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Alienation and Vulnerability in the Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre
Beaver, Vincent
Beaver, Vincent
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2012
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Philosophy
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http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/745
Abstract
This project has two aims. First, to provide a comprhensive interpretation of Jean-Paul Sartre's theory of alienation, beginning with the discussion of alienation in Being and Nothingness and concluding with Critique of Dialectical Reason. I argue that the meaning of alienation throughout these works is the revelation or experience of being an object for another freedom. I argue that this experience is fundamentally an experience of vulnerability, in the sense of the capacity to be wounded. The meaning of alienation in Sartre's philosophy is therefore an experience of vulnerability. Understanding alienation as an experience of vulnerability provides an alternative to the conventional understanding of Sartrean alienation as equivalent to violence and oppression. The second aim of this project is to discuss the way alienation is related to the concepts of violence and oppression. Violence and oppression are understood, by Sartre, in terms of alienation, but alienation itself is not identified with either violence or oppression. I explore Sartre's discussions of violence and oppression in the posthumously published Notebooks for an Ethics and in the Critique of Dialectical Reason, and show through these texts, that alienation consistently refers to the experience of vulnerability, but also, that and this experience is the basis of violent actions and oppressive social relations. Although alienation is not equivalent to violence and oppression, and these concepts must not be confused, violence and oppression must be understood in terms of alienation, according to Sartre's thought.
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