Talk:Being and Nothingness

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Untitled

thanx to the author for summarizing such an ocean of stuff into these lively spring water. this is a very quality text and should be honoured ,not ;lest to sartre himself! and about myself,i wonder i ised to think exactly what sartre thought of humankind,only that i did not know what is to be implied from them. humane was not so easy to understand before sartre..........saroj khanal,kathmandu,nepal

Modes of Being?

Why is there no discussion or explanation, however brief, of the being-in-itself, the being-for-itself, and the being-for-others? These are fairly important concepts that I think should be explicitly addressed on this page. If no one else does so, I'll add in a cursory discussion of them soon. -Tinpatches 03:53, 21 May 2006 (UTC)tinpatches[reply]

Originally, these had articles of their own. I think they are all covered, briefly, in the article being, currently. -Smahoney 04:51, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Article Edit?

This is from the article, and tell me, does it make any sense to anyone? Is it supposed to be a quote, or is a translation of some french existentialist's criticism? :

Connection to No Exit Men and women will always be in a world of other people, who can capture him within their gaze, reducing him to his external materiality. They will take his measure, call him hero, coward, nonentity, fool, etc. And then, at last, they will tote up the balance sheet of his life after his death.

Your comment was unsigned so I'm not sure when you posted this, but to answer your question IMO the cited text is non-encyclopedic. Fortunately, it has since been removed from the article. Jaydubya93 (talk) 13:13, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Consciousness as Transcendent?

The opening few sentences have me a bit confused. Being and Nothingness shows consciousness as transcendent and it advocates rationalism? This doesn't seem to capture the spirit of the book at all as far as what I've heard. Existence precedes essence. We are what our choices define us to be, not some kind of transcendent rational animal or featherless biped. Johnor 11:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Again, see the article on being. It explains the relationship between Being and Nothingness.

This article has serious faults, which I have only started to correct. The books subtitle is 'an essay on phenomenological ontology', not a 'phenomenological essay on ontology'. (I notice however that the cover picture shown has a 'phenomenological essay on ontology' written on it - where did this come from?)

Perhaps the article should follow the structure of the book, so that it would discuss nothingness before discussing the other. This is what the French version of this article intends to do once somebody has been put beneath the headings. I guess I'll have to edit the French version too.

I think the section about sex has to go as the author hasn't cited sources and I won't vouch for its accuracy.

I came to this article hoping it would quickly fill in some gaps in my rusty flakey understanding of Sartre. (Many WP articles are quite good for this kind of thing.) I am now editing it as it seems that my knowledge, however flakey, is at least as good as that of people who have been here before. --Publunch 18:26, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

cover photograph

The photograph of Being and Nothingness shown is of a (badly) abridged version. It would be better to provide a photograph of the unabridged English translation.

No, it isn't. I have the same book and it is full length (800 pages) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.182.148.49 (talk) 11:17, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think that comment was outdated, the picture's probably been changed since then. SSBDelphiki (talk) 20:16, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Discussion

The definitions section is pretty useless I think. I found most of the article enlightening, but the definitions are too technical and I doubt anyone who has not already studied Sartre in a University course will gain anything from them. These ideas could all be rephrased to make them more understandable, and this would be a great boon to anyone hoping to understand Sartre.Folding Chair 02:36, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am one of those few who needs understanding. Is there any book/website or anything that could properly explain what is being-in-itself, being-for-itself, bad faith alnd all those terms. The Hazel Barnes' glossary is quite ununderstandable, and so is his introduction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.182.148.49 (talk) 11:22, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I found a great book called Sartre Explained by David Detmer. You might be able to find it through your local library. I live in Norcal, where many libraries are interconnected and I could have it sent to mine. Anyways, it helped me a TON in understanding Sartre, and now I plan to finish Being and Nothingness, which I didn't finish on my first attempt. SSBDelphiki (talk) 20:13, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the help. I've read that book and another I found on then net by PV Spade. I think that the Spade book is way better and answers many things which Detmer could n't. Please read that, it clarifies many misconceptions of Detmer.

This article is far too long. If you look at other entries on philosophical texts, they contain a brief summary of the ideas espoused by the author. Admittedly, Sartre is unusual in the sense that a superficial account of his philosophy is unlikely to be very enlightening, but I do not think that the article is satisfactory at present. Not only is it too detailed, but its style is very clumsy, containing such coloquialisms as 'Bear with me on this paragraph.' I would volunteer myself for cleanup, but I have exams in four weeks' time. --129.67.2.200 16:36, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have deleted my summary of the introduction. It was far too long, too detailed, and poorly written. It was probably not helpful to anyone. If anyone wants to clean it up, I have it saved and can share it. Otherwise, a brief summary is probably best.

Book cover

Would it be better to replace the existing cover with the Routledge Classics cover [1], or remove it altogether? For example, Being and Time does not feature a book cover, as well as most other articles on philosophy books. Differo 11:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's deleted now, so that would be better. But it should at least be free. Marlith (Talk) 03:00, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Consciousness

The opening paragraph currently states: [The book's] "main purpose was to define consciousness as transcendent." Shouldn't that be "...to argue that consciousness is transcendent."? What exactly did Sartre understand by consciousness anyway? The article offers no explanation.--Adoniscik (talk) 02:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Phenomenology (in principle) describes; it does not argue. The problem with this sentence isn't the "define" part, it's the "transcendent" part. Transcendence has at least four meanings for Sartre. One of them is precisely how consciousness relates to the world (in transcending itself), not how it 'goes beyond' the world. -Silence (talk) 15:34, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Publishing

I woudl like to see more information on the physical book. When was it published, who published it, how long did it take to write. I hope that this information will enable an analysis of the historical context of this work. I, myself, do not have this knowledge --Frozenport (talk) 01:50, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reception

The reception section doesn't have anything about Heidegger's summary judgement of Sartre: 'Dreck.' I've heard this story in a few places but don't have any better sources for it right now, but it seems relevant. Maybe someone might have a better one and include it? http://hedgehogphilosopher.blogspot.ie/2011/02/day-32.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ultan42 (talk • contribs) 22:07, 27 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]