/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3044040]

Question, /lit/:

Sartre is all about human beings being born into the world and form their own identity. But then he turns to this idea of authenticity --that a human must be true to this "self", or else one is living inauthentically (something of a "false" self).

Isn't this contradictory or underestimating the degree of influence social forces have on the formation of an individual's identity and values?

[Anonymous No.3044070]

Here's a quote from Existentialism is a Humanism that I think might help clear that up.

"If values are uncertain, if they are still too abstract to determine the particular, concrete case under consideration, nothing remains but to trust in our instincts. That is what this young man tried to do; and when I saw him he said, “In the end, it is feeling that counts; the direction in which it is really pushing me is the one I ought to choose. If I feel that I love my mother enough to sacrifice everything else for her – my will to be avenged, all my longings for action and adventure then I stay with her. If, on the contrary, I feel that my love for her is not enough, I go.” But how does one estimate the strength of a feeling? The value of his feeling for his mother was determined precisely by the fact that he was standing by her. I may say that I love a certain friend enough to sacrifice such or such a sum of money for him, but I cannot prove that unless I have done it. I may say, “I love my mother enough to remain with her,” if actually I have remained with her. I can only estimate the strength of this affection if I have performed an action by which it is defined and ratified. But if I then appeal to this affection to justify my action, I find myself drawn into a vicious circle."

[Anonymous No.3044082]

I think you're doing what a lot of people tend to do and mixing existentialism with determinism - which is fine, they're related, but not in the way modern philosophers drily talk about causal contingency and hard or soft determinism. At its base, that's not what Sartre or Nietzsche or Camus are getting at when they say their peculiar permutation of "be authentic". They understand there is no core Cartesian agent, completely causally unbound, at the centre of your soul. All the social, environmental, genetic and general/physical determinism that make you "you" are irrelevant - what matters is that you're you. Determinism is usually dodged or placed to the side by appeals to radical, existential or ontological concepts of freedom, so all that matters is what you do with your freedom.

Being authentic means "daring to be who you are", being authentic to your desires and deepest feelings instead of trying to reason them into a perfect schema.

>What is it then that keeps him in this room, except the certainty that it's still the best thing to do, the feeling that the whole absurd simplicity of the world has sought refuge here.

[Anonymous No.3044116]

>Isn't this contradictory or underestimating the degree of influence social forces have on the formation of an individual's identity and values?

In a word, yes.

[Anonymous No.3044121]

Well Sartre didn't seem to put hardly any weight on the influence of social forces in relation to forming individual identity.

>If I create or choose myself, I am responsible, not just for myself alone, but for all mankind -- for in choosing myself, I am choosing mankind. With every free act, I am not choosing merely myself but implicitly everyone else because by my actions I create a certain image of man. I affirm that such and such an act is within the realm of human behavior.

[Anonymous No.3044219]

>>3044070
>>3044082

Guess I was thrown off by the idea of being true to this "essence" that an individual defines on his own rather than something immutable. I don't like the idea of a "true self" or "false self". Seems nonsensical and simplistic.

But is it okay to just ignore deterministic forces? Or better, ignore the unconscious? This seems to assume that human beings are rational agents that can rely on how certain they are about how much they know about themselves and make decisions accordingly, and thus we are responsible for our actions (not that we aren't). But humans may not know themselves in their entirety and the unconscious affects choices.

I just don't know if we can truly be who we are when we're continuing discovering more about ourselves. We just rely on how we feel in a moment in time.

[Anonymous No.3044281]

>>3044121
It's a matter of emphasis in the argument he makes in favor of existential authenticity, not really an obvious omission. In that very quote he even refers to the effect such choices have. It's worth mentioning once again that only through authentic acts can you affirm something by choice.

We tend think of identity in terms of an underlying a priori structure that informs how we live, when Sartre asks us to instead put a critical focus on what we actually do.

I think that's what the OP gets wrong here: Sartre is not talking about the sociohistorical and material context that influences human behavior, but rather the way in which humans influence it, and the inescapable ethical responsibility people have to do so authentically.

[Anonymous No.3044486]

"I think that from the theoretical point of view, Sartre avoids the idea of the self as something which is given to us, but through the moral notion of authenticity, he turns back to the idea that we have to be ourselves—to be truly our true self. I think that the only acceptable practical consequence of what Sartre has said is to link his theoretical insight to the practice of creativity—and not of authenticity. From the idea that the self is not given to us, I think that there is only one practical consequence: we have to create ourselves as a work of art. In his analyses of Baudelaire, Flaubert, etc., it is interesting to see that Sartre refers the work of creation to a certain relation to oneself—the author to himself—which has the form of authenticity and inauthenticity. I would like to say exactly the contrary: we should not have to refer the creative activity of somebody to the kind of relation he has to himself, but should relate the kind of relation one has to oneself to a creative activity."

Is Foucault mischaracterizing Sartre here?