jwright82
Puritan Board Post-Graduate
Any examination of Jean Paul Sartre has to recon with the early and later Sartre, see Robert Knudsen's lectures on Existentialism at wts media archives for this, here I'm going to focus on the early Sartre.
In the book Nausea his character is chopping away at a tree to find its substance or essence and its not there, there's nothing there. As well in his play "No Exit" in which he famously says "hell is other people" gives insight to his thoughts.
But the crux of his earlier thought is best contained in the book "Being And Nothingness". He separates the world into two different kinds of things, being-for-itself and being-in-itself. Or things with choice vs things that are just there.
So whats his argument? Taking for granted his idea that things are just out there for no purpose until we use them for something, we do have to start with us.
Like his character "chopping away at a tree" we have to use phenomenology to answer the question. Basically you have to "bracket off" our perception of things we experience, as well as our thoughts of those things. Thats phenomenology. What our we left with as far as our essence or substance is Nothingness. This makes up the second part of his book I believe. So we have at our very core a "Nothingness" to contend with.
Now "the other", this is a philosophical problem invented by these people for reasons I will attempt to show. How do we view other people? They can easily be used as objects for whatever desire. In asking someone to hand you something you are "objectifying" or using them like a tool or a thing. So to live authentically you have to not become an object. To become an object is "bad faith" (hell is other people).
Now much more could be said about Sartre. But what can we say from a transcendental perspective? First the other is a fellow creature of God's design, "its not good for man for to be alone". Is it really necessary or even "possible" in life to get along without other people? Sartre had no problem with using women for his own desires. But we have the commandment to "love our neighbor as ourselves" in part because we need our neighbors to survive. Why do we feel pain and turmoil when we see "bad things happening to good people"? Because they're good people from our perspective.
Now the fundamental problem is that we are Nothingness in our core being. Gabriel Marcel pointed this out in his critique of Sartre in that there is no possibility of an ethic there. Why treat people as anything but objects? But are we nothing or something? We would say we are the very images of God and deserve to be treated with a similar reverence as we would the almighty. So all in all he doesn't even provide the very possibility for ethical treatment of others or ourselves.
But how can we be Nothingness?
He said Nothingness "is" or we couldn't talk about it. Thats a rather weird transcendental take on it but whatever. Is there even the possibility of us being Nothingness in our core being? I think not, saying "Nothingness is or we couldn't talk about it" has no connection with anything else. So no possibility of that even relatable to anything.
So I hope I've shown the heart of Van Til’s method in eliminating the possibility of other WV to get what they want, they want their cake and they want to eat it to.
In the book Nausea his character is chopping away at a tree to find its substance or essence and its not there, there's nothing there. As well in his play "No Exit" in which he famously says "hell is other people" gives insight to his thoughts.
But the crux of his earlier thought is best contained in the book "Being And Nothingness". He separates the world into two different kinds of things, being-for-itself and being-in-itself. Or things with choice vs things that are just there.
So whats his argument? Taking for granted his idea that things are just out there for no purpose until we use them for something, we do have to start with us.
Like his character "chopping away at a tree" we have to use phenomenology to answer the question. Basically you have to "bracket off" our perception of things we experience, as well as our thoughts of those things. Thats phenomenology. What our we left with as far as our essence or substance is Nothingness. This makes up the second part of his book I believe. So we have at our very core a "Nothingness" to contend with.
Now "the other", this is a philosophical problem invented by these people for reasons I will attempt to show. How do we view other people? They can easily be used as objects for whatever desire. In asking someone to hand you something you are "objectifying" or using them like a tool or a thing. So to live authentically you have to not become an object. To become an object is "bad faith" (hell is other people).
Now much more could be said about Sartre. But what can we say from a transcendental perspective? First the other is a fellow creature of God's design, "its not good for man for to be alone". Is it really necessary or even "possible" in life to get along without other people? Sartre had no problem with using women for his own desires. But we have the commandment to "love our neighbor as ourselves" in part because we need our neighbors to survive. Why do we feel pain and turmoil when we see "bad things happening to good people"? Because they're good people from our perspective.
Now the fundamental problem is that we are Nothingness in our core being. Gabriel Marcel pointed this out in his critique of Sartre in that there is no possibility of an ethic there. Why treat people as anything but objects? But are we nothing or something? We would say we are the very images of God and deserve to be treated with a similar reverence as we would the almighty. So all in all he doesn't even provide the very possibility for ethical treatment of others or ourselves.
But how can we be Nothingness?
He said Nothingness "is" or we couldn't talk about it. Thats a rather weird transcendental take on it but whatever. Is there even the possibility of us being Nothingness in our core being? I think not, saying "Nothingness is or we couldn't talk about it" has no connection with anything else. So no possibility of that even relatable to anything.
So I hope I've shown the heart of Van Til’s method in eliminating the possibility of other WV to get what they want, they want their cake and they want to eat it to.