Being and Nothingness (Ethics (Ready Reference series))
At a glance:
- Author: Jean-Paul Sartre
- First Published: 1943
- Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy
- Subjects: Philosophy or philosophers, France or French people, Self, Europe or Europeans, Good and evil, Human behavior, Existentialism, Life, philosophy of
The Work
For Sartre, human existence is conscious being, “being-for-itself” (pour-soi). Human existence as “being-for-itself” is temporal—always in some present, always on the way from some past toward some future. Another characteristic of human existence is its dependence on things. Things have a fundamentally different mode of existence: “being-in-itself” (en-soi). They have no consciousness, no possibilities, no freedom. Their being is complete as it is.
One danger for human existence is that it may be falsely reduced from free...
[The entire page is 886 words long]
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