Sartre Studies International

This essay argues that an adequate account of bad faith cannot be given without taking the second half of Being and Nothingness into consideration. There are two separate but related reasons for this. First, the objectifying gaze of Others provides a necessary condition for the possibility of bad faith. Sartre, however, does not formally introduce analysis of Others until Parts III and IV. Second, upon the introduction of Others, Sartre revises his view of absolute freedom. Sartre's considered view of freedom helps to make sense out of bad faith in a way that does not seem possible were freedom absolute.

In a probing paper entitled "The Misplaced Chapter on Bad Faith, or Reading Being and Nothingness in Reverse," Matthew Eshleman challenges part of my intensive analysis of Sartre's "Bad Faith," arguing that bad faith is essentially a social phenomenon, and that social elements—the Other, in particular—play a "necessary role in making bad faith possible." Although I share many of Eshleman's interpretative points about the importance of the "social" in Sartre's account, I contend, here, with textual support, that Eshleman is too extreme, and slights the original bad faith to which human reality, in its very "upsurge" as consciousness or freedom, is "congenitally" (Spiegelberg) predisposed. My continued appeal to Sartre's concept of "initial," "fundamental," project, or "natural attitude" of consciousness to flee its freedom—what I have called ontological bad faith—becomes the crux of my critical counter-challenge to Eshleman's thesis.

It is a great honor that Ronald Santoni has offered such a carefully argued, and well supported response to my essay, the latter two qualities (careful and well supported) are not ones that can always be ascribed to my original essay. It should be said, then, at the outset, many of our disagreements likely result from the fact that I some- times fail to state matters in a sufficiently clear and or succinct manner. The crux of our apparent disagreement rides on whether the Other is a necessary condition for all instances of bad faith. Apparent, for I never intended to make this universal claim. Below I show that my thesis is more modest.

In his Critique of Dialectical Reason, Sartre argues that it is the milieu of scarcity that generates human conflict. His account of scarcity is rather ambiguous however, and at points he seems to claim that conflict is inevitable given the context of scarcity. In this article I provide a brief account of Sartre's position, and offer a critical evaluation of that position. Finally, I argue that Sartre's claims regarding the necessity of conflict are excessive, and that the resources provided in the Critique offer a means to re-evaluate our relationship to scarcity.

This article stresses the importance of one of Sartre's often overlooked novels, The Age of Reason (1945), and the possibility that it should be considered an early attempt by Sartre to answer the questions he raises at the very end of Being and Nothingness (1943). Considered as a preliminary response to Being and Nothingness, this novel provides an opportunity to explore how ethics might be lived, and draws a clear distinction between a theoretical understanding of being-for-itself and living authentically. As such, it is argued that Sartre's fictional writings, especially The Age of Reason, must be taken seriously in Sartre scholarship.

It is difficult to write this tribute and farewell to Hazel E. Barnes, my friend and mentor for over forty years, simply because I have long been unable to imagine the world without her. She died on March 18, 2008, at the age of ninety-two. I cannot help remembering that when Simone de Beauvoir met Hazel in 1985, Hazel had sent her an essay, “Beauvoir and Sartre: Forms of Farewell.”

Steve Martinot, Forms in the Abyss (Sartre and Derrida) Review by Peter Gratton

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