Being and Nothingness : An Essay on Phenomenological

Ontology by Jean-Paul Sartre (review)

James V. Mullaney

The Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review, Volume 20, Number 1, January

1957, pp. 97-100 (Review)

Published by The Catholic University of America Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/tho.1957.0004

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/642858/summary

Access provided by University of Winnipeg Library (8 Dec 2018 13:29 GMT)

 BOOK REVIEWS

Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. By

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE. Translated with an introduction by Hazel E.
Barnes. New York: Philosophical Library, 1956. Pp. 657. $10.00.

Sartre's major philosophical work, L'Etre et le Neant, appeared in French

in 1943. Until now, the American image of Sartre has been based largely
on his literary, rather than his philosophical, output. It is a matter of some
importance that his major philosophical work should now be available in
English. Catholic theologians and philosophers will recall the injunction
of Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis that the works of the atheistic exist-
entialists, among others, should be mastered by competent Catholic
scholars, with a view to criticism of errors, appropriation of such truth as
they may contain, and a deepening of one's own hold on truth.
This English translation opens with an analytical and reasonably de-
tached " Translator's Introduction." Prof. Barnes, while sympathetic to
Sartre, is no mere worshiper. The author's "Introduction " follows, and in
it Sartre raises gradually the dominating questions of this book: What is
the relation of the For-itself to the In-itself? And how are both related
to being?
The body of the book is divided into four parts. The first, " The Problem
of Nothingness," deals with "The Origin of Negation" and "Bad Faith."
Part Two, entitled " Being For-Itself," analyzes first " Immediate Struc-
tures of the For-Itself," then "Temporality," and finally "Transcendence."
Part Three," Being-For-Others," takes up three problems: "The Existence
of Others," " The Body " and " Concrete Relations with Others." Part
Four analyzes " Having, Doing and Being." It is here that the well-known
Sartrian exploration of " Freedom " is found. The " Conclusion " reverts
to the questions raised in the author's " Introduction " and answers them
succinctly in the light of the intervening analyses. Sartre concludes with
a promise of a further volume devoted to the ethical implications of his
conclusions in ontology, but this promise has not been kept in the inter-
vening thirteen years.
Prof. Barnes has done a very competent translation. There are a few
typographical errors, most of which can be corrected from the context;
there are probably fewer errors in the English than in the French. In
addition to her translation and her introduction, she has drawn up a " Key
to Special Terminology " (pp. 6~9-635) in which the definitions of Sartre's
key terms are drawn from Sartre, and usually from this very book. There
is also an index of proper names.
97
98 BOOK REVIEWS

It would be a duplication of effort to summarize Sartre's teaching in this

review. This has been splendidly done in James Collins' The Existenti-
alists (Regnery, 195~) and in Kurt Reinhardt's The Existentialist Revolt
(Bruce, 195~), as well as in numerous studies by non-Catholics, and in the
" Translator's Introduction " to this volume. But the most efficient way
to get an introductory understanding of Sartre, if that is still needed,
would be to read his "Introduction" and "Conclusion" to Being and
Nothingness.
Neither do I intend to attempt a Thomistic critique of Sartre, nor the
construction of Thomistic answers to his problems. Both of these tasks
were magnificently achieved in Maritain's Existence and the Existent (Pan-
theon, 1948) .
Instead, I shall list six lines of study which might profitably be applied
to this book. The first method of study might well be that of the logical
analysts. It will be recalled that in 1903 G. E. Moore published a famous
study of Idealism, the point of which was to determine what meaning, or
meanings, if any, the sentence Esse est percipi may have. Moore's own
philosophical position was weak, to say the least; but his criticism of Ideal-
ism was so devastating that Idealism has been a dead issue in England
and America for fifty years.
Sartre's key terms all need that kind of attention. His use of the words
" being," " is," " distance," but above all " not," " nothing " and every form
of the negative, is highly ambiguous. My suspicion is that the terms
" nothing " and " distance," at least, are devoid of meaning in Sartre; or are
used so equivocally as to invalidate all of his conclusions. Interestingly,
Sartre has called attention to the same kind of equivocation in Heidegger's
use of the phrase " outside of self." (p. 9!50)
The second type of study might well be an appraisal of his phenomeno-
logical method. This book is well sub-titled " An Essay on Phenomeno-
logical Ontology." Now leaving aside Sartre's peculiar understanding of
ontology as distinct from metaphysics (p. ~97) , there still remains the
problem of "phenomenology."
To date, Catholic thinkers both in Europe and in America have been
most hospitable to this method. But it is suspicious that, half a century
after Husserl first announced this method, it is still so sprawling and vague.
Even after one has read the major practitioners of it-Husserl, Scheler,
Heidegger, Sartre-one still f-aces these basic questions: l) what, exactly, is
this method? ~) how precisely, does it differ from the philosophical method
described in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics? 3) insofar as it may be a
distinct philosophical method, what are its advantages? 4) is it separable
from the absolute Idealism of its founder? 5) is it, as a method, valid or
invalid?
Sartre's method is that of phenomenology. If that method is a mere
 BOOK REVIEWS 99
piece of pomposity, devoid of meaning or of validity, his conclusions would
be, to the extent that they depend upon his method, in question.
The third line of inquiry might well be historical. Descartes, Hegel,
Husserl and Heidegger are the men referred to most frequently; Spinoza,
Kant and Freud often, but less frequently. One has the uncomfortable
suspicion that Sartre's handling of these philosophers is never dispassionate,
never altogether accurate. What he takes from them is not in them; and
what he criticizes in them is that they are not Sartre. This misuse of
sources is, of course, a common fault among philosophers and, worse still,
even among some historians of philosophy. Cherniss has made out a
plausible case for saying that the first book of Aristotle's Metaphysics is
just such a mishandling of his (Aristotle's) predecessors. But a common
fault is still a fault. And if Sartre has this fault, it becomes a matter of
justice to disengage Descartes' Descartes, for example, from Sartre's
Descartes.
A fourth line of investigation would be to look closely at Sartre's starting
point which, put in traditional terms, is the duality of subject and object
(roughly For-itself and In-itself) implied by consciousness. This is not an
uncommon starting point for the builders of massive philosophical struc-
tures; witness Plotinus, Hegel and Husserl; and, possibly, Descartes, Kant
and Spinoza. But it may well be that what begins in consciousness remains
in consciousness. As the ontological proof for the existence of God winds
up, not at the feet of the living God, but merely at the analysis of the
content of an idea, so, I suspect, any theory of reality which begins with
the author's consciousness winds up as a merely vulgar exhibition of one's
own mind. Such an exhibition may be of interest to psychiatrists, but it is
devoid of philosophical significance.
Distinct both from starting point and conclusions are the unexamined
dogmas which Sartre lays down incidentally to reaching his conclusions;
and the enumeration and examination of these would be an instructive
fifth procedure. For despite the " presuppositionless " method of phe-
nomenology, Sartre makes numerous assertions which are neither self-
evident nor demonstrated; they are merely laid down as true. Here are a
few examples, quoted at random: " There is only intuitive knowledge."
(p. 172) " Quality is nothing other than the being of the this when it is
considered apart from all external relation with the world or with other
thises." (p. 186) " Thus original sin is my upsurge in a world where there
are others; and whatever may be my further relations with others, these
relations will be only variations on the original theme of my guilt." (p. 410)
" ' Having ' ' doing ' and ' being ' are the cardinal categories of human
reality." (p. 431)
The sixth line of study is the obverse of the fourth. If it is necessary to
examine closely where Sartre is starting from, it is equally necessary to
examine closely where he is going to. What is his theme? What is the goal
100 BOOK REVIEWS

of this lengthy inquiry? What is the conclusion, the new insight, he has
labored to establish?
This insight broods over Sartre's book for several hundred pages before
it is ever stated. It gathers slowly, opressively, from the very first page.
It is a twofold conviction.
The first part of the conclusion is that the meaning of man is to be
God. " Thus the best way to conceive of the fundamental project of
human reality is to say that man is the being whose project is to be God."
(p. 566) "Man fundamentally is the desire to be God." (p. 566) "Every
human reality is a passion in that it projects losing itself so as to found
being and by the same stroke to constitute in In-itself which escapes con-
tingency by being its own foundation, the Ens causa sui, which religion
calls God. Thus the passion of man is the reverse of that of Christ, for
man loses himself as man that God may be born." (p. 615) " Man makes
himself in order to be God." (p. 626) '
It is not sufficient that .I should be God viewed simply in myself. Love
means that" the other" [in this case, my lover] knows me to be God. "But
if the other loves me then I become the unsurpassable, which means that
I must be the absolute end ... I am the absolute value ... [To my lover]
I must no longer be seen on the ground of the world as a ' this ' among
other ' thises,' but the world must be revealed in terms of me ... I must
be the one whose function is to make trees and water exist, to make
cities and fields and other men exist. . . . " (p. 369)
I must, then, be God. But the second part of Sartre's conclusion is that
God cannot be. It is not that man cannot become God; that is, the fault
is not on the side of man. It is rather that God cannot be at all; the
fault, the impossibility of existence, is on the side of God. " Of course this
ens causa sui [throughout the book, Sartre so defines God] is impossible,
and the concept of it, as we have seen, contains a contradiction." (p. 622)
" But the idea of God is contradictory and we lose ourselves in vain. Man
is a useless passion." (p. 615)
This is Sartre's final position. He is nauseated, in despair, and anguished
because he is not God; and he is not God because God cannot be.
Philosophy has nothing to say to such a position, because this is not a
philosophical position. This pining to be God, this sickness at not being
God, is, on the psychological side, madness. On the theological side it is
satanic pride. The philosophy of Sartre is an extrapolation on man's
attempt to evade the first commandment.
I do not mean that Sartre has not written !1 serious philosophical work;
he has, and it merits the attention of competent Catholic scholars. I mean,
rather, that his whole philosophy is an incidental by-product of a non-
philosophical disorder.
JAMES v. MULLANEY
Manhattan College,
New York, N.Y.