Being and Nothingness

Rating:
Summary: only for initiates
Review: "Being and Nothingness" reminds me of a fine meal with a bad dessert. You end up saying, "Can't I come away with more than fruit?" In a metaphoric sense, I wish there were more dark chocolate sprinkled in, more cream, more butter. But this is a common criticism of Sartre and I don't mean to belabor the point.

Rating:
Summary: Bear with me here, it is a good book but I have my reasons..
Review: First of all, I will say that I personally enjoyed the work, however at this stage of my education I found it rather uneccessary. If you want to understand either Sartre or his particular brand of existentialism you are best to read his essay "Existentialism is Humanism." The reason being that he gives the core of his philosophy and explains his beliefs in a much shorter and more accessible framework. The beginning of Being and Nothingness will no doubt prove very difficult to a reader who is unfamiliar with Sartre's philosophy. Perhaps an important side note, please don't go around with the insane notion that this work started or is the masterwork of existentialism as a whole. First of all, Sartre did not start this particular school of philosophy. In most regards the first existentialist was Kierkigaard, and was in many ways (particularly his belief in God) radically different than Sartre. Even in terms of aethiestic or humanistic existentialism, Nietzsche certainly predates Sartre by a good century. Either way, this book does have a great deal of importance, but the ironic part is, by the time you come to the point that you can understand it with ease you need not read it at all. It becomes very obvious that this book can be edited tremendously. There is a belief in philosophy that to be important one must write a rather large tome. In this case Sartre uses so many examples an intelligent reader will exclaim, "Ok, I get it already, move on." The importance of this book is overrated and I hear far too many people believing this to be one of the most important works in Continental Philosophy. Being and Time by Heidegger is much more important and weilds a great deal of influence on Sartre's Being and Nothingness. I suggest rather that one read his essay. The book makes his basic tenants more complicated, it really doesn't add anything to them. I can appreciate the effort here, but the outcome is not as Earth shattering as it is made out to be. Essentially his entire work can be synthesized into a single quotation of his in the essay I mentioned which is, "existence precedes essence." When you truly understand that along side of his other famous quote, "human beings are doomed to be free," this book is extremely understandable. However at that point, it is also uneccessary. Also this work requires understanding of philosophical history, and if one is not inclined to have such knowledge, than it will prove greatly challenging, if possible at all. Don't get me wrong, it looks good on your shelf and makes for a good read. I simply don't see how it benefits his ideas beyond giving post-war Existentialism an epic tome.

Rating:
Summary: A Paradox of Perspective
Review: Good Lord, what a book! First of all, there is a big difference between difficult reading and bad writing. This is simply bad writing. Get a load of this stuff, like, "Being-for-itself is the being which in its mode of being is what it is not and is not what it is." or whatever. The sheer grammar of that sentence is daunting. It is designed to be deliberately confusing. No idea, no matter how brillant or profound, needs to be presented in this manner. As I understand Sartre's theory (as least the foundation of it; God knows its almost impossible to understand all the points he makes in the book) it basically comes down to this: Imagine that you have before you a photograph, and this hypothetical photograph contains everything that exists in it. The whole universe is contained in the picture. This is what Sartre called being-in-itself. Now, the problem is, where is the camera that took the picture? It can not be in the picture and take the picture at the same time. This camera represents consciousness or what Sartre called being-for-itself. If you took a second camera and tried to take a picture of the first camera taking a picture of the universe then this first camera would no longer represent consciousness. It would represent instead our idea of consciousness. Since the second camera would now be the perspective from which the picture is taken it would represent consciousness, and once again it would not be in the picture. This is what Sartre calls our nihilating withdrawal from ourselves and from being-in-itself. Consciousness is always the vantage point from which the whole situation is viewed, and so it itself can not be viewed. The closest one could get to having a camera take a picture of itself is to stand in front of a mirror and take a photograph of your reflection taking the photograph. This is what Sartre calls relection-reflecting, and the problem here is that the camera featured in the photograph is not the actual camera. It is just a reflection of the camera. No matter what you do, its always the same problem. The camera that takes the picture can not be IN the picture at the same time. Likewise, consciousness can never have an adequate perspective of itself. This is what Sartre's theory basically comes down to. He believes that since the camera or consciousness can never be squeezed into is own picture, it must lie somehow outside of existence. The flaw I think is that he assumes that reality must be framed by a perspective in order to be a unified whole. But I don't see how it's inconcievable for there to be a unity involving camera and photograph without there being an all-seeing eye which unites them, i.e. without another camera to capture them together. It seems to me that Sartre has allowed a thin sliver of subjectivism to infect the foundations of his theory. No doubt someone will say that I am way off and that I've missed Sartre's point by miles. That very well may be. But it took a Herculean effort just to understand this much of his theory and no book should make anyone have to work that hard.

Rating:
Summary: A Paradox of Perspective
Review: Good Lord, what a book! First of all, there is a big difference between difficult reading and bad writing. This is simply bad writing. Get a load of this stuff, like, "Being-for-itself is the being which in its mode of being is what it is not and is not what it is." or whatever. The sheer grammar of that sentence is daunting. It is designed to be deliberately confusing. No idea, no matter how brillant or profound, needs to be presented in this manner. As I understand Sartre's theory (as least the foundation of it; God knows its almost impossible to understand all the points he makes in the book) it basically comes down to this: Imagine that you have before you a photograph, and this hypothetical photograph contains everything that exists in it. The whole universe is contained in the picture. This is what Sartre called being-in-itself. Now, the problem is, where is the camera that took the picture? It can not be in the picture and take the picture at the same time. This camera represents consciousness or what Sartre called being-for-itself. If you took a second camera and tried to take a picture of the first camera taking a picture of the universe then this first camera would no longer represent consciousness. It would represent instead our idea of consciousness. Since the second camera would now be the perspective from which the picture is taken it would represent consciousness, and once again it would not be in the picture. This is what Sartre calls our nihilating withdrawal from ourselves and from being-in-itself. Consciousness is always the vantage point from which the whole situation is viewed, and so it itself can not be viewed. The closest one could get to having a camera take a picture of itself is to stand in front of a mirror and take a photograph of your reflection taking the photograph. This is what Sartre calls relection-reflecting, and the problem here is that the camera featured in the photograph is not the actual camera. It is just a reflection of the camera. No matter what you do, its always the same problem. The camera that takes the picture can not be IN the picture at the same time. Likewise, consciousness can never have an adequate perspective of itself. This is what Sartre's theory basically comes down to. He believes that since the camera or consciousness can never be squeezed into is own picture, it must lie somehow outside of existence. The flaw I think is that he assumes that reality must be framed by a perspective in order to be a unified whole. But I don't see how it's inconcievable for there to be a unity involving camera and photograph without there being an all-seeing eye which unites them, i.e. without another camera to capture them together. It seems to me that Sartre has allowed a thin sliver of subjectivism to infect the foundations of his theory. No doubt someone will say that I am way off and that I've missed Sartre's point by miles. That very well may be. But it took a Herculean effort just to understand this much of his theory and no book should make anyone have to work that hard.

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: 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: 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: Buy the ugly white cover, not the orange one.
Review: Not because the white one is better. They are the same translation. The orange one is ABRIDGED, which is mentioned nowhere on this website, as if the two books are the same.

They don't even have the same publisher.

Trust me: unless you can find the 1956 edition from the Philosophical Library, buy the white version from Washington Square Press. The Citadel Press edition is abridged and more expensive. Even if it has a nicer looking cover, don't buy it.