Being And Nothingness

Rating:
Summary: The classic--what did you expect?
Review: I just had one comment to make. Several people here have complained about Sartre's verbosity and repetitiveness. Well, Sartre was a French intellectual and ontologist, and a philosophical student of Husserl and Heidegger. None of these influences is likely to predispose one to brevity. What did they expect--Ogden Nash, or Monty Python?

Rating:
Summary: My advice for those thinking about reading this book...
Review: I picked up this book after reading Sartre's Nausea and after the first twenty pages I decided to put it down and left it there for 6 months. However, after reading the excellent "Sartre: For Beginners by Donald Palmer" and the awful "Introducing Sartre" by Thody I decided to give it a second try. I read this book because I enjoy the tenants of Existentialist philosophy. I didn't pick up this book to learn about ontology even though it was necessary in order to understand the book. This is a very difficult read for your casual reader and even a somewhat well versed reader in Existentialism will find themselves wanting to put it down. The Introduction was the worst and there are some very dry parts (temporality, origin of negation, transcendence, etc.) but those arid pages were well worth it to get to the parts on Bad Faith, Freedom and Authenticity. Freedom and Facticity, The Look.

I would say that if you are truly interested in Existentialist philosophy check it out at your library. If you are serious about reading this book then I highly suggest "A Commentary on Jean Paul Sartres's Being and Nothingness" by Joseph Castalano. Remember, philosophy is not just black print on pulpy paper. It's not something that is argued amongst old men but it is alive and is a force so powerful it has the ability to tear all your foundations and beliefs to the ground. Now I'm not saying I agree with Sartre on some parts ("man is a useless passion") but the basics behind Being and Nothingness should at the very least be thought about. For example, Sartre says since man cannot be all at once he much choose to be each moment of his life, in other words we choose the way we feel and the way we see ourselves. Sartre says that man by his own being is free and so we are not predestined by genes, culture, drives, society, or anything else to act or do certain things. He speaks of how one can be crippled only if one chooses to be crippled and how one is "ugly" only if he chooses to project himself as someone who is ugly for man, as a Being For Itself, is not anything but a nothingness. In other words you are only as ugly as you think you are. These and many other points I will be taking from this book and if you choose to read this book as a beginner in Existentialist thought then I commend you on your journey for it will be daunting. Well, it will be daunting only if you choose it to be.

Rating:
Summary: My advice for those thinking about reading this book...
Review: I picked up this book after reading Sartre's Nausea and after the first twenty pages I decided to put it down and left it there for 6 months. However, after reading the excellent "Sartre: For Beginners by Donald Palmer" and the awful "Introducing Sartre" by Thody I decided to give it a second try. I read this book because I enjoy the tenants of Existentialist philosophy. I didn't pick up this book to learn about ontology even though it was necessary in order to understand the book. This is a very difficult read for your casual reader and even a somewhat well versed reader in Existentialism will find themselves wanting to put it down. The Introduction was the worst and there are some very dry parts (temporality, origin of negation, transcendence, etc.) but those arid pages were well worth it to get to the parts on Bad Faith, Freedom and Authenticity. Freedom and Facticity, The Look.

I would say that if you are truly interested in Existentialist philosophy check it out at your library. If you are serious about reading this book then I highly suggest "A Commentary on Jean Paul Sartres's Being and Nothingness" by Joseph Castalano. Remember, philosophy is not just black print on pulpy paper. It's not something that is argued amongst old men but it is alive and is a force so powerful it has the ability to tear all your foundations and beliefs to the ground. Now I'm not saying I agree with Sartre on some parts ("man is a useless passion") but the basics behind Being and Nothingness should at the very least be thought about. For example, Sartre says since man cannot be all at once he much choose to be each moment of his life, in other words we choose the way we feel and the way we see ourselves. Sartre says that man by his own being is free and so we are not predestined by genes, culture, drives, society, or anything else to act or do certain things. He speaks of how one can be crippled only if one chooses to be crippled and how one is "ugly" only if he chooses to project himself as someone who is ugly for man, as a Being For Itself, is not anything but a nothingness. In other words you are only as ugly as you think you are. These and many other points I will be taking from this book and if you choose to read this book as a beginner in Existentialist thought then I commend you on your journey for it will be daunting. Well, it will be daunting only if you choose it to be.

Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal Book
Review: I've read this book twice now, and it remains for me one of the greatest and most influential books I've ever read, certainly in philosophy. Is it a difficult read? Yes, certainly, but it's no more difficult than many other massive philosphical tomes out there such as Heidegger's Being and Time, Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind, or Marx's Capital. Sartre didn't write the book with the general public in mind; what he wanted to do was describe and explain a formal existential philosophy for those who wanted to really get into the technical nuts and bolts. One of the reasons he wrote so many novels, plays and essays is because he wanted to illuminate his philosophy in living scenarios that would be more easily digested by the general public. If you've never read a philosophy book before, then this book is not the best place to start, if only because, in addition to its density and length, it presupposes a certain familiarity with other philosophical sytems. If you're interested in Sartre, you'd be better off starting with his thin essay book "Existentialism", or his novel "Nausea", or one of the popular existentialist anthologies such as Walter Kaufmann's, or William Barret's excellent study "Irrational Man".

I disagree with an earlier commentor's suggestion that you skip the first 2/3 of the book. I think it's important to start at the beginning (especially with Hazel Barnes' excellent introduction!) because Sartre methodically builds upon the ontology and the theory of consciousness that he lays out in the earlier parts of the book, and I think it's important to understand that fully before moving on.

Incidently, one of the remarkable things about the book, in terms of today's thought, is the way Sartre's theory of consciousness so closely anticipates much of today's cognitive nueroscientific theories of consciousness (see for example Nobel prize winner Gerald Edelman's new book). Sartre helped me to understand that consciousness is not an entity, as virtually all philosphy since Descartes has maintained, but an embodied process. Think of it this way: digestion is not an entity separate from the stomach; it is a process in the stomach. Similarly, consciousness is a process of the brain; it does not exist separate from the brain.

Well, I didn't intend this to be a long rambling commentary, so I'll cut it here. But if you're not afraid of a philisophical challenge, and if you are interested in existentialism, then this book is well worth the investment in time and mental energy. It truly is, in my opinion, the principal text of existential philosophy.

Rating:
Summary: Review from a layman
Review: If you are just getting your feet wet in ontology then this book will be very challenging and often frustrating. As you slowly become accustomed to the terminology and basic ontological concepts, the book becomes more and more readable and enjoyable. If you ever felt you were all alone in your existential dilemmas, then this book will provide great comfort. Everything is here in this book if you are willing to take the time. Contrary to an earlier review, this book makes perfect sence and every concept is backed up with logical analysis. Sartre is very good about providing clear and concise examples to all of his concepts. This is not a philosphical treatise on ethics so it is hard to understand why an earlier review labeled it as dogmatic (that person must be referring to a different work by Sartre). A dogma based on nothingness is hardly any kind of dogma.

Rating:
Summary: If you can read and understand this work ....
Review: If you can read and understand this work then you are a better reader than I.
I slogged through great parts of it years ago, and at some point was totally eliminated by the paradoxical obfuscations.
Nonetheless, a few major points did emerge either from the reading of this , or the reading of other works on or about Sartre.
Sartre sees human beings as thrown into the world. Born as nothing they, or we have to create through their own actions their identity or being. One big question for Sartre is whether this is done with authenticity , or false consciousness but I do not really understand what ' being true to oneself' or ' being authentic ' means in his terms.
The picture of Man alone in the Universe without God struggling to create an identity and being presents Mankind in a certain sense in a heroic light. We are the sole meaning- makers of the Universe trying to fashion our meaning out of nothing.
But what we do all in the end goes back to nothing. So it is from Nothingness to Being and back to Nothingness again. The rock rolls down the hill and at some point Sisyphus cannot push it up again. And nada is nada is nada our nada in nada.
Now that is one way of looking at the world, a way which I understand as understandable, but it seems to me unsatisfactory ultimately.
The answer many others would argue - and it is not in this book- is in precisely the area Sartre most rejects, the religious. The belief in God and the creation of our own life and work in cooperation with God. But this is of course not the message that Sartre accepts.

Rating:
Summary: Just one comment...
Review: If you need to read one piece of this book, the part of the book on "bad faith," I found most accessible.

After reading that part of the book, I have to say that my thinking was changed profoundly. Can anyone, after reading Sartre's dessicated analysis of human dishonesty ever be so arrogant as to believe that they are in sole possession of the Truth with a capital "T"?

Rating:
Summary: misconceptions regarding density of phenomenological prose
Review: It is certainly true what has been said in some of the other reviews, namely that this book is not ideal for the casual armchair philosopher. I decided to tackle Being and Nothingness after reading Being and Time by Heidegger, and have found it easier for the most part - the concepts are more intuitive and less conceptually complex. One possible drawback is that I find myself repeatedly reading Sartre within a kind of Heideggarian framework. I would like to specifically respond to one of the other reviews which complains about the thickness of Sartre's prose as well as his tendency to repeat himself. The density is obviously somewhat of a function of the subject matter, and is actually an element of philosophical texts that I find quite exhilerating - there is so much packed into every sentence that deciphering the essence of the argument is half the fun. On the subject of repetition, I can assure you that Sartre was undoubtedly aware of this literary device (one which Heidegger uses to an even greater degree). This repetition is part and parcel of the phenomenological method of inquiry - it is meant to be a kind of stripping away of layers bit by bit until all we are left with are the things themselves. In Being and Time, Heidegger actually uses this repetitive tool to mirror the ontological structure of Dasein, thus creating a book which is ideally suited for human comprehension and ingestion. I would guess that Sartre is following in the phenomenological tradition and trying to appeal to the actual workings of the human consciousness in his creation of a repetitive framework within Being and Nothingness.

Rating:
Summary: Being and Nothingness: Why the world is full of strangers
Review: It is often said that Sartre's premier text is a misreading of Heidegger's Sein und Zeit. Misreading because Heidegger searched for a way of doing philosophy that freed the tradition from the Cartesion subject/object duality, while Sartre embraces that tradition.

Does this mean that Sartre is too retro to be interesting, or that he is really only a "romantic rationalist" as one commentator claims? Perhaps.

And yet...and yet the work continues to exert a strong fascination. Let's suppose that you are a person who struggles to do away with belief (and recognizing that this is different from, for example, not believing in a god. It is more a negation of the will to believe.) Let's suppose that you have no longer any presence with which to ground your life, but find instead that your interpretations are interpretations as far as you can take them. Let's suppose that you find in ethics a compilation of various peoples' prejudices.

Given these originary hypotheses, what sort of ontic or ontological claims might you make? Being and Nothingness explores this question, and more. It is still a philosophy book worth reading in a scientific age.

Rating:
Summary: Vastly over rated!
Review: Jean-Paul Sartre "commercialized" what initiates wanted to believe(les hommes de bonne Foi: "men of good faith" who were not merely "de trop"...superfluous)was EXISTENTIAL Gospel: How to claim "authenticity" in Godless, moral-less vacuity(What Sartre decried NAUSEA of Existence).The irony of Sartre's place in 20th Century thought"reveals" him to be Marxist bitter-buddy of Martin Heidegger,the unrepentant Nazi who attempted to DECONSTRUCT Western Metaphysics(Aristotle)and Ethics[evolved as Christian project to "imitate" LOGOS, True Being-in-Time,CHRIST]. Much of Sartre is lifted from Heidegger. Much of Heidegger is solipsistic plagiarism found in Greek pre-Socratics, specifically Parmenides.

Sartre's contribution--again ironically--is clarifying the Nazi philosophe's ONTOLOGICAL nihilism (and subsequent ethical nihilism ).Sarte's "division" of BEING into Being-in-itself; and Being-for-itself (self-conscious;reflective existents...Humans!)parallels Heideggerian jargon of Das Dassein des Seindes and Dasein(Being "thrown there": Man).Sartre proposes "freedom as possibility" to negate NOTHINGness to momentarily BECOME something/one. This parallels Heidegger's bizarre concept of CARE(Sorge): existential "angst"in which Dasein, acting as Man of Good Faith, asserts IS-ness/I-ness over against NOTHINGNESS and its all consuming horror, DAS EREIGNIS.

These Brothers in arms...the equivocating Nazi academic and an embittered (by defeat of France)COMMUNIST...define anti-LOGOS philosophies which are murky cornerstones of PM Deconstructionist nihilism. Sartre's plays(No EXIT: "Hell is other people";The FLIES) and the masochistic novel, NAUSEA are manifestations of despair which characterizes this...in my estimate...vastly over rated popularizer of atheistic "existentialism". Far better treatments can be found in the Christian assessment of Gabriel Marcel(esse est co-esse: Being is being-with; or communion in human relationality with God and Others).Or demanding exhortations of Soren Kierkegaard. Even Nietzsche's "heroic" raving...with profoundly ironic, frightening insights into PM chaos...is more worthy. BEING & NOTHINGNESS is an aMazing edifice
of something Dostoyevsky targeted in NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND: rage of deliberately SPIRITUALLY disenfranchised, self-damning souls who tempt others to gaze into their killing "truths" which reveal the visage of Gorgon playing God...