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Why was Sartre an atheist?

Why was Sartre an atheist?

unenlightened
psychobabble

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Posted 04/12/08 - 03:28 AM:	#1
It's a bit like asking why he was French. He just was, and it's where he started from I think more than where he ended up. Don't take this for gospel, but I feel that he thought that 'modern man' had been 'abandoned' by God's failure to exist. But even if God existed, He would be in the same position, of existing 'before' having an essential nature, which He would have to invent for himself. So if God's nature is arbitary, we inherit that from Him, so we might as well face the meaninglessness ourselves rather than refer it to a meaningless God. How depressing! No wonder no one wants to answer you.
The observer is the observed. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

BitterCrank
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Posted 04/16/08 - 12:48 AM:	#2
Dear Cosmoboy, I used to read Sartre; I don't remember a lot about him. (This post isn't going to help you all My feeling is that he was a rather dreary fellow. If I was in your shoes, and I am very glad I am not, I would head to Wikipedia or Google and try to get some of the basic info about him, maybe a reference or two that might help. Have you read any of his books? Good luck. Nice to hear what people are up to. BC
If you can't fan the flames of discontent, at least don't join the fire department.

koko81
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Posted 04/16/08 - 05:32 AM:	#3
Well asking why Sartre was an atheist is like asking why Hitler was not a democrat. Sartre was an existentialist philosopher. Following Heidegger, he suggests that human beings are 'thrown' into a meaningless world in which they are free to determine through their choices and decisions, their being and becoming. In particular he argues that 'existence precedes essence'. Now any notion of God (especially the 'God' of monotheistic religions, whose holy scripts give directions about how one shall live a 'good' life), would contradict this philosophy. If you are a faithful cristian, for example, then you should live by the ten commandments, because God created this world, determined what is shall be considered as 'good', and he will judge you accordingly (hence in this religious perspective 'essence precedes existence' and while you may be free to choose your way of life, ultimately if your decisions are not in harmony with God's ethical propositions then you are blasphemer and you burn in hell!). You should read 'existentialism and humanism' really.

Erik
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Posted 04/16/08 - 09:52 AM:	#4
koko81 wrote: Sartre was an existentialist philosopher. Following Heidegger, he suggests that human beings are 'thrown' into a meaningless world in which they are free to determine through their choices and decisions, their being and becoming. In particular he argues that 'existence precedes essence'. Sartre apparently misunderstood Heidegger. Hubert Dreyfus called it a 'brilliant misunderstanding'. Basically, Heidegger didn't claim that the world into which humans are thrown is a 'meaningless' one, and he never described or considered himself an 'atheist'. In fact, his philosophy is laden with references to the receptive nature of the human being's understanding of self and world - these things aren't some arbitrary, capricious creations of a value-positing ego which has supposedly freed itself from ALL indebtedness to a particular social/historical tradition. Check out Heidegger's Letter on Humanism for a response to what he perceives to be Sartre's mistaken positions on existentialism, humanism, and atheism, mistakes which flow from Sartre's alleged inability to free himself from basic Cartesian presuppositions - apparently he wasn't as 'free' as he felt. But I would hesitate to say much more about Sartre since my understanding of him is admittedly limited and based mainly upon secondary sources. Not trying to be a pedantic bore here, but I just want to make sure that people don't lump the two philosophers together under the existential phenomenologist label and assume that there are no major differences between them. Heidegger was a very 'spiritual' philosopher, and his so-called existentialism is a far cry from that of Sartre's, even if they do agree on a few things [e.g existence precedes essence]. The spirituality of Heidegger is however much different from that of most Christians and other 'religious' people. God is a being for them, while for H Being is not a particular being - not even the 'highest' being, rather it is that upon which beings are disclosed. It is this openness, this clearedness of beings in which dasein stands that Heidegger stands in awe of, that he finds worthy of philosophical contemplation and poetic celebration. The point is that it may be possible for one to be 'spiritual' without trying to escape from the flux and flow of becoming into some timeless realm of being - be it the monotheistic God of the Judeo-Christian tradition, Platonic Ideas, Aristotelian substances, etc.
An enemy is someone whose story you haven't heard - source unknown

truman burbank
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Posted 08/23/08 - 09:27 AM:	#5
I just read the first eighteen pages of Letter on Humanism, the translation by Miles Groth. I must admit that I can't quite bog down Heidegger's concepts of being, Being, existentia, or essentia. From the outset of the letter, Heidegger seemed to be making a claim similar to the one Marx made against the backdrop of Hegelian idealism. His criticism seems to be that being, for Sartre, is characterized in a forum [thought]and manner that does not lend itself to being in its manifestation. For Heidegger, Sartre's thinking seems to have wandered from its natural duty: "As regards its essential origin thinking is what it is as a listening belonging to be[-ing]" (3). I don't however see this to be the case in Being & Nothingness with respect to what Heidegger says on page 15 of that translation: "But metaphysics only knows the illumination of be[-ing] as either, with regard to the "way it looks" (Æδέα), the look of what is presenting itself, or, critically, as what is sighted, from the viewpoint of subjectivity, in the seeing <things> as <something or other> of categorial conceiving. That means the truth of be[-ing], as illumination in and of itself, remains hidden from metaphysics". Now, this comment is initially a valid and relevant point to consider with respect to Sartre's work. However, the more I read it, the more I realize that it lacks anything worthwhile in considering. No one inquires into the illumination of being because it is inescapably immediate. There is no room for knowing being any more intimately. It seems that Heidegger is incorrect in thinking that it is this being that we desire to know more about. The "illumination of being" is a plenitude of which there is nothing further to be understood. There are instead, aspects of this plenitude which reveal to us a duplicity which is what I think Sartre aim's to tackle, beginning with dualism. It has always been the discrepancies for which we have demanded answers. Heidegger seems to be providing an answer where there is no question to have ever, nor possibly, been posed. Edited by truman burbank on 08/23/08 - 09:35 AM

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