Sartre: from conscience in being and nothing to human existentialism

Abstract

A conceptual analysis is undertaken, of “freedom” and “consciousness”, as such notions appear defined in Sartre’s Being and nothingness, so that the fundamental tenets of Sartrean existentialism be highlighted. Several conceptual articulations are analysed, in their interdependence in Sartre’s thought, in order to point out that it is the relationship between the concepts of “freedom” and “consciousness” that lends the whole system its coherence. It is also shown that, though freedom is not a value, the relationship between freedom and consciousness implies an Ethic, for the conscious acknowledgment of our total freedom, and the realization of such freedom in action, are intrinsecally valuable.