A Guide to Philosophy in Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes by Witold Gombrowicz, Benjamin Ivry Read Free Book Online
Authors: Witold Gombrowicz, Benjamin Ivry
object for Witold, who is the subject.It is impossible to be subject and object at the same time.Here Sartre was frightened.His highly developed ethics refuses to admit that there is no other man because there are no longer any moral obligations.The other being object.
Sartre, who was always torn between Marxism (scientific) and existentialism (the opposite), was frightened just like Descartes.He stated quite simplyand honestly that even though it was impossible to recognize the existence of others, there is no other way than to recognize it as an obvious fact.There all of Sartre’s philosophy, all its creative potential, dramatically collapses, and this man, gifted with extraordinary genius, becomes a sad fellow (Marxism-existentialism) who, essentially, is obliged to produce a philosophy of concessions.His thinking became a compromise between Marxism and existentialism.And so all his books became the basis of a moral system in which everything already serves to support a preconceived theory.Now the basis of this moral system is the well-known Sartrean freedom .
He says, “I am free, I feel free.Therefore I always have the possibility to choose.This choice is limited because man is always in a situation, and he can choose only within that situation.Example: I can stay on the bed or I can walk, but I cannot choose to fly because I do not have wings.There is free choice for which man is responsible.If I refuse to choose between two possibilities, this is also a way of choosing a third position.If one does not want to choose between communism and anti-communism, there is neutrality.”Sartre also says that man is the creator of values.This is the direct consequence of astubborn atheism, the most consistent in all of philosophy.
Such is the situation: since we have lost the notion of God, so we ourselves become creators of values , because of our absolute freedom.And, in this sense, we can do what we want.Example: I can, if it is my choice, find it a good idea to assassinate X or not to assassinate him.The two possibilities exist, but in choosing them, I choose myself as assassin, or not.
Here I believe I recognize an excess of intellectualism and decadence (the weakening) of sensitivity in philosophy.Philosophers, except Schopenhauer, seem to be people comfortably seated in their easy chairs who treat pain with absolutely Olympian disdain, which will vanish the day they go to the dentist and cry ouch, ouch, Doctor .Sartre, in his theoretical disdain for pain, states that for a man who chooses pain as good, torture can become a celestial pleasure.This assertion seems very doubtful to me and characteristic of the French bourgeoisie, which, very fortunately, was spared for a long time from great pain.Despite Sartre’s assertion that freedom is limited by the situation and what is called “facticity” (the fact, for example, that we have a body, that weare a fact, a phenomenon, in the world), despite all his limitations, he goes too far.
Existential man is concrete , alone , made of nothingness , thus free .
He is condemned to freedom and he can choose himself.
What happens if we choose, for example, frivolity and not authenticity, falseness and not truth?As there is no hell, there is no punishment.From the existential point of view, the only punishment is that this man has no true existence.Therefore he is not an extant thing.Here is a play on words, as much from Heidegger as from Sartre, which the one who chose the supposed non-existence will really make fun of.
What is the future of existentialism?
Very great.
I do not agree with the superficial judgments for which existentialism is a trend.Existentialism is a consequence of a basic fact of the internal rupture of consciousness which is manifested not only in man’s inherent qualities, but—extremely curious fact—isevident in physics for example, where you have two ways of perceiving reality:—corpuscular
—undulatory
Example: theories of light.
Now, both
Sartre, who was always torn between Marxism (scientific) and existentialism (the opposite), was frightened just like Descartes.He stated quite simplyand honestly that even though it was impossible to recognize the existence of others, there is no other way than to recognize it as an obvious fact.There all of Sartre’s philosophy, all its creative potential, dramatically collapses, and this man, gifted with extraordinary genius, becomes a sad fellow (Marxism-existentialism) who, essentially, is obliged to produce a philosophy of concessions.His thinking became a compromise between Marxism and existentialism.And so all his books became the basis of a moral system in which everything already serves to support a preconceived theory.Now the basis of this moral system is the well-known Sartrean freedom .
He says, “I am free, I feel free.Therefore I always have the possibility to choose.This choice is limited because man is always in a situation, and he can choose only within that situation.Example: I can stay on the bed or I can walk, but I cannot choose to fly because I do not have wings.There is free choice for which man is responsible.If I refuse to choose between two possibilities, this is also a way of choosing a third position.If one does not want to choose between communism and anti-communism, there is neutrality.”Sartre also says that man is the creator of values.This is the direct consequence of astubborn atheism, the most consistent in all of philosophy.
Such is the situation: since we have lost the notion of God, so we ourselves become creators of values , because of our absolute freedom.And, in this sense, we can do what we want.Example: I can, if it is my choice, find it a good idea to assassinate X or not to assassinate him.The two possibilities exist, but in choosing them, I choose myself as assassin, or not.
Here I believe I recognize an excess of intellectualism and decadence (the weakening) of sensitivity in philosophy.Philosophers, except Schopenhauer, seem to be people comfortably seated in their easy chairs who treat pain with absolutely Olympian disdain, which will vanish the day they go to the dentist and cry ouch, ouch, Doctor .Sartre, in his theoretical disdain for pain, states that for a man who chooses pain as good, torture can become a celestial pleasure.This assertion seems very doubtful to me and characteristic of the French bourgeoisie, which, very fortunately, was spared for a long time from great pain.Despite Sartre’s assertion that freedom is limited by the situation and what is called “facticity” (the fact, for example, that we have a body, that weare a fact, a phenomenon, in the world), despite all his limitations, he goes too far.
Existential man is concrete , alone , made of nothingness , thus free .
He is condemned to freedom and he can choose himself.
What happens if we choose, for example, frivolity and not authenticity, falseness and not truth?As there is no hell, there is no punishment.From the existential point of view, the only punishment is that this man has no true existence.Therefore he is not an extant thing.Here is a play on words, as much from Heidegger as from Sartre, which the one who chose the supposed non-existence will really make fun of.
What is the future of existentialism?
Very great.
I do not agree with the superficial judgments for which existentialism is a trend.Existentialism is a consequence of a basic fact of the internal rupture of consciousness which is manifested not only in man’s inherent qualities, but—extremely curious fact—isevident in physics for example, where you have two ways of perceiving reality:—corpuscular
—undulatory
Example: theories of light.
Now, both
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