※ [本文轉錄自 ci-poetry 看板]
作者: jennerc (全民灌腸計畫) 看板: ci-poetry
標題: 虛無, 自欺. 真誠
時間: Sat Jun 30 16:28:11 2001
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/billramey/sartre.htm
SARTRE ON "BAD FAITH"
(by Ernest Brown)
In Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre presents the notion of
"bad faith." Sartre is a source of some controversy, when
considering this concept the following questions arise. "Of what
philosophical value is this notion? Why should I attend to what
one commentator rightly labels Sartre's 'Teutonically metaphysical
prose' (Stevenson, p. 253), in order to drag out some meaning from
a work so obviously influenced by Heidegger? Is there anything to
be gained from examining the philosophy of a thinker who offers
the statement 'human reality is what it is not and is not what it
is' as a grand philosophical truth claim about human ontology?" I
intend to contend that there is something of philosophical
interest in the notion of bad faith, primarily due to what Sartre
is attempting to present as being the constituents of human
consciousness, and their relationship to that which makes us human
beings.
Jean-Paul Sartre is noted for his commitment to a radical view of
human freedom. His analysis of the human condition leads him to
claim that, since human beings do not possess an "essential
nature" at birth, they have to create their essence as individuals
and they are "condemned to freedom." As part of his investigation
into "being-in-the-world, he considers the notion of mauvaise foi
or "bad faith", the denial of the afore-mentioned freedom by its
possessor. In this paper, I shall attempt an investigation of the
concept of bad faith, what it is, how it relates to the rest of
Sartre's philosophy and whether or not it is an adequate
description of certain human behaviors. I shall contend that while
the concept is philosophically interesting, it fails to adequately
account for the behavior that it attempts to describe.
(未完)
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作者: jennerc (全民灌腸計畫) 看板: ck48th331
標題: Re: 虛無, 自欺. 真誠
時間: Sat Jun 30 16:57:00 2001
※ [本文轉錄自 ci-poetry 看板]
作者: jennerc (全民灌腸計畫) 看板: ci-poetry
標題: Re: 虛無, 自欺. 真誠
時間: Sat Jun 30 16:29:21 2001
What is the structure of bad faith? Essentially, it consists of
the individual consciousness appropriating a false notion of self.
Sartre very carefully points out that bad faith is not a state of
consciousness that is imposed from without, but a willing act of
accepting a situation as fact on what the person knows is
objectively faulty evidence.
Sartre begins his investigation into human being-in-the-world by
analyzing the nature of consciousness. He follows Husserl by using
Husserl's concept of intentionality, which leads him to assert
that all consciousness is consciousness of something. He breaks
with Husserl on the question of the knowing ego, however. By
following the above statement to its "logical conclusion", Sartre
claims that on this account reflective consciousness is itself an
object of consciousness. (I am reflecting on the fact that I am
reflecting.) Husserl posits a transcendental ego, but his own
phenomenological project cannot allow him this, since
consciousness which is consciousness-of itself is actually
external to conscious beings while they are reflecting upon it.
Thus, we cannot "bracket out" our perception of the objects of
existence from the objects themselves. Our non reflective
consciousness is never accessible to reflection, since it then
becomes objectified when reflected upon. Our ego is thus
externalized, directed outward, subsuming and shaping the world to
our own ends (Sartre, pp. 93-106). Our ego is thus projected out
into the world, not a transcendent operator that regulates our
perceptions. The Ego is itself an object of (unreflective)
consciousness. This is a very difficult concept to get across, but
the actual idea is very simple. When we are engaged in an activity
(Sartre uses the example of chasing a bus), we are not conscious
at the time of the action that we ourselves are doing the action,
only that the action is being performed. It is only later, when we
have the leisure to reflect upon our actions, to reason about them
apart from the actual activity in question, that we think "I was
chasing the bus." This is what Sartre refers to when he claims
that the ego is an object of consciousness. We do not find
consciousness of our being as an individual within ourselves (our
being-in-itself, i.e. the brute facticity of our existence), but
in our relationship with persons and things in our perceptual
field (our being-for-itself, i.e. our awareness of our individual
identity in a world of objects). This is an important distinction
which we will return to later.
Now, as we have seen, consciousness of being is the being of
consciousness. There is no question here of contemplating
afterwards a horror already constituted; it is the very being of
horror to appear to itself as "not being the cause" of the conduct
it calls for. (Sartre in Cumming, p. 119)
In this passage, Sartre demonstrates the need of the individual to
avoid the terrible consequences of perceiving her freedom to act.
It cannot be the case that there is no other option than what she
decides for the person "condemned to freedom", even though the
individual in question may desperately wish for determination in
order to avoid the potential of failure involved in the unlimited
freedom of the human actor.
In short, to avoid fear, which reveals to me a transcendent future
strictly determined, I take refuge in reflection, but the latter
has only an undetermined future to offer. This means that in
establishing a certain action as a possibility and precisely
because it is MY possibility, I am aware that nothing can compel
me to adopt that action. Yet I am indeed already there in the
future; it is for the sake of that being which I will soon be at
the turning of the path that I now exert all my strength , and in
this sense there is already a relation between my future being and
my present being.
In order to avoid fear, which arises from our awareness of other
beings, we flee into the realm of reflection, but that gives us no
respite, for it is here that we find the consciousness of self AS
self. While before we were concerned with the notion that other
beings limit our freedom by their observation of our actions,
reflection causes us to face our own impermanence. Nothing forces
us to choose one particular option over another in reflection, and
we are shocked by the realization.
But a nothingness has slipped into the heart of this relation: I
AM not the self which I will be. First I am not that self because
time separates me from it. Secondly, I am not that self because
what I am not the foundation of what I will be. Finally I am not
that self because no actual existent can determine strictly what I
am going to be. Yet as I am already what I will be (otherwise I
would not be interested in being this rather than that). I am the
self which i will be, in the mode of not being it. (Ibid.)
I have chosen to include this lengthy quote because it provides an
excellent illustration of the three stages which Sartre develop[es
in the formation of bad faith. The first is the awareness that
consciousness is externalized, that we find ourselves in
relationship to the "lived world," and that this world impinges
itself upon our life options. The second is the retreat into
conscious reflection. This may suffice for awhile, but it
ultimately leads to the realization of non being that exists
within our being itself. As a reflecting individual, I am
conscious of the choices which I must make, but there is nothing
within consciousness that can act as a guide, since reflected
consciousness is a part of the world which confronts me. My task
is to examine the options available to me with a full insight into
the infinite realm of possibilities available to me as a free
actor in the world. To do so, I must confront the non-being within
being in order to create myself. (Cumming, pp. 101-109)
(未完)
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作者: jennerc (全民灌腸計畫) 看板: ck48th331
標題: Re: 虛無, 自欺. 真誠
時間: Sat Jun 30 16:57:10 2001
※ [本文轉錄自 ci-poetry 看板]
作者: jennerc (全民灌腸計畫) 看板: ci-poetry
標題: Re: 虛無, 自欺. 真誠
時間: Sat Jun 30 16:31:01 2001
What does it mean, this affirmation that non-being is within
being? To use Sartre's example, let's imagine that we are waiting
for Peter at the cafe. We sit and look around, but he never
arrives. What exactly makes us conscious of the fact that Peter is
not there is our awareness of his non-being for us. As we sit and
watch the passers-by and patrons, we become aware of the
transitory nature of their appearance to us. The cafe becomes the
"ground" of our knowledge of non-being within being, since it is
through referring to our surroundings that we establish our sense
of place, and our determination of Peter's absence. In contrast,
to say that Wellington or Valery is not here at the cafe is merely
to state the fact that both are dead. I have no anticipation of
seeing them anyway. I already know about their "non-being." The
frustration of my expectation of Peter's arrival is a different
matter, since it opens up several disquieting avenues of thought
about being. My faith in an ordered and determined universe is
given a shock. I had thought of myself as "The one who waits for
Peter" but it is no longer possible for me to close my eyes to the
contingencies of life. I experience both fear and anguish, fear
for the well-being of Peter, but at the same time, perhaps
guiltily, I also feel resentful of his absence and anguish at the
upset of the routine I have created to reassure myself as to my
position in the world. I am angered by his non-arrival, forgetting
that I freely chose to risk the very happening that I now fear by
agreeing to meet with him. He has no power over me, to compel me
to come. I came "of my own free will", but I now see for the first
time (if I am being honest with myself, that is) that it is MY
freedom that is to "blame" for my predicament. There was no cosmic
guarantee that Peter would show up, or even that I myself would
arrive. I am thrown back upon myself and my own freedom, and it is
not pleasant. (Cumming, pp. 110-115)
What then, one can almost hear the metaphysical skeptics ask, is
"nothingness". How can you define something that, by definition,
does not exist? To the learned scoffers, Sartre replies that
although it cannot be spoken of as a thing that exists, the
awareness of the experience of negation has existed within the
consciousness of every human since birth. This consciousness of
absence begins practically at birth, when the infant cries for her
mother because she is not there. This is the first insight into
what it is to be an individual, the insight that the lack of
others renders one alone, an autonomous being in a hostile
universe. Indeed, the proponents of analysis pay homage to
non-being even while they work their complicated logical formulas,
since those formulas only have meaning if A is not non-A, i.e. if
being is not non being. We define ourselves and others through
negation, "I would never do what she did" thereby establishing our
identity through negating another's personal traits. (Cumming, pp.
115-123)
The anguish caused by the awareness of negation implied in being
can lead individuals to flee from choice. We seek shelter in forms
of conduct that promise us release from the heavy burden of
freedom. Religion, politics, art, ethics, psychology (especially
Freudian and behavioristic psychology with the emphasis that they
place on environmental determinism), drugs, alcohol, etc. are only
some of the ways that human beings have devised to avoid
confronting freedom and death. In a very real sense, these created
postures take on a "life of their own" as they are parasitic upon
the surrendered freedom of the individual. These structures of
alienation, created out of the corpses of individual freedom, are
then ratified by those who worship them. For example, the
bourgeois call for respectable behavior on the basis of "social
need" or "patriotism" when in reality they are the sole creators
and sustainers of "respectability." A "savage" Native American or
Bushman has no more need of "respectability" in the European
middle-class sense of the term than she needs a pet rock. The
social conditions which shape the lives of individuals in a
particular society are the product of the specific needs of said
individuals when interacting with their environment. A Yanomamo
Indian may be wise to launch pre-preemptive violence against his
neighbors in the Hobbsian state of nature that is the Amazon rain
forest, but if he continues in the same vein when transplanted to
Middletown, New Jersey, the residents will be justified in locking
him up. To sum up, human values and human society are the
subjective constructs of free individuals interacting with their
environment, not objective structures imposed from without by
"God" or "Nature," demanding obedience to further some arcane
teleological end. (Cumming, pp. 101-107)
How does this relate to the question of "bad faith"? Since human
beings are not only capable of apprehending non-being in the
world, but also "creating" it, they are able to pervert their
freedom into a denial of their own radically autonomous natures.
We are not merely observers of non-being ("nihilation") but we
embody it in our own person when we deny our true selves.
(Anderson, 16-17) Sartre gives us a preliminary introduction to
the concept:
The situation cannot be the same for bad faith (as for an
ordinary lie --E.B.) if this, as we have said, is indeed a lie to
oneself. To be sure, the one who practices bad faith is hiding a
displeasing truth or presenting as truth a pleasing untruth. Bad
faith then has in appearance the structure of falsehood. Only what
changes everything is the fact that in bad faith it is from myself
that I am hiding the truth. Thus the duality of the deceiver and
the deceived does not exist here. (as it does in a typical
lie --E.B.) Bad faith on the contrary implies in essence the unity
of a single consciousness...
One does not undergo his bad faith; one is not infected with it,
it is not a state. But consciousness affects itself with bad
faith. There must be an original intention and a project of bad
faith; this project implies a comprehension of bad faith as such
and a prereflective apprehension (of) consciousness as affecting
itself with bad faith. (Cumming, pp. 139-40)
Sartre emphasizes the notion that bad faith as "lying to oneself"
encompasses the following factors:
1) Unlike regular prevarication, bad faith involves only one
individual. In the case of an "ideal lie" the liar is fully aware
that she is speaking a lie to another individual. She possesses a
"cynical consciousness" that affirms the truth of the situation to
herself, while denying it to the world.
(未完)
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作者: jennerc (全民灌腸計畫) 看板: ck48th331
標題: Re: 虛無, 自欺. 真誠
時間: Sat Jun 30 16:57:20 2001
※ [本文轉錄自 ci-poetry 看板]
作者: jennerc (全民灌腸計畫) 看板: ci-poetry
標題: Re: 虛無, 自欺. 真誠
時間: Sat Jun 30 16:33:24 2001
2) Therefore, there is no special ontological status for regular
lying. However, the case of bad faith is quite different.
It follows first that the one to whom the lie is told and the our
who lies are one and the same person, which means that I must know
in my capacity as deceiver the truth which is hidden from me in my
capacity as the one deceived. Or rather, I must know what the
truth is exactly in order to conceal it more carefully and this
not at two different moments, which at a pinch would allow us to
re-establish a semblance of duality but in the unitary structure
of a single project. How then can the lie subsist if the duality
which conditions it is suppressed? (Cumming, p. 140)
This is not a lie in the traditional sense of the term, since
prevarication is done with a full awareness of the one lying that
she is a liar. Rather, bad faith is a sustained program of
self-deception and self-negation in which the individual involved
considers herself to be in full possession of the truth regarding
not only her own condition, but the condition of the world as
well. Thus the purveyor of "middle-class" values not only holds
such values to be true for herself, but for all other moral actors
as well. The bourgeois is not necessarily a cynical exploiter of
the working class, telling the proles "beautiful lies" while being
aware of how she robs them. (although this occurs too.) She may be
a fervent believer in her own propaganda. The problem is that
lying is generally thought of as a conscious act, that of one
moral actor to another. How then can "bad faith" or self-deception
be subsumed under the same consciousness? (Cumming, pp. 137-140)
Freudian psychology attempts to resolve this dilemma by positing
its famous three-tiered notion of human mental activity, the id
(unconscious drives), the superego (normative functions), and the
ego (the reflecting consciousness, responsible for the overall
balance of the id and ego in awareness). Sartre feels that this is
inadequate as an explanation for bad faith, since the struggle
that the patient wages against the unveiling of self
contradictions by the psychoanalyst can only take place if the ego
is somehow aware of the bad faith in question. If the ego is truly
separated by a "cloud of unknowing" from the supposedly
unconscious source of the dilemma, it is in the same position as
the analyst and should not be able to put up any resistance in the
first place. If the "bad faith" is happening at the pre-reflective
stage represented by the id, it should manifest itself clearly,
much as the symptoms of a disease, since there is no rational
driving force behind it. If the psychoanalyst wishes to escape the
foregoing dilemma by positing some unknown rational link between
the id and the ego, she has destroyed the justification for
postulating an "unconscious." (Cumming, pp. 140-146)
What then will help us to understand the nature of bad faith?
Sartre likens it to that of a woman on a date who is aware that
her date has less than honorable intentions. She, however, is
unwilling to face the implications of the situation. When he holds
her hand, she is no longer aware that she is "flirting" with him
since she has "elevated" her thoughts to a higher spiritual plane.
She is no longer "responsible" for his attentions to her, even
though she truly does know his intentions. The problem we
experience is that we are not ourselves at the point of
reflection. In our everyday lives, we find ourselves assuming
roles that have little or nothing to do with our true desires. The
assumption of these roles, whether occupational, social, or ego
enhancing, compels us to function as actors. The waiter in a cafe
thinks of himself as a "waiter" instead of a human being who
happens to function as a waiter. He strains every effort to
fulfill his role and jealously guards the small prerogatives of
his position. This is not just a social attitude, but a profound
alienation from the self, in which I view myself from an
"objectified" vantage point. I become a "man for others" instead
of being true to my own freedom.
(未完)
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作者: jennerc (全民灌腸計畫) 看板: ck48th331
標題: Re: 虛無, 自欺. 真誠
時間: Sat Jun 30 16:57:28 2001
※ [本文轉錄自 ci-poetry 看板]
作者: jennerc (全民灌腸計畫) 看板: ci-poetry
標題: Re: 虛無, 自欺. 真誠
時間: Sat Jun 30 16:34:04 2001
Some individuals will no doubt counter this assessment with the
exhortation to "be sincere". What does this mean? Can "sincerity"
assist us in escaping the dead end of bad faith? Not according to
Sartre, since sincerity is always something to strive for,
possessing it must be an "unconscious" act. This is not to say
that it is impossible to be honest, far from it. The problem lies
in assuming that when we are being "sincere", we are perceiving
ourselves "as we really are." The distinction between action and
reflection, and the notion of the Ego as an object of
consciousness, made earlier is important here. If I examine the
situation that I am in with a true regard for the actual facts of
the situation, apart from the actions and behaviors that "society"
tells me that I should have, and without a self generated need for
social acceptance, without reflecting on the fact that "I am being
honest (sincere)", then we can be honest. It is only when we
reflect upon our honesty and say to ourselves "I am sincere" that
we fall into the trap of bad faith. Once we say to ourselves, "I
am sincere", we lose the measure of our sincerity. Sartre gives as
his example the homosexual and his plain-spoken friend. The
homosexual regrets his orientation and does everything in his
power to avoid having to confront the awful truth about his sexual
preference. His love of beauty is not satisfied by women, he has
been unlucky in the hand life has dealt him, etc. His friend is
disgusted by the homosexual's lack of candor and demands that he
admit his sexual preference and accept it. Which of the two
exhibits the greater degree of bad faith? It is fairly easy to see
that the homosexual is deceiving himself by his refusal to accept
the circumstances of his sexuality. But Sartre faults the friend
even more for engaging in bad faith. At least the homosexual is
struggling against being pigeonholed as a pederast and attempting
to retain his freedom of action. His "sincere" friend, on the
other hand, is not only interested in making his friend "face the
facts" but in placing his comrade in his "proper" category. This
mania for correct classification is one of the classic signs of
bad faith, since it reduces free individuals to the level of
masses lumped in categories and enables the labeler to possess an
unjustified sense of superiority by imposing his values ("labels")
on others. But what about the man who does not label others, but
concentrates only on his own flaws? Does he not avoid the dreadful
taint of bad faith? No, in fact he is just as estranged from his
reality as a free individual as the meddlesome friend, for in this
case he is both "sinner" and "friend". Plainly put, by saying "I
am a bad man", one embraces evil as a defining and limiting
characteristic for one's own self, thereby denying that "goodness"
may be an option that can be exercised at any time. "Good faith"
sincerity is backward-looking. I can only authentically speak with
sincerity of past events, due to the fact that I am focusing on
those past events and not my present state of mind. A humorous
illustration of this problem appears in Benjamin Franklin's
autobiography. Franklin mentions an experiment in applied ethics
and behavior modification that he undertook as a youth. He listed
all the virtues that he wished to follow on one side of a ledger
and all the vices that he wished to avoid on the other. Whenever
he would do a deed in keeping with his personal ethics, he would
place a black check under the listed virtue, and a transgression
would merit a red check under the vice. The experiment was a
failure, since every time Franklin contemplated the credit side of
the ledger, he would become extremely proud of his accomplishments
and would then have to put a red check under "pride". A similar
problem of self-consciousness awaits the individual who attempts
to practice sincerity in the present tense. Even the term
"practice" betrays insincerity, since it implies that the
individual in question is aping a virtue that is not normally
possessed. (Cumming, pp. 146-155) In fact, the very notion of
sincerity involves bad faith, since I must deceive myself into
believing that I am being sincere in order for my self-deception
to work. Without the benefit of sincerity, I would be immediately
and unavoidably confronted by my own falsehood.
This brings us to the final point about bad faith, its "faith"
aspect. Bad faith is more than simple self-deception. It also
cannot mean that we genuinely believe in "bad faith", since that
would make it good faith. Having faith in "bad faith" requires
that we accept non-persuasive evidence about the object of our
willed self-delusion. The woman on the date takes the hand-holding
to signify a chaste amour, when she knows that in reality it is a
prelude to sex. The waiter performs his duties while seething
inwardly at the injustices in his life. "Bad faith" seeks to
jeopardize all beliefs in the service of perpetuating itself.
There can be no compromise with any notion or belief that
contravenes the structure of bad faith. (Cumming, pp. 155-65)
(未完)
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作者: jennerc (全民灌腸計畫) 看板: ck48th331
標題: Re: 虛無, 自欺. 真誠
時間: Sat Jun 30 16:57:38 2001
※ [本文轉錄自 ci-poetry 看板]
作者: jennerc (全民灌腸計畫) 看板: ci-poetry
標題: Re: 虛無, 自欺. 真誠
時間: Sat Jun 30 16:34:47 2001
One of the primary problems with the notion of bad faith is its
seeming inescapabilty. Sartre is not very forthcoming with
concrete examples of authenticity in his works. He even criticized
nausea for "exonerating" his own consciousness while presuming to
judge those of others. (Robert V. Stone, "Sartre on Bad Faith and
Authenticity, in Schlipp, p. 252) Given this virtually universal
failing, how can one escape "bad faith"? Sartre seems to suggest
that we can throw off "bad faith" through a herculean effort of
freedom. (Schlipp, p. 253, Anderson, 53-55) It would seem though,
that such an effort would ultimately be doomed to "bad faith"
through its own self-reflected nature. I would be in bad faith
when I thought "I am throwing off bad faith".
Even given this, we can still see that the notion of "bad faith"
possesses philosophical interest through its examination of human
consciousness and by illuminating Sartre's attitudes towards the
constituents of human action, that which constitutes human being.
Even though it may, in the final analysis, prove to be an
unsatisfactory account of consciousness, it serves to illuminate
some possible further lines of study, if only as a negative
example.
[Works Cited]
Anderson, Thomas C. Sartre's Two Ethics: From Authenticity To
Integral Humanism. Chicago & LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court, 1993.
Cumming, Robert Denoon, ed. The Philosophy Of Jean-Paul Sartre.
New York: Vintage Books, 1965.
Oaklander, L. Nathan. Existentialist Philosophy: An Introduction.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. The Transcendence Of The Ego. New York: Hill &
Wang, 1989.
Schlipp, Paul Arthur ed. The Philosophy Of Jean-Paul Sartre. The
Library of Living Philosophers Vol. XVI, La Salle, Ill: Open Court
1981.
(全文完)
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