Being and Nothingness is a philosophical work by Jean-Paul Sartre where he rubbishes off Immanuel Kant’s idea of noumenon. Kant had argued that individuals are incapable of perceiving the external world directly. According to Kant, people have only ideas of the world. However, Sartre argued that the external world purported by Kant does not exist at all. In this philosophical work, Sartre came up with two types of being – being-in-itself and being-for-itself – of the nature of phenomena. The work also touches on nothingness. Sartre believes that nothingness is an idea that cannot exist on its own and must depend on the existing whole.
Sartre also discusses the idea of self-deception and how individuals objectify themselves by perceiving their characteristics as objects. For instance, an individual may live a life defined by his profession rather than his human existence. Being-for-itself deceives people for what they are not. For example, a teacher may be defined by his occupation and forgets about his human existence. In such cases, Sartre argues that people are fond of defining themselves through being-for-itself rather than being-in-itself. Defining oneself based on occupation is an intricate trait of human reality.
In the last section of his work, Sartre argues that individuals perceive themselves the way they are defined by others. In simple terms, people look at themselves as objects rather than subjects. Many are times people mistake a mannequin for humans and this leads to conceiving themselves as objects. The values of people who perceive themselves as objects are defined by free individuals. Ultimately, Sartre claims that consciousness is not independent and is based on awareness of objects.
