CONTEMPORARY%20CIVILIZATION%20SYLLABUS%202021-22.pdf