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375 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1945
Only, he wants to be free, just as other people want a collection of stamps. Freedom, that is his secret garden: a little scheme with himself as sole accomplice... An idle, unresponsive fellow, rather chimerical, but ultimately quite sensible, who has dexterously constructed an undistinguished but solid happiness upon a basis of inertia, and justified himself from time to time on the highest moral grounds.
鈥樷€our life is an incessant compromise, between an ultimately slight inclination towards revolt and anarchy, and your deeper impulses that direct you towards order, moral health, and I might almost say, routine. The result is that you are still, at your age, an irresponsible student. My dear old chap, look yourself in the face: you are thirty-four years old, you are getting slightly bald 鈥� not so bald as I am, I admit 鈥� your youth has gone, and the bohemian life doesn鈥檛 suit you at all. Besides, what is bohemianism, after all? It was amusing enough a hundred years ago, but today it is simply a name for a handful of eccentrics who are no danger to anybody, and have missed the train. You have attained the age of reason, Mathieu, you have attained the age of reason, or you ought to have done so,鈥� he repeated with an abstracted air.
鈥楶ah!鈥� said Mathieu, 鈥榊our age of reason is the age of resignation, and I鈥檝e no use for it.鈥�
听The Age of Reason听(L'芒ge de raison) is a 1945 novel by Jean-Paul Sartre. It听is the first part of the trilogy "The Roads to Freedom".听The novel, set in the bohemian Paris of听the late 1930s, focuses on three days in the life of a philosophy teacher named Mathieu who is seeking money to pay for an abortion听for his mistress, Marcelle. Sartre analyses the motives of various characters and their actions and takes into account the perceptions of others to give the reader a comprehensive picture of the main character. The novel is concerned with听Sartre's conception of freedom as听the ultimate aim of human existence; the existentialist听notion of ultimate freedom through presenting a detailed account of the characters' psychologies as they are forced to make significant decisions in their lives. As the novel progresses, character narratives espouse Sartre's view of what it means to be free and how one operates within the framework of society with this philosophy.听This is one of many rather brief synopses that I found on this novel. When first encountering these, I wondered why they were so nondescriptive. I now know why. It really is not about much more than Mathieu parading around town, meeting his friends, looking for somebody to loan him the four thousand francs he needs for his mistress Marcelle's abortion. However, this is one of those books that you need to actually read in order to appreciate. Because most of the book is actually about the inner workings in the minds of all the different characters, their thought processes, and psychological complexes. Other interesting characters include:听
"Mathieu watched Daniel disappear and thought, "I remain alone." Alone but no freer than before. He had said to himself last evening, "If only Marcelle did not exist," but was deceived... "No one has interfered with my freedom, my life has drained it dry." The scent of Ivichn still hovered in the air. He inhaled the scent and reviewed that day in tumult. "Much ado about nothing," he thought. For nothing; this life had been given him for nothing; he was nothing and yet he would not change; he was as he was made. Various tried and proved rules of conduct had already offered their services disillusioned epicureanism, smiling tolerance, resignation, flat seriousness, stoicism; all the aids whereby a man may savor, minute by minute, like a connoisseur, the failure of a life. "It is true, it is really true; I have attained the age of reason."听
听Sartre's Philosophies听The Good: Fascinating look into mindsets, loved reading about Sartre's philosophies. On a broad scale, I do agree with existentialism.听
1. Existence precedes essence. "Freedom is existence, and in it existence precedes essence." This means that听what we do,听how we act in our life, determines our apparent "qualities." It is not that someone tells the truth because she is honest, but rather she defines herself as honest by telling the truth again and again. I am听a professor in a way different than the way I am six feet tall, or the way a table is a table. The table simply听is;听I exist by defining myself in the world at each moment.听
2. Subject rather than object. Humans are not objects to be used by God or a government or corporation or society. Nor we to be "adjusted" or molded into roles --to be听only听a waiter or a conductor or a mother or worker. We must look deeper than our roles and find听ourselves.听
3. Freedom. The central and unique potentiality which constitutes us as human. Sartre rejects determinism, saying that it is our choice how we respond to determining tendencies.听
4. Choice. I am my choices. I cannot not choose. If I do not choose, that is still a choice. If faced with inevitable circumstances, we still choosehow we are听in those circumstances.听
5. Responsibility. Each of us is responsible for everything we do. If we seek advice from others, we choose our advisor and have some idea of the course he or she will recommend. "I am responsible for my very desire of fleeing responsibilities."
6. Past determinants seldom tell us the facts. We transform past determining tendencies through our choices. Explanations in terms of family, socioeconomic status, etc., do not tell us why a person makes the crucial choices we are most interested in.听
7. Our acts define who we are. "In life, a man commits himself, draws his own portrait, and there is nothing but that portrait." Our illusions and imaginings about ourselves, about what we could have been, are nothing but self-deception.听
8. We continue to make ourselves. A "brave" person is simply someone who usually acts bravely. Each act contributes to defining us as we are, and at any moment we can begin to act differently and draw a different portrait鈥� of ourselves. There is always a possibility to change, to start making a different kind of choice.
9. The power to create ourselves. We have the power of transforming ourself indefinitely.听
10. Our reality. Human reality "identifies and defines itself by the ends which it pursues", rather than by alleged "causes" in the past.听
11. Subjectivism. The freedom of the individual subject, and that we cannot pass beyond subjectivity.听
12. The human condition. Despite different roles and historical situations, we all have to be in the world, to labor and die there. These circumstances "are everywhere recognisable; and subjective because they are听lived听and are nothing if we do not live them.听
13. Condemned to be free. We are condemned because we did not create ourselves. We must choose and act from within whatever situation we find ourselves.听
14. Abandonment. "I am听abandoned听in the world", in the sense that I find myself suddenly alone and without help.
15. Anguish. "It is in anguish that we become conscious of our freedom. ...My being provokes anguish to the extent that I distrust myself and my own reactions in that situation." 1) We must make some choices knowing that the consequences will have profound effects on others (like a commander sending his troops into battle.) 2) In choosing for ourselves we choose for all humankind.
16. Despair.听We limit ourselves to a reliance on that which is within our power, our capability to influence. There are other things very important to us over which we have no control.听
17. Bad faith. This means to be guilty of regarding oneself not as a free person but as an object. In bad faith I am hiding the truth from myself. "I must know the truth very exactly听in order to听conceal it more carefully. (There seems to be some overlap in Sartre's conception of bad faith and his conception of self-deception.) A听person can听live听in bad faith, implying a constant and particular style of life.听
18. "The Unconcious" is not really unconscious. At some level I am aware of, and I choose, what I will allow fully into my consciousness and what I will not. Thus I cannot use "the unconscious" as an excuse for my behavior. Even though I may not admit it to myself, I am aware and I am choosing.听 Even听in听self-deception,听I know I am the one deceiving myself, and Freud's so-called censor must听be conscious to know what to repress.听Those who use "the unconscious" as exoneration of actions believe that our instincts, drives, and complexes make up a reality that simply听is;听that is neither true nor false in itself but simply听real.
19. Passion is not an excuse.听"I was overwhelmed by strong feelings; I couldn't help myself" is a falsehood. Despite my feelings, I choose how to express them in action.听
20. Ontology. The study of being, of what constitutes a person as a person, is the necessary basis for psychoanalysis.