The LRB Podcast Jean-Paul Sartre: 'Being and Nothingness'
Sep 4, 2024
Jean-Paul Sartre, the celebrated existentialist philosopher, is brought to life through the insights of Jonathan Rée, an author and philosopher, along with host Thomas Jones. They explore Sartre's formation of consciousness against the backdrop of WWII and his encounters with contemporaries like Proust. The discussion also navigates the vibrant cultural resistance in occupied Paris, the challenges of translating Sartre's ideas, and the lasting influence of his seminal work, 'Being and Nothingness', on modern thought.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Early Academic Reversal And Wartime Writing
- Sartre failed his aggregation exam once but then topped it the following year, showing resilience in his early career.
- He served as a meteorologist in the army and used the time to write philosophical work and fiction.
Consciousness As Worldly Relation
- Sartre argued consciousness isn't an inner repository but a dynamic relation situated in the world.
- He claimed experience includes absences shaped by expectations, not just sensory inputs.
Negation Shapes Perception
- Sartre emphasised negation: consciousness perceives not only what is present but also what is absent.
- The world is constituted by absences informed by our expectations rather than by things-in-themselves.