ipl-logo

Analysis Of Sartre's Being And Nothingness

743 Words3 Pages
Sartre’s Being and Nothingness: an essay on phenomenological ontology is a study of the consciousness of being. Ontology refers to the study of being, and phenomenological means of or relating to perceptual consciousness.

In this essay, I would be giving a distinction between being-in-itself (en-soi, unconscious being) and the being-for-itself (pour-soi, conscious being). I would then cite an example from Sartre on an individual practicing bad faith in order to deny their freedom and responsibility. I would then conclude by saying that as an individual I have freedom and I should be responsible for everything.

Differences between the in-itself and for-itself
The main distinction between the two types of beings is consciousness. The fundamental property of consciousness is intentionality. Consciousness is not intentional but it is also transparent. This means that consciousness is always at some level aware of what it is doing.

One way of understanding how they relate to each other is to think of being-in-itself as object and the being-for-itself as subject. The being-in-itself is something that is defined by its physical characteristics, whereas the subject is defined by consciousness.

One feature of being-in-itself as defined by Sartre is that it obeys the Law of Identity. This means that the object is what it is and cannot be some other thing. For example an inkwell is an inkwell.

Sartre uses the being in-itself to describe things that have a definable and complete
Open Document