Why Shame? Why Fear? - On Sartre’s early theory of the existence of others

• Main Authors: Kuo, Teng-Feng, 郭登峯
• Other Authors: 吳俊業
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/seufay

碩士 === 國立清華大學 === 哲學研究所 === 101 === “The existence of others” is not an old theme in the history of philosophy. After Husserl thematized it, however, from the phenomenology he proposed to late humanities and social sciences, this topic can be hardly ignored. After Husserl and Heidegger, Sartre adds a new aspect to “the existence of others” in his early work Being and Nothingness (L’être et le néant). He considers phenomenology as much more powerful than other traditions on this topic. But the former phenomenologists – Husserl and Heidegger – either made “the other” stranded on the absence of an empirical object, or mixed “others” into the abstract Being of the world. Compared to the predecessors who couldn’t reach the existence of concrete others, Sartre’s so-called “the Other” is another subject in my empirical sphere who is directly relating my-self and also other than me. With the Cartesian cogito as a prototype, inspired by Hegel’s idea of self-consciousness, exemplifying “my” being-seen as the case of a first person perspective phenomenological analysis, Sartre successfully discloses the fact that given “I exist” in “cogito, ergo sum”, the inexistence of others is impossible for me. While I uneasily feel like ashamed and scared during my being seen, the Erlebnis such as Shame and Fear is just the evidence of the existence of others for the being-looked-at me. It is through that I apprehend or understand the other’s being-in-a-pair-with-me. To be more specific, it is neither knowledge nor a grasp of the particular existence of another as an object, nor the indirect and oblique “being-with” anonymous others by unfolding the world. It is my being-for-Other revealed through my very own Erlebnis. Besides, the Erlebnis like Shame and Fear are also concrete motivations to affectively effect further constitutions of other individuals, because my self-alienation caused by the look of the Other requires redemption by conferring the Other object-ness. When Sartre interprets the Erlebnis into self-alienation which is to be surpassed or overcome by the consciousness of a subject, however, Shame, concerning the alienation the most, is actually not an adequate motivation. Even if it could be, the Erlebnis can still be inadequate non-negative affections. Given all that, the transfer from the Erlebnis to the affective motivations which can and must effect the constitutions of others is reluctant and paranoid to some degrees. I believe that it is not only a contingent result of Sartre’s personal inclinations, but it also shows that Hegel has such a great influence on Sartre that he cannot always hold on to his own insight. Aside from the ambition to constitute others, however, the mere fact of our being-for-Other Sartre has disclosed is already a contribution to philosophy.