Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit
States of Existence

Many of the essential tenets that philosopher and author Jean-Paul Sartre espoused as part of his views on existentialism play an integral component in the ploy and characterization of the principle personages that populate No Exit, a work of drama that presents a decidedly human interpretation of the proverbial fires of hell. At its very essence, existentialism identifies and underpins a conception of liberty and accordant responsibility that is at the very core of the human experience -- for those astute enough, aware, and cognizant enough to grasp and take advantage of the vantage point gained from this philosophical stance. Therefore, it is quite interesting to observe that some of the characters within No Exit, one would say most but there are only four in total, and only three whom Sartre's notions of existentialism apply towards, lack the propensity to fully encompass and actuate the…...

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Works Cited

Crowell, Steven. "Existentialism." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2010. Web.

Fiero, Gloria. The Humanistic Tradition: The Early Modern World to the Present. New York: McGraw Hill. 2006. Print.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. "No Exit." Scribd. 1944. Web.  http://www.scribd.com/doc/2925864/No-Exit-by-Jean-Paul-Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre No Exit and Existentialism
Jean Paul Sartre's notions of freedom and the responsibility that come with it were very important to his conceptions of and contributions to the philosophy known as existentialism. Essentially, existentialism is the idea that man lives and has to define himself by his actions and the use of his freedom (and the responsibility that accompanies it). These ideas are demonstrated in Sartre's famous play No Exit. An analysis of some of the key parts of this play such as its characters, it setting, and the dialogue that takes place between the characters, as well as of the cultural circumstances that influenced Sartre's writing of this work shows that his ideas of freedom and responsibility are demonstrated in opposition in No Exit.

Sartre believed that a true existentialist was someone who took responsibility for his or her freedom by defining himself. However, virtually none of the characters…...

The boy had conflicting religious training. Officially, he was Catholic, but his grandfather's Protestantism influenced him greatly. He learned little of the major philosophers of the day because they were not given attention at the French university of the time, but he would encounter them later when he was in his twenties. He passed his written examination for the agregation on his second try and fulfilled his military service from 1929 to 1931, doing so in the meteorological section. He then became professor of philosophy at the lycee in Le Havre and later taught at Laon. By then he had met his lifetime companion, Simone de Beauvoir. They never married, for marriage ran counter to their ideas of personal independence. Sartre's political views in the 1930s were radical, anticapitalist, antielitist, and proworker, and he was more of an anarchist than a revolutionary (Brosman 107).
Sartre's literary career began when he…...

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Works Cited

Brosman, Catherine Savage. Jean-Paul Sartre. Boston: Twayne, 1983.

Charlesworth, Max J. The Existentialists and Jean-Paul Sartre. London: George Prior, 1976.

Holt, Jim. "Exit, Pursued by a Lobster: Jean-Paul Sartre: Brilliant philosopher, or totalitarian apologist?" Slate (22 Sept 2003). December 8, 2007.  http://www.slate.com/id/2088648/nav/navoa/ .

Honderich, Ted. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Sartre-No Exit
Jean Paul Sartre's "No Exit" is an apt description of existential hell. (Sartre, 1958) Existentialism attempts to describe our desire to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. Existentialism requires the active acceptance of our nature. Or, existentialism assumes we are best when we struggle against our nature. In either case, we should want this. Given this brief description of existentialism, what transpires in "No Exit" is that the players are trapped in their own natures. There is a loss of freedom at several levels. The stage setting reveals that even in writing No Exit, Sartre cannot completely rid himself of his existentialist leanings. He asks for a chandelier in the center of the room. And in the ceiling there is a hole -- through which he allows as an escape route.

The first loss of freedom is in the room in which Joseph Cradeau, Inez Verrano and…...

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Bibliography

Blatchford, R. (1994). The Delusion of Free Will. In E.D. Klemke & A.D. Kline & R. Hollinger (Eds.), Philosophy: contemporary perspectives on perennial issues (4th ed., pp. 112-117). New York: St. Martin's Press.

Sartre, J.P. (1958). No exit; a play in one act (Acting ed.). New York,: French.

Teleological Suspensions & Jean-Paul Sartre
This is a paper on the topic of "Teleological Suspensions" and Jean-Paul Sartre.

ABRAHAM TO SACRIFICE OR NOT

The story of Abraham and Isaac is known throughout the world. The question that many may ask: hy was Abraham willing to sacrifice Isaac? This was murder so how could God ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? hat is the essence of Existentialism?

Kiekegaard once stated, "The story of Abraham contains a teleological suspension of the ethical" (McMahon 1). The story about Abraham and Isaac is one of sacrifice. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son's life because God told him to go and sacrifice Isaac. Abraham was willing to do the sacrifice. However, God told him it was not necessary. God gave Abraham a lamb to sacrifice.

Questions are asked: How did God ask Abraham to murder an innocent child?

hen Abraham was willing to do kill his son, was he actually committing…...

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Works Cited

Existentialism and Jean-Paul Sartre"  http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/sartre.html 

McMahon, C. Matthew. "Teleological Suspensions?" http://www.apuritansmind.com/Apologetics/Teleological.htm

Seung-kee, Lee. Professor. "Nietzsche and Kierkegaard http://www.users/drew.edu/jkubicek/neetzschel.html

Soren Kierkegaard (1913-1855) Philosopher" Little Blue Light. http://www.littlebludelight.com/kierkegaardmain.html

Bad Faith" as viewed by Jean-Paul Sartre in "Being and Nothingness" and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In "The Darkness of the Cave."
e will also digress and speculate if Jean-Paul Sartre and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were to engage in a conversation on "bad faith" as to what would each of them argue? e will discuss what their alleged beliefs on bad faith and freedom would entail.

Comparison and Contrast

Jean-Paul Sartre

For Sartre, we are condemned to be free. If we do not realize this, it is an act of "bad faith." For Sartre, when one lives a life is defined by occupation, racial, social, or economic class, this is, bottomline, the very inner essence of "bad faith." Sartre defines this as a condition in which people are able to transcend their life situations so that they can realize what must be and what they are not. For Sartre, it…...

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Works Cited

King, M.L. (2010). The darkness of the cave. In R. Solomon & K. Higgins (Eds.), The Big Questions: A Short Introduction to Philosophy (pp. 222-234). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Sartre, J.P. (1969). Being and nothingness: an essay on phenomenological ontology. New York, NY: Routledge.

Sekou, B.D. (2008, November 29 ). Racial and class discourse from an ivory tower in connecticut. Retrieved from .http://www.racialdiscoursect.com/2008/11/urban-policy-and-corporate-dominance.html

Zunjic, B. (2011). Iv bad faith and falsity. Retrieved from  http://www.uri.edu/personal/szunjic/philos/being.htm .

Nausea
The Depleted Life

"Things are bad! Things are very bad: I have it, the filth, the Nausea." Bang! At this point I wanted to tell Antoine Roquentin that he is not alone in his misery. That I too have been afflicted with "the Nausea."

Perhaps it would be best to describe exactly what "the Nausea" is, or at least how this humble reader has apprehended it. First I should probably state that "the Nausea" isn't misery. Misery is its own condition. However, misery can be precipitated by "the Nausea." And, yes, "the Nausea" also carries with it the same physical manifestations of the literal term 'nausea,' i.e. vertigo, sweating, upset stomach, etc.

But to better explain what "the Nausea" really is, let us turn back to the book, Antoine Roquentin writes in his journal, "I have no taste for work any longer, I can do nothing except wait for night." In one sense…...

It happens during the time of economical crisis, depression, inability to realize ambitions, inability to influence the course of some events. And it often results in anti-Semitic moods of certain social groups: mostly radical working-class youth. We see this tendency now as the economical recession had penetrated into many spheres of life and touched nearly everyone, in addition there exist a conflict in Israel between Israelites and Palestinians, which still has no reference to the essence of the problem, but is used as a justification.
The Jew I am belongs to a traumatized generation. We have antennas. Better yet, we are antennas," he said. "If we tell you that the signals we receive are disturbing, that we are alarmed... people had better listen." says Elie Weisel (from Wiesel: Anti-Semitism Increase, article)

Most of Jewish organizations in Europe insist to make protective legislature, use educational instruments in order to protect Jewish minorities…...

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References

Sartre, Jean-Paul Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate Schocken; Reissue edition 1995

Moulson, Geir Wiesel: Anti-Semitism Increase, Article CBS News April 28, 2004 available on web:  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/28/world/main614242.shtml

The individual believes the lies imposed by society, and sees them for truth. It provides a convenient vehicle for relinquishing the responsibility of freedom. Categories and definitions limit freedom, choice, and the capacity to transcend categorization.
According to rown, it should also be kept in mind that the bad faith concept is somewhat beyond simple self-deception. It is the perpetuation of a "truth" that the individual knows to be in fact false. However, this perpetuation feeds upon itself by the individual's needs for whatever is the result of the deception. For the unhappy worker, for example, bad faith persists as a result of the paycheck, while the unhappy mother would continue in bad faith for the sake of being called a "good" mother, and so on. In Sartre's view then, it appears that there is little that the individual within such a society can do to escape bad faith. Even…...

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Bibliography

Brown, Ernest. "Sartre on 'Bad Faith'." 2009. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/billramey/sartre.htm

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. Translated by Hazel E. Barnes. Routledge, 1969.

Sherman, David. Sartre and Adorno: The dialects of subjectivity. SUNY Press, 2007.

Nothingness reflects a relation with being (Sartre 309-328). As such, the human mind holds the only responsibility of drawing a conclusion of nothingness due to lack of it relative to being.
The attendant responsibility of the human mind lies in the ability to discern and differentiate on the aspects of existence and lack of existence. The ability to identify being correct proves a crucial step towards the identification of nothingness, due to the relation between the two. Therefore, the radical freedom at the disposals of the human mind enhances the undertaking of the responsibility of identification, analysis and differentiating between being and nothingness.

The rise of bad faith arises in the acceptance of nothingness at the expense of being. Sartre defines self-deception as a situation where the mind, by its freedom, chooses to deliver a situation of not being in place of being itself (Sartre, 328-348). it, therefore, allows the thriving…...

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Works cited

Jean Paul Sartre. Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. New York:

Routledge. 1969. Print

Under Sartre's theory, freedom is other than what exists now; however, it must first be imagined, from nothingness, in order for it to then become possible, as an alternative for that which how exists, but which creates the human condition of being less than free.
Explain, now, with reference to the material outlined for 2 above, how the two authors' views differ with regard to the character of human freedom.

Dostoevsky's view of the character of human freedom represents a reaction against scientific or rational systems that would serve to restrict, constrain, or otherwise discourage an individual from thinking for himself or herself, that is, originally and imaginatively, without dogmas, assumptions, or preconceived notions cluttering the thought processes. In Dostoevsky's view, systematization and scientific rationality not only prevent but impinge upon true freedom, since these constrain the human spirit and the imagination. According to the article "Radical Freedom," what is being…...

The first principle of existentialism is subjectivity, in the sense that existence is subject to every man's desire. There are things which man can not control in his life, but he can assume his past and change himself if what he is does not correspond to his scale of values. Man is the only creator of himself and therefore, his own possessor. Which also makes him the only one who is responsible for his life. Subjectivity is to be understood from this perspective

However, the concept under discussion is a bit wider. It also refers to the fact that human nature is a limit for the human. People can not go beyond their own nature and capacity to build the world and ultimately themselves. When creating himself, man will obey certain criteria. Naturally, he will want for these criteria to be universal. That is, while man has the power to decide,…...

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Bibliography:

"Existentialism" in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of philosophy. Available from   accessed March 26, 2009http://www.libs.uga.edu/ref/turabian.html ,

Kaufman, Walter. Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre. Meridian Publishing Company, 1989 (Philip Mairet translator)

Kierkegaards, Soren. Either/or: A fragment of life. Penguin classics, 1992

Marcel, Gabriel. The philosophy of existentialism. Citadel, 2002

Humans had to learn to use freedom in a positive, rather than a negative fashion, said Sartre.
A modern manager, cognizant of such critiques, thus must try to create a workplace where a sense of connection to the product, place, and community is fostered. For example, at Google, workers are encouraged to use company time and equipment to pursue their own projects. Google is a place where workers can eat free meals, take free fitness classes, and combine work and pleasure. This creates a sense of togetherness, rather than fosters angst, alienation and exploitation. Skinner's concept of behaviorism, or rewarding positive behavior, is transformed so that giving back to the organization with creative input and ideas is reinforced. Google's mindset shows a sophisticated evolution beyond the concept of giving a worker a crude 'carrot' in the form a small bonus when he or she succeeds in fulfilling a mechanical objective…...

e. The lack of attachment to other people and things) is beneficial from an individual perspective, but damaging for society as a whole because it hinders advancement.
In reality however, in order to maintain such a belief in our own self-sufficiency and freedom of choice, we would have to rewrite the laws of human nature. As this is highly improbable, we are likely to continue in our flight from freedom for as long as we remain in existence. People are, after all, social creatures by nature and thus, according to Garcin, we "need the suffering of others to exist."

This is Sartre's way of arguing that existentialism is the only valid means of providing mankind with dignity, and life with meaning. Thus at the core of Sartre's suppositions is that the role of existentialism is vitally important in helping the individual to embrace freedom as a manifestation of nothingness and, in turn,…...

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References

Muller, R.J. (1998) Beyond marginality: Constructing a self in the twilight of western culture, Praeger Publishers

Sartre, J.P. (1993), Being and nothingness: A phenomenological essay on ontology, tr. By Hazel E. Barnes, Washington Square, (orig. 1943)

Sartre, J.P. No exit, Retrieved from http://www.sartre.org/Writings/NoExit.htm

Clearly, the play is a mirror-image of that time's impression of existentialism, and this is why it focuses upon both oneself and the other, as well as issues surrounding human existence, such as morality and responsibility. However, the other themes in the play that are a product of the time are also important. These include the fact that women could not have affairs without consequences, as divorce was frowned upon. This statement alone begs the questions of religion quite forwardly. Furthermore, the fact that Garcin is a coward who is executed for leaving the War (World War Two) is also important, as that would have been a common occurrence at the time and also deals with the question of responsibility. These themes, whether existential or otherwise, are very important facets that can be seen throughout this and other plays by the author.
Conclusions

The last section of this paper will aim…...