The Path from Nothingness to Freedom

Being and Nothingness

This thread tracks the book's evolving explanation of how negation, bad faith, and anguish reveal freedom.

increasing

Bearing strength in each event

decreasing

Negative Replies Negative Replies from "Being and Nothingness". Negative Replies Inquiry at Risk A question places being between affirmation and negation. Its answer may disclose an absence that is more than a judgment.

Negative Replies from "Being and Nothingness". Negative Replies Inquiry at Risk A question places being between affirmation and negation. Its answer may disclose an absence that is more than a judgment.

Negative Replies Inquiry at Risk A question places being between affirmation and negation. Its answer may disclose an absence that is more than a judgment. Tension The inquiry now needs an account of how nothingness can have efficacy without becoming a thing.

Questioning the Given Questioning the Given from "Being and Nothingness". Questioning the Given The Questioner Withdraws Questioning and destruction require a human relation that can isolate a being from the rest of the world.

Questioning the Given from "Being and Nothingness". Questioning the Given The Questioner Withdraws Questioning and destruction require a human relation that can isolate a being from the rest of the world.

Questioning the Given The Questioner Withdraws Questioning and destruction require a human relation that can isolate a being from the rest of the world. The given is held in suspense. Freedom's Emergence This withdrawal cannot be explained as another determined effect. It points toward a being able to detach itself from the causal series.

Motives and the Gap Motives and the Gap from "Being and Nothingness". Motives and the Gap No Mechanical Passage A past resolution or present motive does not compel a future act.

Motives and the Gap from "Being and Nothingness". Motives and the Gap No Mechanical Passage A past resolution or present motive does not compel a future act.

Motives and the Gap No Mechanical Passage A past resolution or present motive does not compel a future act. A nothingness separates the motive from the action it seems to demand. Consequence The gap is not an external obstacle. It belongs to consciousness as the freedom that must continually sustain its possibilities.

Bad Faith's Evasion Bad Faith's Evasion from "Being and Nothingness". Bad Faith's Evasion A Self-Directed Lie Bad faith tries to hide freedom from itself by treating a role or a trait as fixed being.

Bad Faith's Evasion from "Being and Nothingness". Bad Faith's Evasion A Self-Directed Lie Bad faith tries to hide freedom from itself by treating a role or a trait as fixed being.

Bad Faith's Evasion A Self-Directed Lie Bad faith tries to hide freedom from itself by treating a role or a trait as fixed being. Yet the evasion depends on knowing what it flees. Conflict Consciousness can neither become a thing nor escape the fact that it exceeds every identity it claims.

Freedom in Anguish Freedom in Anguish from "Being and Nothingness". Freedom in Anguish No Foundation Freedom is not a property added to a finished person.

Freedom in Anguish from "Being and Nothingness". Freedom in Anguish No Foundation Freedom is not a property added to a finished person.

Freedom in Anguish No Foundation Freedom is not a property added to a finished person. It is the being through which the person must choose and sustain a way of being. Pressure The absence of an excuse makes freedom anguishing, while the temptation to treat oneself as determined returns the person to bad faith.

Part One, Chapter One, opening

Part One, Chapter One, Section II

Part One, Chapter One, final discussion

Part One, Chapter Two

Part Two, Chapter One, return to freedom