PHIL 375 Lecture Notes - Jean-Paul Sartre, Psychoanalysis, Social Fact
Document Summary
When there is a self, and the self contributes to objective knowledge. Early self-consciousness is aware that there is a difference between self and other, that there is a gap that it wants to close. It only achieves its satisfaction in closing this gap. It does this by being recognized for what it truly is: freedom. We need another to be recognized as free. You can only have a sense of self when there is another being against which you can contrast yourself. This other is always perceived as a threat. Self- consciousness is therefore an entirely social fact. The other is also perceived as an object, which we want to control and dominate in order to assert our freedom. I experience myself as a consciousness that wants to control and dominate everything that is exterior to me. Ultimately we have a desire to be god, to be able to assert one"s freedom over all things.