Jean Paul Sartre Puns

“Something has happened to me, I can’t doubt it any more. It came as an illness does, not like an ordinary certainty, not like anything evident. It came cunningly, little by little; I felt a little strange, a little put out, that’s all. Once established it never moved, it stayed quiet, and I was able to persuade myself that nothing was the matter with me, that it was a false alarm. And now, it’s blossoming.”

Sartre claims that expectation is the problem, and that we should not expect meaning and we will not be disappointed, but I believe that not expecting meaning in life is almost like to not expecting love from a lover. Are you supposed to simply stay and endure the lack of love from that which is supposed to give it in its very nature?

He says to the waitress, “I’d like a cup of coffee, please, with no cream.” The waitress replies, “I’m sorry, Monsieur, but we’re out of cream. How about with no milk?”

Existentialism, arguably the most influential philosophical movement of the 20th Century, is exemplified in the life and works of Jean Paul Sartre, particularly in his magnum opus, Being and Nothingness. Building on the groundbreaking fundamentals of Heidegger’s Being and Time, Sartre articulated a way to live a life without God, in a world devastated by two cataclysmic wars. Loved and hated in probable equal measure, Sartre’s thought indisputably impacted the culture, society, philosophy, psychology, and politics of the post-war era.

Let’s explore the relevance of his thought for this troubled century.

Join the first session of the Being and Nothingness reading group on Sunday Sept 12 here — https://www.meetup.com/The-Toronto-Philosophy-Meetup/events/280108914/

https://preview.redd.it/stc5nszbptm71.jpg?width=576&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e60515aeb0866f000d1bc5ef8d999f85e35bf24a

Our schedule (subject to change):

9-12-21: - Introduction & Part 1 The Problem of Nothingness [100 pgs.]

9-26-21: -Part 2: Being-for-Itself, Ch 1 & Ch 2 [100]
10-8-21: -Part 2: Ch 3, "Transcendence" [50]

10-22-21: -Part 3: Being-for-Others, Ch 1 "The Existence of Others" [80]
11-05-21: -Part 3: Ch 2 "The Body" [60]
11-19-21: -Part 3: Ch 3 "Concrete Relations with Others" [70]

12-02-21: -Part 4: Having, Doing and Being, Ch 1 "Freedom" [125]
12-16-21: -Part 4: Ch 2 "Doing and Having" & Conclusion [70]

[the approx. pagination above is from the 1956 edition]

From SEP:
[Sartre] read the leading phenomenologists of the day, Husserl, Heidegger and Scheler. He prized Husserl's restatement of the principle of intentionality (all consciousness aims at or “intends” an other-than-consciousness) that seemed to free the thinker from the inside/outside epistemology inherited from Descartes while retaining the immediacy and certainty that Cartesians prized so highly. What he read of Heidegger at that time is unclear, but he deals with the influential German ontologist explicitly after his return and especially in his masterwork, Being and Nothingness (1943). He exploits the latter's version of Husserlian intentionality by insisting that human reality (Heidegger's Dasein or human way of being) is “in the world” primarily via its practical concerns and not its epistemic relationships. This lends both Heidegger's and Sartre's ea

Hello all! I am writing an essay on Sartre and while I understand that he wrote about anti-semitism and the Jewish people, I wondered how much he was influenced by Jewish Existentialism. Is there a piece of work I could be pointed to that would be helpful?

Philosopher and writer Jean Paul Sartre took a too-high dose mescaline in 1929 and had a terrifying experience full of sea creatures. This trip was so intense and traumatizing that he sought psychological help in a young Dr. Jacques Lacan, and the two bonded in the process of determining why Sartre was consistently hallucinating a number of crabs that followed him everywhere. He was aware that this was connected to his mescaline experience, and grew accustomed to the constant crustacean companions.

“They followed me in the streets, into class. I got used to them. I would wake up in the morning and say, ‘Good morning, my little ones, how did you sleep?’ I would talk to them all the time. I would say, ‘OK, guys, we’re going to class now, so we have to be still and quiet,’ and they would be there, around my desk, absolutely still, until the bell rang.”

“…in his play, The Condemned of Altona, one of the characters claims he is being visited by intelligent crabs from the early 30th century who criticize the horrors committed by humanity in the 20th century.”

I found the crab story in Interface to be really heartbreaking and touching, thought you may find this interesting.

Really interested in existential philosophy and would like to find more books similar to The Stranger. Been having a hard time finding books that keep my attention.

Something has happened to me, I can’t doubt it any more. It came as an illness does, not like an ordinary certainty, not like anything evident. It came cunningly, little by little; I felt a little strange, a little put out, that’s all. Once established it never moved, it stayed quiet, and I was able to persuade myself that nothing was the matter with me, that it was a false alarm. And now, it’s blossoming.

I don’t think the historian’s trade is much given to psychological analysis. In our work we have to do only with sentiments in the whole to which we give generic titles such as Ambition and Interest. And yet if I had even a shadow of self-knowledge, I could put it to good use now.

For instance, there is something new about my hands, a certain way of picking up my pipe or fork. Or else it’s the fork which now has a certain way of having itself picked up, I don’t know. A little while ago, just as I was coming into my room, I stopped short because I felt in my hand a cold object which held my attention through a sort of personality. I opened my hand, looked: I was simply holding a door-knob. This morning in the library, when the Self-Taught Man came to say good morning to me, it took me ten seconds to recognize him. I saw an unknown face, barely a face. Then there was his hand like a fat white worm in my own hand. I dropped it almost immediately and the arm fell back flabbily.

There are a great number of suspicious noises in the streets, too.

So a change has taken place during these last few weeks. But where? It is an abstract change without object. Am I the one who has changed? If not, then it is this room, this city and this nature; I must choose.

“Something has happened to me, I can’t doubt it any more. It came as an illness does, not like an ordinary certainty, not like anything evident. It came cunningly, little by little; I felt a little strange, a little put out, that’s all. Once established it never moved, it stayed quiet, and I was able to persuade myself that nothing was the matter with me, that it was a false alarm. And now, it’s blossoming.”