![]() ![]() In resume, one should believe, as Marcuse did, that the time in which Sartre emerged was “that of the totalitarian terror: the Nazi regime is at the height of its power France is occupied by the German armies. One can say that his freedom was created in the trenches of the postwar period together with the anguish and his notion of intellectual. And, finally, to this prolific career, the fact that he is a faithful exponent of his time is added. In his work, there is a very seductive mixture of political activism and literary creation, ontology and ethics, novel and philosophical essay. From the French postwar environment and even from the more general context of contemporary philosophy Sartre is a complex exponent that synthesizes the spirit of a classical world with airs closer to human existence. Jean-Paul Sartre would be known for his extensive reflections on concepts such as freedom, intellectual, anguish, existence, among others. If that is the case, it is established as a contradiction in his existentialist way of thinking due to the very definition of freedom as absolute and in opposition to the Other. And finally, I would like to show the weakness of the Sartrean thesis that assumes death is not a structure of the being-for-itself. In the second one, we will expose the main ideas of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. Having said this, in this first post is presented in general terms what can be understood as contemporary French philosophy as the immediate philosophical context in which Jean-Paul Sartre will discuss. “Sartre is the first well-known philosopher who, while proposing an ontology different from Heidegger’s, elaborates his concept of death in contrast to Being-towards-death – which he describes in Being and Nothingness as a “sleight of hand.” Regarding this topic and according to Schumacher: Instead, we will discuss only the Sartrean notion of death. ![]() Though, in the next pages, it is not my purpose to define what exactly death is. Many thinkers have talked or discussed them, from broad perspectives to more specific scopes, just to mention some, Socrates, Plato, Epicurus, Saint Augustine, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Emmanuel Levinas or Jacques Derrida. These are very general questions here that one cannot answer briefly. ![]() So, what should we understand as death? Is it important for our lives in front of the Other or not? Does it have any purpose, or it is merely something that does not belong to our experience as human reality? And in second place, one is forced to think that death is not part of our life as an essential source of meaning. First, it seems that when we cease to exist our life becomes in the Other’s life, therefore there is a particular contradiction between us and the Other. Many things can come into our minds, but two specific ideas immediately appear to be significant according to Sartre. ![]() “…to die is to be condemned no matter what ephemeral victory one has won over the Other even if one has made use of the Other to “sculpture one’s own statue”, to die is to exist only through the Other, and to owe to him one’s meaning and the very meaning of one’s victory.” You’ll never have to fear someone taking it from you or, worse still, it taking over you.“I am afraid that other people do not realize that the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death.”Īt the end of his masterpiece Being and Nothingness Sartre says that: That is something you can have every single day of your life. Is this the mark of a successful life? From a personal standpoint, it matters little if your name is emblazoned on a map if you lose perspective and hurt those around you. Sophists were called from all over Greece to see what they could do about his grief, to no avail. Afterward, he was so despondent that he couldn’t eat or drink for three days. The Stoics would also point out that, once while drunk, Alexander got into a fight with his dearest friend, Cleitus, and accidentally killed him. Take Alexander the Great who conquered the known world and had cities named in his honor. Being a good person and doing the right thing right now, that’s what matters and that’s what was important to the Stoics. If everything is ephemeral, as the Stoics insist, then what does matter? The answer is simple: Right now matters. ![]()
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