Sartre on freedom: reflections on philosophy and literature

We are going to analyse in this essay the complex relation between philosophy and literature. I would like to share my ideas about how the literary analysis can lend a useful hand to philosophical research and I am going to prove that focusing on Jean Paul Sartre's Nausea (1938) as well as on two of his philosophical works: Being and Nothingness (1943) and Critique of dialectical reason (1960). Sartre's works and plays are the perfect sample of what literature means to philosophy.

Regarding Nausea, the first thing to emphasize is the genre that the main character chooses as vehicle of expression: a personal diary. Roquentin starts writing his diary moved by the numerous loose ends of his life. Something is missing in his life and he is intending to sort this out writing, and writing about himself and his day by day life.By now, Roquentin is not doing anything but the analysis of an existence, his own one, the same that Sartre will make some years later with the general existence of the human being in his philosophical work Being and Nothingness, where he is going to approach an ontology of Heidegger's Da sein (being there), as consciousness, body and action.

Let's stop at this point for a while. What I am saying is that a diary, at last, is nothing else than a perfect ontology of a very particular existence. It could be said that a diary is a perfect self-ontology, and the only real difference between both kinds of works, the diary and the strict philosophical ontology, is a matter of perspective: in the diary, even in a fictitious or literary one, the subject of the analysis is a particular life, with a particular world and very particular relationships, past and history. Is this particular life the one that acts as subject as well as researcher, he is the subject of his own work. In the ontology the subject becomes something abstract and general, is not an existence with name and surname, is the general idea of the existence, the general idea of the world around and the general idea of the different relationships that this existence could experience in life. This is going to be absolutely essential.

In both Sartre's works, the "decision" has always a leading role, as well as the "choice", following the most pure Heidegger's tradition. Let's focus now in Roquentin. His personal situation can be understood as the result of a very particular choice, the breakup with a past that can't be faced by him. Many of the reflections present on his diary are about his past: his travels or adventures, his ex partner Anny..., sometimes the past become so alive that certain confusion can be created in the reader. Roquentin needs to deal with his past. Like in Heidegger's Being and Time, all human life is the answer to a choice, and the truth about our existence relies on these choices and decisions, on a human being's project or, at last, an identity. Is our existence as free will entities which allow us to organize our lives according to projects, choices and decisions. This, of course, is the theory that we can find in Heidegger, but is really that simple? If it is so clear, why Roquenting is going through the nausea? What kind of trouble could be experienced for a human being that lives his own life as a perfect outcome of his true essence (freedom)?

The problems appear in the real life, not in the philosophical essays, because the particular life comes along with an essential contradiction: we think about ourselves as complete free beings but we are living in a world in which very few things depend on us. We think ourselves free in a highly deterministic world. Our idea of the essence (freedom) crashes now with the experience of our existence, and this contradiction that only shows of in the particular experience of life is the very root of the Nausea. Something is wrong with the philosophical theories, Roquentin knows it, or better, Roquentin lives it. This contradiction leads Roquentin to write his diary, he can't find a sense, he can't find a conciliation between essence and existence, between freedom and life, and maybe analysing every detail he can find some way out, who knows.

Let's examine now the nausea, because we have different kinds with different associated feelings. The nausea reveals something to Roquentin, but depending on the emerging truths we have different nauseas. We have the nausea that precedes the discovering of the existence that comes along, after premature upsetting feelings, with an experience of happiness and adventure, all fulfilling emotions. He feels like a novel hero, he is happy.

The existence becomes an intuition that can be only caught in a feeling, as Sartre will explain years later in Being and Nothingness. Now he discovers that human existence means possibility, here comes the main truth. The human being is plain possibility. Our plans and dreams are possibilities and are always threatened by the weight of what really is, the weight of the others and the circumstances. Now appears a new nausea, the one that says that possibility is no necessity, the one that discovers that my existence, as plain possibility, is purely a spare one. Now the feelings are terrible, upsetting and gloomy ones. Now nothing seems real, because there is nothing necessary attached to my existence.

Roquentin is stuck between the past and the present, his literary work is about the past, M. de Rollebon. Rollebon is a death figure, he needs Roquentin to be kind of a living, and Roquentin needs him to escape from his life. The Roquentin's problem is that he is trying to fund his existence in something that is not there, the past, he is trying to avoid the mandatory necessity of acting in the present. The mankind is forced to act constantly in the present. Sartre's ethics are pragmatic, the main category is the action, and there is no way of hiding from this fact, so, at the end, Roquentin must act and must decide. These are his choices:

-To give up his research about M. de Rollebon. Now the existence is surrounding him. He is bidding for the present, and now the present is overcoming him.

-The close of his past.Now he needs to face the most important loose end of his life, and this is Anny. Does he want Anny in his life or not? Here or gone, but not both, Roquentin must make up his mind about her. After meeting her, he realizes that she is definitely settled down in the past, and he, on the contrary, has decided to move on and to live and act in the present.

His journey from the past to the present is finished now. The diary finish with a new choice, now his life is first and he is going to be the hero of his work, the protagonist of his writing.

Sartre in Being and Nothingness make a diagnosis, a right diagnosis about the essential contradiction between essence (freedom) and existence, a contradiction that is a real no way out in Sartre first philosophy, but lets look twice, Is that the same idea that appears in Nausea? I say no. In Nausea, Roquentin finds the solution to this contradiction. In Nausea, Roquentin realizes that he can act and decide and live, even when he can't design every detail of his life. Roquentin discovers that his freedom is not a fake freedom, is not a freedom that relies in a pure acting and deciding in the mere nothingness, his freedom is a real one, a freedom that must have placed in the real world and immersed in lots of different realities and existences. Roquentin overcomes the Nausea, he overcomes the existentialism, he overcomes Sartre's theories in Being and Nothingness. Roquentin make the journey from Idealism and existentialism to Marxism or, better, dialectical Materialism, even when Sartre is not ready yet to make the same journey in the philosophical theory. His philosophical work is already left behind by his play, five years before publishing.

In Nausea we have the way out when Roquentin realizes that his freedom resides in living and acting in the present, it is true that the present is never custom made, but we can tailor our own life even we can't change our circumstances. We must act in a deterministic reality, but we must and we can act. Our projects, dreams and actions can have sense in a world that is not under our control. We can control the way we move and act in the moment we are forced to live. As Roquentin says, maybe is possible to justify our own existence, maybe we can dare to be a little more happy...

Roquentin now understands: the nausea was a necessary stop in the journey from idealism to the design of an authentic existence, a present one, meaningless like all the eventualities, but full of meaning for ourselves and for the others, depending on how many of our projects we get to turn real. The ones that avoid or reject the nausea are living fake lives (professionals, lawyers, there are several samples in Sartre's novel), because they are living the dream of the idealism, they think about their lives in terms of the pure free will and unconditional choices. Lies and illusions. The nausea opens our eyes to the real freedom and the real choices, those that occurs in an otherwise deterministic world. In Nausea we have the overcoming of idealism, as I said, but we have as well the journey from ontology to ethics, from theory to action.The diary finish with a choice, with a commitment to action.
Nausea and Being and Nothingness are works from the same period in Sartre's philosophy, but in Nausea Sartre's idea of freedom is more similar to the one that he is going to explain in a 20 years after work: Critique of Dialectical reason (1960). This is an amazing anomaly, a wonderful one. How can it be that Sartre showed ideas in his 1948 play that he wouldn't be able to identify theoretically until two decades after? Looks like the literary approach (personal, biographical) to the idea of freedom put him on a path that he would not realize in theory till several years later.

At last, I have my answers. It seems that the relations between philosophy and literature are not only important regarding the impact in the public/receptor, as Plato, Aristotle and Schiller analysed before. The relations between philosophy and literature are something more essential, more deep, because the literature can really help to bring light to some of the darkest philosophical ideas. The difference between philosophy and literature is the difference between ontology and biography, between the being there and the existence of a named being one, even if is a fictional one. The literature not only makes more clear the philosophical ideas, moreover literature helps to shape philosophical ideas, and there is no better sample than the idea of freedom, as I will see in further articles, being this idea the one that I focussed on my Ph.D.

Prometheus

In this article, I intend to present a comparative lecture of three of the most fundamentals versions of Prometheus Myth, the hero (or villain, it depends on the one you ask to) that stole the fire, as a technical resource, from the gods to give it as salvation to the mankind.

Our first stop must be Hesiod and his perspectives of the myth in "Theogony" and "Works and Days". In his works, the use of this myth serves to reassure the importance of Zeus as vigilante of Cosmos and Justice. Zeus itself embodies the order and the Justice and he gives us for granted the reward that comes from a quiet, hard-working and devoted life. Prometheus is a rebel that fooled the Gods. His attempt for improving human life by stealing and defeating the divine laws and powers only could bring suffering and disgrace (Pandora and the necessity of hard work). The technical knowledge only can bring misery and pain to the mankind. Prometheus is a real sample of the dangers that comes along with pride and impiety. Hesiod, as every other writer, was a son of his times. Technology had just begun its development and the poet is not able to face the changes that the new classes of artisans and traders was about to bring to Greece. Prometheus doesn't fit in the old school view of the world, he meant a violent irruption, embodying the radical new ways in politics and production, and the radical social and economic differences that came from those. He is seen as the root of every evil, and nothing  more evil than the hunger of knowledge and progress, moreover if this hunger breaks through undermining the gods will. Prometheus is the revolution of the technicians and Hesiod was right when he foresaw that this was going to lead to multiple alterations, alterations that, obviously, he disliked. Actually, the importance that the tyrants were about to give to traders and artisans will eventually change forever the western world, and this take us straight to the tragic version of the Myth, because when the revolution reaches the political structure, the tragedy becomes the most powerful Greek tool to look for the answers or, at least, to deal with the questions.

Only one play remains from the trilogy that Aeschylus dedicated to Prometheus (I defended in my first book the thesis of Aeschylus as original author of the "Prometheus bound"). We are now in the fifth century, in the climax of Athenian democracy and pan-Hellenic euphoria, after the Persian war. In Aeschylus age, the hesiodic fears became one of the main roles in the new political organization (is with the tyrants when the future democratic mentality starts to be shaped), and these new circumstances were asking for a new order: Democracy. Prometheus still is a rebel that took the wrong way but he is not evil, he is the solution, the answer, the new class fighting for the necessary changes that needed to be promoted. Prometheus faces Zeus absolute power, he faces a God that pretends mankind to remain ignorant, a puppet on the god's strings. Zeus is wrong, so does Prometheus. Both must learnt, that's the aeschilean dialectics: there is always a third path. Prometheus must learn that there is another way to grant the progress (not tyranny but democracy), a way supported by the law, not forced by revolutions, crazy, stubbing and suicidal way, as Prometheus is about to find out by himself. Zeus must learn indeed that his power requires a fair and moderate execution, or will come to an end (yes, even the gods can fall if they don't learn). Zeus and Prometheus must work together, the old world must deal with the new times in order to the foundation of a new order, a new state. This conciliation is on the basis of the new democratic system. Prometheus is only a mandatory stop in the journey, and democracy is going to configure everything like if was new, with unknown meanings and senses: gods, laws, myths, costumes, rights, freedoms, war...

Now that we have the political and tragic answer to the myth, is time for the philosophers to speak out their minds, here comes Plato and his "Protagoras". Prometheus stole the fire, it is true, but this was never the key to human survival, not at least in Plato's era, now the things  are complicated so far. Plato lived in a consolidated democracy and Prometheus is not as useful as he was any more. Now his heroism is anecdotal, he brought indeed the technical knowledge but this is not enough. The technical wisdom and the arts are now perfectly assimilated by the democratic system and the philosophers are in a rush to find the key of the social and political perfection, inside (women, slaves, foreigners, citizens) and outside the borders of the City-State (Sparta and  and other political civilizations as the Persians). In this situation, the discover of fire is meaningless and now the political skills are the leading and urgent ones. In the platonic play his point against Protagoras is not about Prometheus, both agree in his loss of significance. The dialogue evolves into a political discussion: the political virtues, and not the technical skills, are the ones that are going to compromise the survival of the Athenian world's conception. The way of teaching and learning such skills, the way of making everyone involve in the "polis", is going to be the root of the conflict between philosophers and sophists. The technical skills are essential, it is true, but this is not the problem any more. Its meaning and social relevance and economic utility is settle down and now they need to get the same equilibrium and balance regarding the status of the citizenship, its meaning, its importance, its scope and range. Is at this point where the analysis is more urgent, because the govern of the City-State is not threatened by the technical power, now the enemy is the very politics itself, inside and outside (the right to be citizen, the politics of other empires and cities). And the enemies are so powerful that even the tragedy starts to focus on that topics (like Euripides and his concern  about those ones that are not being assimilated by the democratic system, that is Media's tragedy).

The myth of Prometheus is about the technical assimilation in the Greek world and about the evolution of its treatment depending on the social and political stages. In Hesiod, Prometheus, as the technical skills, is seen with fear and distrust, as long as is something new and revolutionary. In Aeschylus is a tyrannical hero that needs to learn the democratic ways to become part of the system. In Plato, we can say that they had another problems at the moment.

Always that the technology evolves fast and in threatening ways, the men turn their eyes to this myth, that constitutes a powerful tool in the reflection about science and its social consequences. It is not strange that another great version of the myth came along in the nineteenth century by the hand of Mary Shelley, but in complete accord with the hesiodic version, just a modern update on the old epic lecture. When mankind faces technical advances and science, the first answer is always full of fear (Hesiod, Shelley), but as we learnt from the Greeks, it becomes the moment when we need to put ourselves together and to give an answer to technical and scientific knowledge: a political answer (Aeschylus) or a philosophical one (Plato). At the end, the men, as political and social animals, need to assimilate every progress into a deeper consideration, where our own success as society lies down.

Science and technology are not evil tools but are not the ultimate answer as well. These are only essentials elements of our evolution, but are not the end of our problems or the close of our history, political and social. As humans, the answer that we demand is always a political and philosophical one, because there is always a moment, as Plato taught us, when we realize that scientific and technical progress are mere tools that require a further discussion about its use and meanings, and there will be always a fundamental question that remains the same time after time, although the circumstances may change: how can we build a righter and fairer society besides all the tools that we achieved in our journey? Schiller told us that the most advanced use of science, reason and technical abilities does not come hand by hand with the most fine society. Often, the men search for salvation in the wrong places. We still think that science and technology are the ultimate answers and we forget about philosophy. Bur the history always takes us back to Plato and the necessity of wondering about our political existence. The most essential question is still asking from us to do our best, and is a question that never will be obsolete: how do we take every tool, every skill, every advance, every knowledge, in order to learn to live with each other avoiding the most senseless destruction and brutality.