A Guide to Philosophy in Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes by Witold Gombrowicz, Benjamin Ivry Read Free Book Online Page A

theories are right, as experience demonstrates, but they are contradictory.You have the same phenomenon in the physics concept concerning electrons, where there are two different ways of seeing them, both of which are correct and contradictory.Now, in my view, man is divided between the subjective and the objective, irreparably and for all time.This is a kind of wound we have which is impossible to heal, and of which we are more and more conscious.In a number of years, it will be even “bloodier,” since it can only grow with the evolution of consciousness.
    The profound truth of Hegel’s dialectics (thesissynthesis) appears here.It is impossible, under these conditions, to ask that a man be harmonious, that he be able to resolve anything.Fundamental impotence.
    No solution at all.
    In the light of these thoughts, literature which considers that we can organize the world is the most idiotic thing imaginable.
    A sad writer who thinks himself master of reality is a ridiculous thing.Hah!Hah!Hah!Phew!
    Tuesday, May 6, 1969
    Freedom in Sartre
    Freedom is an experience.
    It is linked to future time, which is the time of human existence.
    It is marked by finality, which is the opposite of causality .In the world of causality , one does something because one is obliged by a cause to do so.In the world of finality, one does something for something.I pick up the pipe in order to smoke.Freedom is always achieved in a situation , that is, that in each situation I have a freedom of choice, but I cannot choose something which is outside of the situation.For example, I can walk or sit, but I cannot fly.
    Finally, it is freedom which is the foundation of all value.We must not forget that atheism is at the root of all Sartrean existentialism.He said that it is not as easy to follow atheism through to the end ashe did.When one is there, at the limit, one sees that, since God does not exist, all qualities are established by me, by my freedom.I can, for example, establish torture as the supreme good: the moral and the immoral are two things which are decided in complete freedom.But as in all of Sartre’s work, we immediately notice a retreat.One would think that he is the most absolute immoralist, but no.He is 100 percent moralist.If I understand this aspect of Sartrean philosophy correctly, it is rather artificial.
    1.Man in his freedom chooses himself by choosing his values (replace quality by value).This depends on his free choice.But on my choice depends what Heidegger called authentic existence and consequently, real life or a different world.
    2.Consequently, man is responsible for his self, but man is responsible also for the world, since to choose oneself means to choose the world.Therefore I can choose myself as Hitlerite, Nazi, and choose a Nazi world.
    Sartre was asked: why cannot we choose Hitlerism if we are the free creator of our values, and what obliges me, for example to choose Marxism?
    This rather elementary contradiction was not, according to my humble opinion, sufficiently clarifiedby Sartre, because evidently morality is a limitation of freedom, even if reasons are needed for choosing that limitation.
    Here on the subject of freedom, Sartre is very categorical.He says that the choice depends only on us, there are no pre-established values, it is our choice which creates them.One could imagine that man, with all his freedom, is nevertheless condemned to satisfy the fundamental necessities of life, such as eating.But this also depends on me.If I choose suicide, food loses all value for me.And from this absolute responsibility of man to himself is born the characteristic anguish of existentialism, as much for Heidegger as for Kierkegaard and Sartre.
    This anguish is the anguish of nothingness.When I am afraid, says Heidegger, I am afraid of something, such as a tiger.But if I do not fear anything specific, that is anguish.This anguish is born, according to Sartre, from our responsibility regarding our existence.One could