The fragility of meaning (Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea) Flashcards
What is the difference between essence and existence?
Essence: What something is
Existence: That something is
The paradox: we make sense of the existence in terms of essence.
What makes meaning fragile on Satre’s account?
Satre believes that meaning is fragile because when we look for it, it can not be found.
What does Satre’s hero, Antoine Roquentin, mean by “the true sea is cold and black, full of animals; it crawls under this thin green film made to deceive human beings” (p.124).
He says the problem is that we refuse to contemplate what it means to exist the way we do.
What is referred to as the “veil” that is being “torn away” (p.126)?
Veil of ignorance. The people in the town are blinded/ignorant of the way they go to work and create fake meaning in their lives. Once the veil was torn away, we can look at existence. We must learn to live with the weight of existence: living a self-aware life.
What is referred to as the absurdity (p.129)?
Something that nature can not explain.
What is the difference between “the world of explanations and reasons” and the “world of existence” (p.129)?
Ex. “A circle is not absurd, it is clearly explained by the rotation of a straight segment around one of its extremities. But neither does a circle exist.” (pg.129)
In a world of existence, things inherently just are without explanation. So man’s need to make sense of things is contradictive as the world is not a man’s home yet he lives in it.
What is nausea?
A feeling to explain the way human existence in the world. Reflection on the relationship between the world and our ways of representing it.
