Abstract
This article maintains that Jean-Paul Sartre’s early masterwork, Being and Nothingness, is primarily concerned with developing an original approach to the being of consciousness. Sartre’s ontology resituates the Cartesian cogito in a complete system that provides a new understanding of negation and a dynamic interpretation of human existence. The article examines the role of consciousness, temporality and the relationship between self and others in the light of Sartre’s arguments against “classical” rationalism. The conclusion suggests that Sartre’s departure from modern foundationalism has “postmodern” implications that emerge in the areas of ontology, existential analytics and the ethics of human freedom.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Bibliography
Danto, Arthur C. Jean-Paul Sartre. New York: The Viking Press, 1975.
Derrida, Jacques. “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.” The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man. Eds. Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970, pp. 247–72.
Derrida, Jacques. Margins of Philosophy. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
Descartes, Renè. Meditations on First Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Duprè, Louis K. Passage to Modernity: An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and Culture. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993.
Hartmann, Claus. Sartre’s Ontology: A Study of ’Being and Nothingness’ in the Light of Hegel’s Logic. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1966.
Hegel, G. W. F. Hegel’s Science of Logic. Trans. A. V. Miller. London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1969.
Hegel, G. W. F. Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. A. V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper Publishers, 1962.
Husserl, Edmund. Ideas: A General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. Trans. W. R. Boyce Gibson. London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1931.
Husserl, Edmund. Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology. Trans. Dorion Cairns. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1964.
Husserl, Edmund. The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness. Trans. James S. Churchill. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1965.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Trans. Lewis White Beck. New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1956.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. Norman Kemp Smith. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965.
Lèvinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Visible and the Invisible. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968.
Natanson, Maurice. A Critique of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Ontology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1973.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. The Transcendence of the Ego: An Existentialist Theory of Consciousness. Trans. Forrest Williams and Robert K. Kirkpatrick. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1959.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology. Trans. Hazel E. Barnes. New York: Washington Square Press, 1966.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Melaney, W.D. (2009). Sartre’s Postcartesian Ontology: On Negation and Existence. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) Phenomenology and Existentialism in the Twentieth Century. Analecta Husserliana, vol 104. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2979-9_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2979-9_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-2978-2
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-2979-9
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)