Sartre scares the shit out of me!

I keep having a suspicion that Sartre's "en-soi" and "pour-soi" are truly the way things are. This blows all sorts of holes in my "theist existentialism." Am I just paranoid, or does he really have something there?

 

well for one, how can you have a theist existentialism, since you would be worshipping a non existent entity. Also "en-soi" means "in itself" and "pour soi" means "for itself". How could this part of sartres philosophy possibly erode your sense of deity?
I mean I know it can but I want you to tell me what specifically you refer to

All sartre is doing with those terms is saying that an object such as a chair is "being in itself" and an entity such as a human is "being for itself", since a chair cannot have the capacity to be for itself. A human can also never simply be "being in itself" since there is always the capacity to be more than it already is (until death that is) therefore being without the capacity to be more than it is, is being in itself, and entities with the capacity to alter any present reality, is being for itself

 

You've explained it thoroughly. To be a being "in itself" we have to die. Bummer! Been reading him a lot lately, and he's still very cool. Also Kierkegaard.

 

are you white scorpion?

 

I'm aware this is an old topic but I'm sure Sartre mentions a form of theistic existentialism at the beginning of Existentialism & Humanism, maybe that's what he's referring to.

 

You are making two assumptions one that existentialism and theism are incompatible and two that you can't worship something that does not exists.

 

I think that the deal is you cannot actually become a being in-itself, because you die. The project of the Human life is futile (because you die before the project can be realised) in its attempts to become the synthesis of the in-itself and for-itself, which I think Sartre called “mans desire to become God”



Hello by the way!