Jean Paul Sarte, The Role of the Other

The Role of Other people

“We are dealing with my being as it is written in and by the other’s freedom. Everything takes place as if i had a dimension of being from which i was separated by a radical nothingness; and this nothingness is the other’s freedom...yet by my very shame i claim as mine that freedom of another.” Page 351, Sarte

For-itself - in-itself

• Human reality is “for itself”

  
  

Look - limits of freedom

• In every act there are others that witness it

• Looking through the keyhole

• Whenever we’re acting freely, there are others that say “i’m doing this” - then they pass judgements on you

• My shame in that action or my pride is my recognition of what another sees

  
  

Bad faith - denying your freedom (that you’ve made this free act)

What you do and what you say - act freely - can define you beyond your control (wearing a cross...can be seen as a “type” of christian)

• Confession (sartre calls it) - I’m claiming it as my choice

  
  

Presentation of student “We cannot choose how others see us or define our being. But we can take ownership of it.”

• It’s easy for others to say what they think of you and change your mind on that

  
  

The significance of others - something we profoundly need

• “The look of the other is the intermediary of me to myself”

• I get who I am by another

  
  

The very thing that can give us freedom can be the one to take it away (other)

• I’m revealed to myself in such a way that is unpleasant (but nevertheless is true - “peeping tom”) 

• Taking ownership of how the others view you

• In the look of the other i have a nature - 352

• I am what that other sees in me, by nature “a creepy peeping tom”

  
  

You didn’t realize you were the jealous type before

• But you recognize who you are in your actions (I am what i am)

  
  

It’s because:

• Not a contradiction - the reason we feel ashamed is because what the other sees in us is unknowable and accessible

• Ashamed because i’m seen doing what i’m doing

• I’m being seen by a perspective that is seen

• Anxiety in being caught or shame - is you don’t know what they’re thinking

• “Maybe i am too talkative or too pushy” - you want to manage what others can think of you but you’ll never be able to

• On the other hand, it’s other’s view on us that offers us the most profound answer

  
  

Familiar and striking examples

Being for as opposed to just being in

• The being for-ourselves is enabled by being for others

• We are fundamentally being for-others

• Look of the other is able to freeze us - to ask what am i doing

• “Shame is the apprehension of myself..but a nature that escapes me”

  
  

Others represent our profound vulnerability.

Key points Sartre is making:

• Other people are not just simply things in our world, not even special or privileged things - another version of things

• They’re not just special things (others) - others are constitutive ...they are what our world is

• As formal part space and time - immanuel kant (space and time are not things...they are what our experience is. Space and time = our experience)

• Bracketing things - husserl = intentionality

• Is there a real world out there? You can’t bracket out space and time 

• You find that it’s intentionality is being shaped for others

  
  

Intentionality - to study intentionality is to know that we are aware, exposed to the scrutiny of other people

• We;re not always feeling ashamed...but they’re highlighted and summed up by the look of the other

• Shame is pre-reflective

• Shame is operating prior to pre-reflective thinking before the world

• Before you can say “i’m counting” or “peeping through the key hole” - there is the possibility of shame, getting at who you are

• Ever present possibility of being looked at - placing their gaze on you

• Impossible to theorize others based on our experience

  
  

Third type of being into the conversation:

• Being for others (broader idea of sartres book) - we’ll never understand being without being for others

• Relationship with being for itself and being in itself (THIRD - underlies that we are) - we are being for others

• We are conditioned by others that can look at us

  
  

Different examples -- use of shame to make this broader point about being for others

• We are made up of a world that’s made up of many freedoms

• Various ways to get away from uncomfortable fact that there are other freedoms

• “Concrete relations with others”

  
  

All objects exist for you - then when your roommate walks in, then the objects point to the other (and become messy, depending on who;))

• Shame - i am something i can’t reach

• I live this experience but i don’t know it

• I know i’m looked at - but i can’t know how they’re seeing me but i know they are seeing me

  
  

The look first gives me self-understanding

• Not every look is of shame

• Every look refers to being characterized by being looked at

• Potentially endangered by the other’s look -- points to my permanent structure of being for others

  
  

Being for others is a structure of my being

Why are sartres usually examples of others as threats -- (answer?) he wants to highlight the full depth, breadth of the fact that they make up what our experiences are -- he reveals our fundamental vulnerability before others

• Could sartre written this account and written about love or care and drawn examples from those things rather than slavery, danger or shame

  
  

We are free subjects - possibilities are infinite

• As free, others present a version to ourselves that we can’t manipulate or control

  
  

The experience of others is of opacity or mystery

• You can never really get inside the perspective of another

• Commit to the possible changing of someone else

• Committing to someone else’s freedom

  
  

We have to communicate

• Mutually opaque selves work together by communication

  
  

Relating to others that are free