Jean-Paul Sartre

John Perry
Coming up…

No Exit
There’s no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is other people.

John Perry
The life and thought of Jean-Paul Sartre. Philosopher…

Ken Tylor
Novelist…

John Perry
Playwright…

Ken Taylor
Political activist…

Mrs Premise
I personally think Jean-Paul’s masterwork is an allegory of man’s search for commitment.

Mrs Conclusion
No it isn’t.

Mrs Premise
Yes it is.

Mrs Conclusion
Isn’t!

Mrs Premise
‘Tis!

Mrs Conclusion
No it isn’t!

Mrs Premise
Alright, we can soon settle this. We’ll ask him.

Ken Taylor
Humans are condemned to be free, said Sartre. Condemned?

Mrs Premise
Jean-Paul, tour famous trilogy “Rues à Liberté”—is it an allegory of man’s search for commitment?

Jean-Paul Sartre
Oui.

Mrs Premise
Told you so.

John Perry
Who did he have in mind when Sartre said hell is really other people?

Mrs Sartre
Oh, don’t ask. He’s in one of his bleeding moods.

Ken Taylor
Our guest is Thomas Flynn from Emory University.

John Perry
Being and Nothingness

Ken Taylor
The Age of Reason

John Perry
No Exit

Ken Taylor
The life and thought of Jean Paul Sartre—coming up on Philosophy Talk.

Ken Taylor
Welcome to Philosophy Talk, the program that questions everything…

John Perry
…except your intelligence. I’m John Perry.

Ken Taylor
And I’m Ken Taylor. We’re here at the studios of KALW San Francisco.

No Exit
Continuing conversations that began at philosophers corner on the Stanford campus. That’s where Ken teaches philosophy and I did for 40 years.

Ken Taylor
40 cool years, eventful years, John. Today, we’re asking about the life and thought of John-Paul Sartre.

No Exit
Sartre was one of my favorite when I was an undergraduate, Ken.

Ken Taylor
He was a good philosopher. He’s a great philosopher—highly influential philosopher too. His views dominated French thought for a long, long time. But you know, John, I have to admit, I’m not really sure that his philosophy actually hangs together all that well in the end.

No Exit
I guess you must not fully appreciate the depth and coherence of Sartre’s philosophy. It’s a beautiful, if somewhat hard to penetrate system.

Ken Taylor
Yeah, hard to pin down. Let’s take one of his main ideas, for example, show you it just doesn’t work: the idea of radical freedom and his claim that we’re condemned to be free—I just don’t know about that.

John Perry
Ah, that’s one of the best ideas Sartre ever had!

Ken Taylor
Look, why don’t we start by having you explain it then on favorable terms before I hammer at it?

No Exit
Well, I will if I choose to! Well, take your decision to come in and do Philosophy Ralk this morning, rather than roll over and go back to sleep.

Ken Taylor
Well, that was inevitable. I mean, if I had gone back to sleep like I wanted, instead of coming to the studio, you guys would have killed me, I couldn’t have done that.

No Exit
Well, I’ll admit that there are lots of things involved that you couldn’t do anything about, no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t change the past, you couldn’t go back and make it the case that we don’t have a show today, you couldn’t go change the distance between your home in the studio so you could sleep a little longer. These things have to do with what Sartre called the facticity of the in-itself.

Ken Taylor
“The facticity of the in-itself”—now that’s a fancy turn of phrase, but what’s your point?

No Exit
the facticity of the in itself doesn’t ultimately determine what you yourself decide at the moment of decision in the here and now only you can do that. You’re in bed trying to decide whether to get up or sleep in. You can’t rely on God or nature, or your wife or anything else to make the decision for you only you can decide. Indeed you must decide!

Ken Taylor
You’re forget about that irritating alarm clock that keeps ringing their, John!

No Exit
Well even the alarm clock can’t decide for you. You could push the snooze button and roll over and go back sleep. You are what Sartre called a “for-itself,” Ken: a consciousness. You are not an in–itself like a rock. And that’s what Sartre meant when he said you are condemned to be free.

Ken Taylor
But you know, there’s something else that’s different between me and a rock. I agreed to be here this morning. And you know what, I’m the kind of person I live up to my my promises. That’s why you guys like and trust me, I think it’s part of my nature to keep my promises and you know it?

No Exit
Well, you’re wrong. What you couldn’t do is both sleep and fulfill your promise. But you could sleep in and thereby break your promise, your promises part of the facticity the for itself, part of history. But in the moment of choice, your decision whether to uphold it or not is entirely open. There is nothing in the world that can force you one way or another. You have to decide for yourself

Ken Taylor
No you’re wrong, you’re not getting it. Look, I’m not the kind of person who just ignores his obligations. That’s not what I am and I don’t want to be that kind of person either, John.

No Exit
Ken, you’re trying to escape from freedom by turning your choices over to your so-called nature—but you can’t do it.

Ken Taylor
Oh come on, “so-called nature?” What you mean so called nature?

John Perry
You have no nature!.

Ken Taylor
What? Everything has a nature: the rocks, the trees, people too—everything as a nature!

No Exit
Not consciousnesses, not human consciousnesses—not for-itselfs, like you and me. We have no essential pre -iven nature that fixes in advance who we are and what we do. To the extent that we have nature’s at all our natures are determined by nothing but our own actions and decisions. As Sartre said, existence precedes essence.

Ken Taylor
Existence precedes essence. Okay, but look, even if I grant I’m gonna grant you that I could have slept in this morning. I could have done that. I ought not to have done it. Look, I made a promise. And I can’t escape—I’m gonna use a Sartrean phrase now—I can’t escape the facticity of my promise. It’s binding on me.

No Exit
Yes, you can just by choosing not to honor it.

Ken Taylor
No, but that would be wrong, John, it would just be objectively wrong.

No Exit
Objective values—posh! There are no objective values that fix the nature of right and wrong, at least according to Sartre. It’s all up to us the appeal to objective values is just one more way of trying to escape from freedom.

Ken Taylor
But see, this is where it all starts to fall apart. Sartre himself was a member of the French Resistance, a committed member, he fought Nazism tooth anf naul. Now, come on, could he really have truly dared to risk at all to fight this evil if he really didn’t think there was any objective facts about what he ought to do?

No Exit
Just because there are no objective values, no value is fixed by God or some eternal realm of something or other, it doesn’t follow that human beings don’t or shouldn’t value things. Ultimately, we choose our values. They’re not imposed upon us. And once chosen, they really are our values.

Ken Taylor
You know, this is the puzzling part. But you know, let’s look at some of the things that Sartre himself valued. To do that we send our Roving Philosophical Reporter, Shuka Kalantari, to explore some of his life in times beyond philosophy. She files this report.

Shuka Kalantari
It’s 1940 and Jean-Paul Sartre is a prisoner of war. He had served in the French army, but was captured and held by German troops for nine months after his release, start moved back to Paris. Over the next three years, he helped start an underground socialist group, published his book being in nothingness and wrote multiple plays, including “No Exit,” a story about the afterlife.

No Exit
Altight, make love. Get it over with. This is how my turn will come.

Shuka Kalantari
But in addition to being a philosopher, playwright, novelist and activist, sir It was quite the lover. In 1929, he began an ongoing relationship with philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, but are also dated a ton of other ladies alongside De Beauvoir, including his young college students, young enough, and often enough, that these days he probably wouldn’t be teaching much. Then he met Wanda Kosakiewicz.

Andy Martin
Sartre had spent years trying to seduce this woman to wander. In fact, he had first fall in love with her older sister called Olga.

Shuka Kalantari
That’s Andy Martin, a professor at Cambridge University. Olga was Simone de Beauvoir’s 17 year old student, De Beauvoir had sex with Olga, so Sartre tried to seduce Olga too. But when Olga rejected Sartre he went after her sister Wanda.

Andy Martin
Wanda turns up in in Paris, and he falls for her.

Shuka Kalantari
After a couple of years of courting, Sartre sealed the deal with Wanda. Then in 1943, Startre introduced Wanda to his buddy, fellow philosopher, novelist, and playwright Albert Camus.

Andy Martin
They met and he had seduced her within about five minutes, if I remember. So that was a bit you know, right in front of Sartre, she she fell for Camus, in a big way. And this did cause a certain amount of bitterness and resentment on Sartre’s side, as he explained to Beauvoir in a letter to her.

Shuka Kalantari
Sartre told de Beauvoir all about his other lovers in detailed letters. It was part of their open relationship deal. Martin says Camus and Sartre were both kind of playboys. But Camus was the hot one—considered the Bogart of his time—while Sartre kind of looks like an ogre.

Andy Martin
Sartre and Camus were hanging out in some left-bank bar. And Sartre is going into his sort of would-be seduction routine, and Camus, who doesn’t have a routine at all, says to him, “Oh, why are you trying so hard?” And Sartre says back to him, “Well, have you had a look at this mug recently, i.e. my own face?”

Shuka Kalantari
Sartre and Camus fell out after Camus published a critique of totalitarianism, which Sartre took is a personal attack on his own Marxist beliefs. They never spoke again.

Andy Martin
His best known one liner, Sartre’s phrase, is “Hell is other people,” I think one of the best philosophical one liners of the 20th century, possibly.

Shuka Kalantari
After the war, Sartre delved deeper into politics

Andy Martin
Sartre became more left wing, I guess, and threw his lot and to some extent with various kind of quasi Marxist groups who were sympathetic towards the Soviet Union.

Shuka Kalantari
Sartre continued with political activism and writings throughout his life. He also had many more lovers, including mistress-turned-adopted-daughter, Arlette Elkaim. In 1975, at age of 70, Sartre was asked how he’d like to be remembered. He replied…

Jean-Paul Sartre
I would like people to remember the milieu or historical situation in which I lived—how I lived in it in terms of all the aspirations which I tried to gather up within myself.

Shuka Kalantari
Jean-Paul Sartre died in 1980 in his hometown of Paris. Six years later, his lifelong lover and friend Simone de Beauvoir, was buried right beside him. For Philosophy Talk, I’m Shuka Kalantari.

John Perry
Thanks Shuka. Sounds like Jean-Paul Sartre was taking advantage of his radical freedom for most of his life. I’m John Perry with me is my fellow Stanford philosopher Ken Taylor.

Ken Taylor
And today we’re talking about the life and thought of that French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre. We’re joined now by Thomas Flynn. He’s a professor of philosophy at Emory University. He’s author of “Sartre: A Philosophical Biography.” Tom, welcome Philosophy Talk.

Thomas Flynn
Well, thanks very much. Appreciate that.

John Perry
So, Tom, quickly, what got you interested in John Paul-Sartre?

Ken Taylor
So interested you wanted to write a philosophical biography of this guy?

Thomas Flynn
Well, you know, I think can because he, he made a lot of sense. He was very much amount of the people his his writing was not heavy, right. I don’t think despite the the, the technical terms, he really wrote a rather simple French. And it was easy for me to read. I guess that’s why I got into it.

John Perry
Well, that’s as good a reason as any. In our intro, Ken and I tried to give a cocktail party rendition of some of sorts basic ideas. Now, suppose you were at the cocktail party, and you overheard this, and you had a couple of minutes to correct what we said and list the important things we missed. What would you say quickly?

Thomas Flynn
Great, briefly, okay. Very briefly, I would say that every philosopher, you know, doesn’t say yes or no, but distinguishes. And so I want to make a couple of distinctions that you guys might have might have benefited from. One, Sartre’s freedom is freedom in the situation. It isn’t just free floating freedom, it’s freedom in situation. And that situation that grew as he got older and add a notion, yes. He said, by definition, we’re free. But in the concrete world, we’re not free, we have to realize that freedom, by what, by getting involved with social change. That’s what moved him to revolution. And rightly or wrongly, he was a hyperbolic thinker.

Ken Taylor
So let’s let’s slow down there. I mean, that’s a nice distinction, freedom in the situation. I think I know what you mean by that. But I just want to test my understanding. I mean, I’m given like this certain phrase, facticity there’s a lot of facts that surround me, right? They may not determine what I do, but they constrain what’s opened me to do, like, I mean, I have to like push off against those, those, those facticity. So any situation brings a bunch of stuff with it, other people, social arrangements, and it’s within a context where there’s lots of facticity surrounding me that I act freely is that right?

Thomas Flynn
A good portion of your life is his situation, his previous choices. Here’s the word for hope. I think that’s hard to always ends with, you can always make something out of what you’ve been made into, you might see that you go,

No Exit
Ao let’s say I, as I remember, one starts classic examples, a young man that wants to join the resistance, but feels he ought to continue to take care of his ill mother, but explain how the situation comes in there.

Thomas Flynn
Okay, that’s a very good example, because it leads to his answer that he says to the young fellow, choose, that is invent, create. In other words, freedom is creative for him. And it’s not just the reproductions of things we’ve done in the past. It’s expanding the notion of situations. It’s thinking concretely, but that means, of course, aware of the choices we’ve made in the past, but we can’t go there.

Ken Taylor
Are there any elements of a situation that are just I can’t do any thing? I mean, there there is a saying how to put the situation witness and the facticity of the situation with the radicalness of my freedom. I mean, am I radically free in a situation but doesn’t if the freedom if the situation constraints me? You can give me a deeper answer after the break. But yes or no, am I radically free?

Thomas Flynn
Not so radically. Yeah, you’re situated, your freedom is situated. You can you therefore are able to create there’s nothing that it’s true. You can you count, you can try the impossible if you want. But and then one line that he says, which I amount find a method in which you can always commit suicide.

Ken Taylor
Well, there’s that.

Thomas Flynn
Camus’ wife thought that he sort of tried that a few times himself.

Ken Taylor
You’re listening to Philosophy Talk. Today we’re asking about the life and thought of John PaulSartre.

John Perry
In the next segment, we’ll dig deeper into what sort meant by radical freedom facticity the in itself and for itself, and of course, existentialism.

Ken Taylor
Freedom, facticity, and existentialist philosophy (that’s filosofie with an “f”)—plus your calls and emails, when Philosophy Talk continues.

The Fugs
Tuesday and Wednesday, nothing / Thursday, for a change, a little more nothing / Friday, once more nothing

John Perry
Heidegger famously said “nothing noths.” Sartreentitled his great work “Being and Nothingness.” Was one of these existentialists the inspiration for that great song by the Fugs, one of my favorite 60s rock groups? I am John Perry. This is Philosophy Talk the program that questions everything…

Ken Taylor
…except your intelligence. I’m Ken Taylor, and we’re talking about the life and thought of Jean-Paul Sartre.

No Exit
Our guest is Thomas Flynn from Emory University author, most recently of Sart, a philosophical biography.

Ken Taylor
So Tom, uh, you were saying something about the limits of freedom and all that, but I want to switch just a little bit. It’s related, there’s something that’s always bugged me about sorry, and I think something that bugs, lots of more, I don’t know, Christian influence traditionalist philosophers who believe in an objective moral order, it’s pretty hard to swallow the thought that it’s not an objective, historic, a historical mind independent truth that Hitler was bad, really bad. And if you think otherwise, you’re wrong. And but the existentialists seem to say, Well, no, it’s no objective facts. There’s no objective values of that sword. To think that is some kind of bad faith. How do you how do you make people comfortable with that kind of thought?

Thomas Flynn
Well, I think, you know, the notion of bad faith. The question is, is it a an ethical statement or not just an ontological statement? You mentioned Heidegger. Sartre said that Heidegger’s notion of authenticity was ethical. Heidegger said it wasn’t. But he said Sartre is is Well, I think they’re both wrong. For what it’s worth. I think it’s moral for both of them. Sartre does give us an ethics of authenticity, he, you can gainsay that not just to their own self be true. But in some sense, one has to accept the consequences of the decision that one makes. That’s, that’s not facticity, but it’s more than that.

Ken Taylor
I’m trying to understand. So I, I’m the Nazi and I side with Hitler. counterfactually. Right. And I side with Hitler. Totally. Yeah. And I do this with full openness of the consequences. I choose this side. You’re the anti naughty, and you join the resistance and you fight, you learn tooth and nail. There’s me on one side, there’s you on another side. And it’s just two opposing sides. But one likes to say there’s a truth of the matter. But not two is wrong. The anti Nazi was the Hitler is evil. And he’s not a hero. I mean, how do you decide that if you’re an existentialist?

Thomas Flynn
I think, first of all, Sartre says a lot of things that he has to refine Subsequently, I think, one did seem to imply that, yeah, you could be a Nazi, if you were going to be sincere. But in fact, he, when he really starts pushing the value of freedom, he would say, you couldn’t be authentically a Nazi. You couldn’t produce good literature. We couldn’t, all those things. Why not? Because Nazi ism is an essential dial of freedom. And that is a bad that’s a no no for him.

John Perry
Okay, so now it sounds like there’s a principle in there, that you’re bound by the consequences of your previous decisions in some way to some extent. Now, where does that principle come from? Is that an objective principle? Or is that something you have to decide to accept? In which case there seems like kind of a regress?

Thomas Flynn
Well, I think it is notion of the thickening of the note, the duration, that as he develops his thought, he actually moves away from a philosophy to one practice or practice, but that’s another story. He, he is really though concerned with the maximization of freedom and those are creative, you might say, the, the actualization of, of creative values, opportunities for creativity.

Ken Taylor
So not just so it’s the maximization not just my freedom, but freedom as as an objective abstract, impersonal, good or something like that. I mean, so he, I mean, he, I think he says, tell me if I’m right, I’m no expert on sorry. I think he says that when you choose, you choose not just for yourself, you choose for the universe, you choose for the world, at least the conscious universe. So if I choose a way of life, I’m saying to the universe, this is to be or something like that, is that roughly right?

Thomas Flynn
Ken, you do but you forgot to put it in the situation. Thought situation from that remark was a lecture that he gave was that was seen as kind of a manifesto for the existentialist movement back right after the war. And it was it was called existentialism as a humanism. Well, there is a social gender existentialism that he really hadn’t dealt off before then, and he’s got to compete with the Nazis and denouncing communists. And with the Christians, right after the war, they are trying to fill the slots that were that were left by those people who had bet on the wrong horse when they decided to cooperate with a Nazi. But sword says, yes, there is more than just Nazism. But there’s more than just a let’s just say, religious belief, or more than just politics, all of a Communist Party. Now we know that he later on played ball with him for a while the communist, but finally, the Communists who didn’t trust him, called him Aina with a pen. He gradually moved away from them, too.

No Exit
Let me ask you a question about that. Because it puzzled me as I remember, it puzzled me at the time that my hero was becoming a Marxist, or writing a book on Marxism. But I mean, Marxism, not communism, but Marxism is historical materialism. And that seems an odd point of view for a radical freedom type of guy to grow into, is this all connected with the enlargement of the situation or something like that?

Thomas Flynn
You’ve got, you’ve got it there, John. Yes, it’s a he wrote a very important essay called materialism and revolution. His thesis at that point, he changed it later on was you couldn’t think dialectically you couldn’t think about Marxism, if you will, and sit consistently be a materialist, you had to have a little bit of idealism there. Now I realize that’s getting into the data prefers Professor speak, I suppose yet, but it moves them away from and moves them away from the individualism that he’s always been leveled with, you know, and now, he’s trying to say, I think he brings in a little bit of another philosopher Kant. And, and yet another one Max shader, that to say that there are certain values, and its freedom is one of them. That’s I think I’ve moved away from that. I don’t know. Yeah.

No Exit
Okay, that makes sense of it. So he had a little criticism of Marx and materialism in there. But in the end moved a long way from where he was in “Being and Nothingness.”

Disclaimer
You’re listening to an encore presentation of Philosophy Talk. The phone lines are closed.

Ken Taylor
We’d love to have you join this conversation. But Tom, I want to, so it’s nice. So you’re, you’re expanding my understanding of art and existentialism, because some people think of tend to think of existentialism as a very individualistic philosophy I choose for myself, I am there was that phrase from a roving philosophical reporter, Hell is other people, I choose for myself, whatever else you may, whatever else you may impose upon me, I have the radical freedom to throw it off to adopt a way of being in the world that is at odds with what you attempt to throw up on me is, I mean, there is that radically individualistic element, right? That’s not a total misunderstanding.

Thomas Flynn
No, no, it isn’t. But it isn’t, I think fully developed and insert himself hadn’t developed it quite that way. When he wrote no exit further play from with that comes from help other people. I could comment on that a little bit, if you want.

Ken Taylor
Yeah, I would like to so so I want to because on one hand, you were talking about this social dimension of swords, philosophy, this revolutionary dimension and all that. But in other hand, there’s this radically individualistic thing that many people read into Sorry, I just wonder how those two elements are supposed to fit together. They don’t seem well, easily to fit together to me.

Thomas Flynn
Let me just say that I think there are two of two forks, if you will, in the road, but Sark tries to take them both together. I’m not sure it always works that well. One is obviously the individualist, you always can make something out of what you have made into. That’s the the non negotiable. But once you’ve been made into, that takes a much more social character, as Sartre is, is thrown, as I said, in the Nazi prison camp for a while, you know, and all that kind of rights actually a Christmas play, if we hear that, but while he was there, but in the meantime, he has this notion of I can’t be free in the concrete sense, unless everyone is he starts out in that same lecture saying that’s an extension of the as a humanism. He starts out saying, Yes, we’re free by definition. But definitions are abstract. Concretely, we’re not free, unless everyone is free. And that’s the sign that he wants to develop a social philosophy.

Ken Taylor
I think he’s trying to have it both ways. This is why I say I don’t think his philosophy ultimately hangs together. Another French philosopher, I’m no expert on probably you and John are much more expert on FME because of my experts, these Foucault is minimal. I think of Foucault is like thinking there is we’re less free. We’re less autonomous. I mean, the social forces of rage that constitute us as beings in the world with thrown into the world, and the limits of what we can do about that are much more strict than a kind of surgery and existential and it seems to me lots of people these days Much more Foucault Ian, if that’s a word in surgery and about the capacity to make oneself in the world, I mean, is that a fair contrast or not?

Thomas Flynn
Well, I without being pedantic. I attend his full course lectures the year that he died that in France, and he was a real match. I really liked him in his thought, but he dislikes art a lot. He’s he said he, he made a number of statements such as that. So it would be would be terrific if you’d stick to politics and get away from philosophy. Last Words to live by, but I mean, in some sense, I mean, Foucault had some very nasty things to say about Harper, I think, mainly because they were two sons in the same heaven, the same size. Two generations, of course, Foucault was, was seen, I don’t, Foucault didn’t like the idea that he was seen as Sartre successor as the as the guru for French life.

Ken Taylor
But am I right in thinking that they had a rather different understanding of the extent of our power to just constitute ourselves in our circumstances?

Thomas Flynn
No, yeah, I think you’re right there. Foucault does talk about, however, the fact that we can, in some sense, do something to change our socio economic situation, for example, he’s talking about a woman in Victorian England, who doesn’t have much freedom, he says, What can she do? Oh, she can steal from the husband’s panel pants when he’s asleep. You can do a lot of all kinds of things that Foucault’s example. But, but really, what has to wait, she has to get involved to change the situation itself. And that is, of course, get women’s liberation, that sort of thing. And she, but for so Foucault was very much aware of that and the importance, but he thought that these people in Victorian England, women in Victorian England, weren’t as free as they could be. So he does have a notion of free to himself, but it isn’t the kind of freedom that’s focused on consciousness. Foucault? No, that’s a no no for him.

Ken Taylor
So let’s see, let’s tell me if I drawing an inference from sorry, that I, that He would not allow me to draw, but it seems to me kind of inevitable, because again, I’m trying to get my head around the extent of our radical freedom, right? If I’m at the take the slave, right, who is who is who is chattel to the master, okay, what matters is what you do with what you make of yourself. So if I’m a slave, I can let the Masters oppression of me shape my consciousness, but only by my letting it I can all I can declare myself a rep rebel to the master, and resist even if I can’t physically break the chains, I still have the attitude of resistance. So I’m all so there’s no real in some, in some sense, at some level, I’m immune to ultimate oppression. I mean, I can be physically oppressed, but my psychological impression. That’s, that’s not possible. Or something. I mean, that seems like a consequence of the way.

Thomas Flynn
Well, he does. It’s funny. He has a name for that he calls a stoic freedom. He as a young fella, he was tempted by stoicism quite a bit. And in a sense, kind of this is coffee table stoicism, but I mean, it’s you change yourself, you don’t change the situation. Well, sorry. I thought that and then decided against it. And he said, No, no, no. Yes. must change yourself in the situation. Once you’re in, yes, you’re, you’re condemned to be free. He says, freedom is the definition of the human being. But I won’t get into whether a definition and an essence involve each other or don’t. But yes, as the definition of man, you are free. But freedom becomes concrete. Once you get down and dirty in the real world. He wrote an OP play called Dirty hands. That’s politics has to be dirty hands, even though the good people get their hands dirty.

No Exit
So so your book is a philosophical biography? I say it is. Yeah. So I can ask you a question that’s both philosophical and biographical. A cynic might look at sorry, listen to our roving philosophical report and say, This guy is just basically promiscuous, and he’s erecting a philosophy to justify that. There’s no objective morals and you can decide whatever you want, and somehow he convinced a very intelligent woman, Simone de Beauvoir to go along with him on this. What would you say to that?

Thomas Flynn
Well, I would say that the two of them admitted that one of these young women whom they both shared that they ruined her life. It’s an interesting admission, actually, she did it in a letter to Sartre. But I mean, yeah, it isn’t as if I said that. He had the alley, the sexual ethics of an alley cat, but he had a deep sense of social justice, and so much such that he put his life on the line sometimes his apartment was was bombed twice, by people who were supporting Algeria against the Algerian revolution. They were there. They The French people living in Algeria Latona, what they call the Blackfeet, the Genoa and twice his apartment with Da was bombed. One of them. He had written a beautiful book on Milan May the poet and he lost 200 pages of that manuscript.

Ken Taylor
Well, okay, he was a morally complicated figure. I think we can do it. No, it’s not sexual ethics were maybe probably deeply problematic. I mean, he’d be drummed out of the academy today, but his political commitment was second to none. So he’s a complicated figure. You’re listening to Philosophy Talk. We’re thinking about John Paul sock with Thomas fun from Emory University.

No Exit
In our next segment, we’ll consider the implications of sorts existentialism, for contemporary identity politics, if we base our self conceptions on our race and ethnicity, are we just trying to escape from freedom,

Ken Taylor
Race, responsibility, and radical freedom—when Philosophy Talk continues.

Tom T-Bone Stankus
You can do what you want but lay off my existential blues, my blue suede existential blues!

No Exit
What’s a radically free existentialist to do—sing the blues, just like Tom T-Bone Stankus? I’m John Perry, this is Philosophy Talk, the program that questions everything…

Ken Taylor
…except your intelligence. I’m Ken Taylor. Our guest is Thomas Flynn from Emory University. And we’re thinking about freedom and existentialism, the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre.

No Exit
Tom, race and ethnicity loomed large in contemporary American politics and thought, we seem to accept and expect that our authentic identity should incorporate these elements of facticity. Foucault seems a little more in tune with this than start with start, see all of this identity politics is an attempt to escape from freedom.

Thomas Flynn
You know, his notion always start with individual identity, we are not fully identical with ourselves, we’re always somewhat more than ourselves, that’s our freedom, that’s the right to change. Well, you expand that when it comes to me being concerned about our situation, let’s say our racial situation or the situation of, of, of being in a society, the socio socio economically exploited here, those kinds of things. Start later on in this slot, when you really got into the things after the war, and came back with less and less of a neck an individualist and more of a socialist, if you will. He talks about the notion of system. And you could say, he says colonialism is a system. Capitalism is a system, you could say, racism is a system in a way, how you, you know, identify people by your being pro or con them. And Sartre says he, the meanness is in the system. But then I think he should be corrected, because if we take him consistently, he would be at admit that meanness is not entirely in the system. And there is where the unreconstructed indica Credentialism comes in, into this socialist thing, you’ve got someone who is, is associated with some movement of any sort. And they don’t, they’ve stopped taking themselves as individually responsible, when in fact, they are arranged rigidly responsible. And sometimes, if there’s some meanness in the whole thing, and it can be, I don’t care how I standing that thing is, it can be movement, it can be kind of mean also.

Ken Taylor
I want you to help me think about my identity as a black person, well, not actually my identity as a black person. But suppose I were Barack Obama, and I was bi racial person had a white mother and a black African father. And I’m thrust into the United States where there’s this duality of black and white. And I’m not this, that’s the facticity of the United States. People say, Oh, you’re black, you’re white. You’re this. You’re that. Right. They claim Yeah, right. Okay. And I want to know, if I’m Barack Obama trying to constitute myself in the world, against the facticity of social life in the United States. What am I supposed to do? How does this thinking of myself in an existentialist way helped me? Because in some sense, I think, well, Obama is neither a black person or a white person, he’s something else. Right. But our categories won’t let him be that our social categories won’t let him be that he’s the first black president. We don’t say he’s the first biracial president, that like that’s up to us that we declare him the first black president. But what if he said, against the facticity of American life, and how we construe it said, I claim myself as the first biracial Pro, I own both of these things, or I’m trans racial, or I’m post racial.

Thomas Flynn
Sure. I mean, you know, I mean, in fact, that’s what authenticity would demand. That he admit, first of all, what his situation is, it isn’t simply his race. It isn’t simply his education. It isn’t simply the question of whether it’s As an American citizen, or not all that kind of stuff that was being brought up against him, he got to live with those things. You can’t pretend they didn’t happen. He can say they’re dead wrong. But he’s got to, in some sense, make something out of what has been made into. And that can be his choice.

Ken Taylor
Is he free to make whatever he wants out of what he’s been made into? I mean, it seems to me he’s not free. I think about this, he was not free to declare himself the first biracial president, because he would not be President if he declared himself because all those black people turned out in droves wouldn’t, would have regarded him as a betraying as not wanting to be of them. Right. And all those white people who wanted to congratulate themselves on on voting for the blind would have would not have been would not have been so uplifted by voting for a biracial president, because then they would have believed they were voting for the part white guy in him.

No Exit
So in a way you’re saying he wasn’t free to say yes.

Ken Taylor
Yes, he wasn’t free, saying he wasn’t free. He was limited and constrained. And I so I’m wondering what whether Sartre would see it that way, or whether you would acknowledge that or others this whole radical freedom make of yourself what you’ve been do with what you may have been made of how does this work?

Thomas Flynn
Well, I think and Obama’s case, it would be he really wants to be president. I mean, that’s why he doesn’t choose the things that you suggested were other possibilities. Sure, there are possibilities, but he has taken responsibility for the choice that he made. And whether that has consequences that he wished he hadn’t made, you know, right? Well, that’s still part of his authenticity to live with him.

Ken Taylor
So could I put it this way, in choosing a self, I’m choosing not just for myself, but I’m choosing to a world that I stand over against, I don’t have to live with that world and in relation to that world. So that world put some kind of pressure on me to choose this way or that way. And what I do with that pressure, that’s entirely up to me.

No Exit
So to put it, so Sartre might say, I don’t know, but identity politics is okay. So long as you see it as a choice to identify with the suffering oppression and historicity of some group of people. In, you know, it’ll help increase freedom. But if you see it as something that’s part of your essence that binds you, so you can’t do things, then he would disagree with it.

Thomas Flynn
So that’s bad faith, what he would call bad faith.

No Exit
Bad faith is, I think a very good concept of, of sorts. In this area, I would say, applies to someone like Thomas Jefferson, who clearly saw that slavery was wrong, but couldn’t himself free his own slaves, although other people influenced by his words did. But tell us what’s the real definition of bad faith? Is it? Is it just another word for the same set of ideas or something new there?

Thomas Flynn
Well, I think there’s, let’s put it this way. simplistically, it’s simply self deception, self deception with regard about what self deception about our identity being not complete. In other words, are being both in itself and for itself, not just in itself, not just for itself. We are people in situation, and that tend to pretend that we’re not. That’s bad faith. So and now that you can even say that, sorry, we consistently I don’t think he’s correct on that one. But he one says, Well, this is not a moral stood Saipan at all is not a logical statement. Well, it’s that Yes. But it has moral consequences.

Ken Taylor
Because when not to be in bad faith, right? I mean, isn’t that lovely? Yes.

No Exit
So, so I want to ask a question that we got through the email, says, Could you comment on the long novel, I think it was a series of novels, the road to freedom. And as I remember, that’s postwar and was never finished. But that’s all I know about it.

Thomas Flynn
Well, you know, Sarde was a master of the torso. He never finished master anything. And it has not, you know, that’s that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s rather commonly acknowledged, I think, and this was all autobiographical in many ways. The the roads of freedom, or roads of freedom, the some dispute even on the name for the the eighth, and the fourth volume, unpublished volume was broken down into parts that were published. But now this is all about his life, you know, in the Stalag, his escape, and then the time that went before that, actually, that’s not unnecessarily him.

Ken Taylor
Was it philosophical? I haven’t read the I haven’t read the essay. Is it was it? Yeah. Was it exploring or expanding existentialism?

Thomas Flynn
I think it was, it was coming to terms and a sentence with Marxism. He Sartre had been very critical of Marxism, because as we, as you noted earlier on hard to be a, an extension list and a materialist. But on the other hand, when he gets into this circumstance, and and that’s where existentialism is very powerful. He has these, it tells stories, well, you might say that’s both its glory, and it’s shame. You want an argument, and instead you get a story, but about the stories I’m getting point and the novel does that.

Ken Taylor
No, I mean, I know I wasn’t trying to interrupt, but I will send you invited me to. I have to say, I have to say, I think existentialism is a, I’ve come to believe this, as I’ve gotten older is a profound and deep philosophy. And it really has got, it really gets at the nub of a problem of modernity, post modernity. You know, what binds us? Right? There is no god to bind us tradition. Why does Why should tradition bind me? Why should the past bind me? Why should other people buy me? What binds us? I think, and there’s a kind of troubling answer. Nothing binds us, not even our own will add a moment binds us in the future. Because I could decide John gave this example I could break my I could promise yesterday, and am I bound to uphold that promise today? Well, suppose I changed my mind. Suppose I no longer want to do that. Well, you promise me John could say I say big deal. I hereby braket I hereby release myself from your obligation. It sounds like any I mean, so it’s a deep problem. Where does anything binding come from? But it’s illusion seems almost non existent. I mean, he seems to talk a lot about freedom and, you know, promoting the freedom of others. But deeply in the end, it just seems to me it has no answer to I’m not quite sure why my own will is enough to I mean, my own will can’t even bind me.

Thomas Flynn
I mean, if you want to pursue that, you could probably say the moral of the story is don’t Don’t Ask, ask start to pay cash always.

John Perry
Exactly.

Thomas Flynn
Well, I think there’s this the situation is complex. And there’s some truth I hate to do this. And in all of these, but I do think so much of it depends on the two things that he said to Beauvoir later in his life, that were consistent values for him. One was freedom in this advanced and the end and thicken the sense if you will, that included free freedom for other people. And the other one was socialism. But I want to throw in a footnote to that, that talk that he gave that was taken to be the, the Marxist or not the mercs extensionist manifesto. There, he mentions that there are theistic existentialist as well. Yeah. And like Carl gospers, like Gabriel Marcel. And so but then he goes on to talk as if there aren’t any. And then later on, he says, he concede somewhat well, even if God exists, doesn’t make any difference. Well,

Ken Taylor
God’s just in one voice among others, right? Why should he says he got a big stick? Why does he Why does he get the binder? Yeah, yeah.

No Exit
So Tom was sorry, the last great existentialist I mean, did his move to Marxism deprive the movement of its energy that it needed to stay robust?

Thomas Flynn
Well, I think the people are many of the people who continued to be extended list or to be, let’s say to one thing about sorry, I would compare him with Heidegger, Heidegger seemed to want followers and have them thought didn’t really. And I think that makes a big difference. It wouldn’t bother him if you did something else, you know. But if you want to be authentic, you might want to do make some of the choices that he suggests, or at least the form of those choice.

Ken Taylor
Well Tom, you know, I one last thought they want to say goodbye. I know that everybody that started called an existentialist denied being an existentialist, so he didn’t for sure, right. But on that note, I’m going to thank you for joining us. It’s been a very nice conversation.

Thomas Flynn
Thank you. Good luck, bye now.

Ken Taylor
Our guest has been Thomas Flynn, a professor of philosophy at Emory University. He’s author of “Sartre Philosophical Biography.” So John, are you having any existential crisis now?

No Exit
My life is one big existentialist crisis, but sloth and indifference come to the rescue. Well, I’ve always kind of been interested in start, but to get into start, there’s these barriers long work. So one thing was this road to freedom I’d net I’m sure I’ve heard of it in the past, but maybe if I get interested in start, or as I get into it, and start, that’s where I’ll start. I’m sure it’s an easier read than “Being and Nothingness.”

Ken Taylor
Yeah, I think many things are an easier read than “Being and Nothingness.” But you know, I do think so it is a deep and profound philosophy and I also think people should read Simone de Beauvoir. Ethics of ambiguity because that’s very Sartre and in flavor, but easier to be that start. So you know, this conversation continues. At philosophers corner at our online community of thinkers where a motto is get this Cogito ergo Blago. I think, therefore I blog and you too can become a partner in that community. It’s easy—just visit our website, Philosophy Talk dotORG.

No Exit
Now, a man whose existence and essence come equally fast (we don’t know which precedes which)—it’s Ian Shoales the Sixty-Second philosopher.

Ian Shoales
Ian Shoales. Here’s what I think happened, roughly. The Twentieth Century happened, okay? With its world wars, Marxism gone horribly wrong, proud Nazi death wishes, Darwinism and its twisted twin cultural Darwinism, and trickle down Freud. All of that and more kind of ruined for many the concepts of spiritual growth, religion, progress, meaning, and history. Among other things. So existentialism, as we understood it from magazine articles and brief encounters in college with brooding instructors, Camus, and Sartre (at least the play, NO EXIT) led certain elements of our urban intelligentsia to tackle despair as a way of life. Despair had a certain appeal in the wake of World War II, and the GI Bill, for those who did not want a job and a family right away. And for those for whom the so-called “Bohemian” lifestyle always held allure, the posited meaninglessness of life gave them permission, as we say today, to do whatever they felt like doing, within the context of a quest for authenticity in a world where class and identity were not …what they used to be. This led to a surprisingly robust counter culture and culture, filled with music, theater, poetry, film noir, and coffee houses. There was sex, much of it awkward, cheap wine, marijuana, and heroin, which was briefly chic. Then beatniks, who had been to school, gave way to hippies, who had a guitar, drove a VW microbus and read a book once. Hippies were better at sex and drug taking. But then came cocaine and Ronald Reagan! The existentialist panache of Sartre gave way to the seductive amoral normativism of Michel Foucault. That’s right! That’s what happened! In the days since his passing Foucault has been accused of androcentrism in his philosophy, which is a thing that did not even exist in the waning days of World War II. In the meantime, those who did get married, have kids, and tried to make a little money now deeply resent others for either getting in their way or having things they don’t have or for sneering at them for having things. Hence today’s culture wars! Gun control versus microaggressions and gay marriage versus family values and not a coffee house in sight, just Starbucks, which I guess, if the universe IS meaningless, is okay. We will always have Starbucks. Well, for a while. And rest in peace Foucault and Sartre, we’ll always have Paris. Well, no we won’t. Thanks to terrorism, Paris is not safe. But soon we’ll have a realistic 3D holographic immersive Paris-as-it-was-before-the-war experience available exclusively through your Virtual Reality helmet, starting at a thousand dollars. And marijuana will be legal everywhere. And your 3 D printed retro microbus will drive itself. It’s a brave new world. With meaning and fulfillment up the wazoo, wazoo available through Amazon with your good credit. Still want authenticity? Sure. There’s an app for that. An Uber can take you there. I gotta go.

John Perry
Philosophy Talk is a presentation of Ben Mennella productions and the trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University, copyright 2016.

Ken Taylor
Our executive producer is David Demarest.

John Perry
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Ken Taylor
Thanks also to Merle Kessler, Mark Stone, Erica Topete and Ted Muldoon

John Perry
Support for Philosophy Talk comes from various groups at Stanford University. And the partners in our online Community of Thinkers.

Ken Taylor
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John Perry
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Ken Taylor
Not even when they’re true or reasonable. The conversation continues on our website, philosophy talk dot ORG where you too, can become a partner in our community of thinkers.

John Perry
I’m John Perry.

Ken Taylor
And I’m Ken Taylor. Thank you for listening.

John Perry
And thank you for thinking,

House, M.D.
Why are you here? Why am I here? Why are you here? Why is anybody here? I think it was Jean-Paul Sartre who once said, “How do you spell soccer?”