Analysing Facticity Versus Transcendence Philosophy Essay

Mary Warnock wrote in Introduction: “Unless consciousness was as I say it is, Bad Faith would not be possible; but you now realize that Bad Faith is not only possible, but actual, in your world; therefore consciousness must be as I say.”

“Consciousness is the revealed-revelation of existents, and existents appear before consciousness on the foundation of their being.”

Eg Slave apprehends master/prisoner trying to escape sees the guard who is watching him/Thief 74/

Lie: “By the lie consciousness affirms that it exists by nature as hidden from the Other.”

Bad faith: “duality of the deceiver and the deceived does not exist here.”

“in essence the unity of a single consciousness.”

Not undergo and infected with bad faith72

eg”Mediation of the other……only if I apply to my case from the outside,…”74

eg distraction: “frigid woman distracts her consciousness from the pleasure which she experiences, it is in full agreement with herself; it is in order to prove to herself that she is frigid.”77

“in order not to be present to the experienced pleasure imply the recognition that the pleasure is experienced; they imply it in order to deny it.”77

“What must be the being of men if he is to be capable of bad faith?”78

2.1. Conducts of Bad Faith

Sartre uses flirting as his first example:

She knows very well the intentions which the man who is speaking to her cherishes regarding her. She knows also that it will be necessary sooner or later for her to make a decision. But she does not want to realize the urgency; she concerns herself only with what is respectful and discreet in the attitude of her companion.

Sartre account for why the woman does not want to realize the need to make a decision is that, she refuses to know what she wants. She disarms the sexual meanings that hidden from words of the man.

Now suppose he takes her hand. … To leave the hand ther is to consent in herself to flirt, to engage herself. … (She) leaves her hand there, but she does not notice that she is leaving it. …She draws her companion up to the most lofty regions of sentimental speculation.

Sartre said she is in bad faith and she tries to maintain herself in this bad faith by different approach. First, by reducing the desire of her companion’s action to objective qualities, she performs to avoid that she knows their mutual desire behind the action. Second, by permitting herself to enjoy the desire, she transcends this fact by being totally conscious of the intellectual conversation. Third, by realizing the presence of her own body is not her personality, she lets the event can happen that the companion hand is not taking her hand, but a hand. That is, “the divorce of the body from the soul is accomplished”, the hand becomes a thing, thus, needs not to consent nor resist.

Sartre questioned what unity is found in these various aspects of bad faith. It is facticity and transcendence at the same time. By facticity, it is what actually happening. When our consciousness recognizes our facticities, it is not going to entirely indentified with the facticities. Since we know we may act differently for its possibilities in our behavior, bad faith thus “affirm facticity as being transcendence and transcendence as being facticity.”

Sartre reminded us that “transcendence-facticity” instructed bad faith. One of Sartre’s definitions of being is “which is what it is not and which is not what it is.” When man projected himself “beyond the world toward its own possibilities”, I am what not I am is my possibilities. Also, man can affirm that I am not what I have been. Man who is not his body, nor his past, what he is is separate from what he is not. Thus, facticity acts as necessary condition for for-itself to transcend and connect with in-itself. Then, Sartre continued to compare bad faith with sincerity.

2.2. Comparing bad faith with sincerity

Sartre uses a waiter as his second example:

“His movement is quick and forward, a little too precise, … The waiter in the café can not be immediately a café waiter in the sense that this inkwell is an inkwell, or the glass is a glass. … He knows well what it “means:” the obligation of getting up at five o’clock, of sweeping the floor of the shop before the restaurant opens, of starting the coffee pot going, etc.”

Society has given us many identities. Mostly we find that we have the obligation to make ourselves be what we are. The waiter described above is required to show up on-time for work and to work solicitously. The waiter cannot identify with himself in the sense that an inkwell is an inkwell. It is because the being of waiter is a “representation” that separated anyone from him as an object-subject relation. Thus, the waiter knows being a waiter is only a role for him. Since his consciousness is not identified with his role, bad faith is possible.

If I imagine I am he, I grasp the required skill of the waiter by transcending over it with nothingness. Noted that I can not be he, I can represent myself as him. Sartre step further to investigate how I can be the waiter.

“As if it were not in my power to confer value and urgency upon my duties and the rights of my position, … Yet there is no doubt that I am in a sense a café waiter–otherwise could I not just as well call myself a diplomat or a reporter?”

I did not constitute myself as one beyond my condition. But if I am a waiter, I can claim that I am a waiter being what I am not.

2.2.1. In-depth investigation of sincerity through emotional states

Sartre then takes a look on emotional states of ourselves. I am the sadness seems can be recognized from my face, my body gesture, etc. Sartre questioned what if a stranger passes by and I look upward with a slightly cheerful smile? Or is a man smile that I know he is at least in his emotional states of happiness? From my daily experience, we may recognize people’s facial expression wrongly. Sartre replied I am sad is I am distracted from it in order that I am in the sense of not being sad. Thus, my escape from the sadness makes possible that I can affect myself with sadness.

The theory is required first to be empty of the emotion that going to affect. It is consistent with that of the being of consciousness, as consciousness can be consciousness of something is by nihilating. Catalano’s comment on it is, “We cannot even say that consciousness is what-it-is, since consciousness is only in the sense of continually nihilating its “object” as that which is not the being of consciousness.” The lack of consciousness, which Sartre going to discuss in-depth in later chapter, Catalano associates its doubt and question with one’s behavior. For I am a waiter, only in the sense of being what I am not, only in that I am freely devoted myself to represent this role. Sincerity, in my opinion, is that if I am a waiter with sincerity, I need not be separated by a nothing every time.

We should also aware sincerity is bad faith in fact. It would escape the obligation of becoming, says asking myself to be call a diplomat or a reporter, thus to escape from being a waiter. Also, it causes me to be what I am when I want to be not what I am, or not to be what I am when I want to be what I am. This is the goal of bad faith. Overall, sincerity is shown to be impossible for its opaque. Following by that, bad faith is made possible for sincerity slide into transcendence that could be happening from the facticity that is actually happening.

3 The paradox of believe in our lies

To have faith of something, we can often find some supportive evidences. Some faith like simple mathematics calculations one plus one equals two, is perfectly convincing. However, not all example have perfectly convincing evidence. See the example that Pierre is my friend.

I believe that my friend Pierre feels friendship for me. I believe it in good faith. I believe it but I do not have for it any self-evident intuition, for the nature of the object does not lend itself to intuition. … If I believe that my friend Pierre likes me, this means that his friendship appears to me as the meaning of all his acts. Belief is a particular consciousness of the meaning of Pierre’s acts.

of our expressed emotion, That is, sincerity is seeing a person smiling

“The fact is that a consciousness which affects itself with sadness is sad

Eg homosexual86-7: understands “not being” = “not-being-in-itself”ßwrong

Sincerity does not differ from bad faith88

No clear distinction between being and non-being89 dualism?