In Being and Nothingness, Sartre attempts to overcome solipsism by proving the existence of other minds through his account of the look. This article introduces and explains the relation between solipsism, the problem of other minds, and the Sartrean account of the look.
Solipsism and The Problem of Other Minds: An Introduction
Solipsism is the philosophical problem that the only things that exist in the world are one’s thoughts and one’s self. This means that if solipsism is to be overcome, the existence of other minds, selves, and thoughts should be proved.
Intersubjectivity is thus a phenomenological riddle, and the only thing that could decipher this riddle is the mind of the other, yet the existence of the others’ minds cannot be proved, if solipsism is not overcome.
That is, whilst inhabiting the world, the other’s body is usually noticed, but the other’s mind seems to be inaccessible. This inaccessibility complicates the riddle of intersubjectivity and sheds light on the problem of other minds.
Sartre’s theory of intersubjectivity seems to be radicalizing both the processes of proving the existence of other minds and the processes of accessing such minds. For Sartre, in order to refute solipsism, the other’s body and consciousness should be considered to be constituting a totality that refers to the human reality itself. “The other’s soul is therefore separated from mine by all the distance which separates first my soul from my body, then my body from the Other’s body, and finally the Other’s body from his soul”.
The look
In order to overcome solipsism, Sartre introduces two scenarios in which the other appears either as an object or as a subject. For Sartre, the look can solve the riddle of intersubjectivity.
In Being and Nothingness, Sartre says that the gaze can either confirm the “object-ness” of the other but not his existence or confirm the existence of the other as a subject if the other has successfully objectified me. According to Sartre, in order for the existence of other minds to be proved, the subjectivity of the other must be proved.
The look: The First Scenario
The first scenario that Sartre offers in Being and Nothingness is about the sudden appearance of someone in the park. Sartre says that In the park, a man suddenly appears. This sudden appearance re-organizes the objects that constitute my world. “Instead of a grouping toward me of the objects, there is now an orientation which flees from me”.
But despite throwing me out of the world that used to be mine, the other’s existence has not been proved yet, and even if it has been proved, the other’s mind has not been accessed yet. “Even granted that he is man, it remains only probable that he sees the lawn at the moment that I perceive him”.
When the other appears, the world reorganizes itself around this specific other, but despite losing the world that used to be mine; I cannot comprehend how the other perceives the world that has become his. “I apprehend the relation of the green to the Other as an objective relation, but I cannot apprehend the green as it appears to the Others”.
Despite interrupting my world and stealing it from me, the other remains an object for me. But “if the Other-as-object is defined in connection with the world as the object which sees what I see, then my fundamental connection with the Other-as-subject must be able to be referred back to my permanent possibility of being seen by the Other”.
In other words, in order to perceive the other as a subject, the other must notice my existence, see my body existing, and perceive me as an object. This means that encountering the other as a subject must imply encountering the other’s attempts to encounter me as an object. “Being-seen-by-the-Other” is the truth of “Seeing-the-Other”.
By being seen by the other, the other’s self reveals itself to me as a subject, and myself reveals itself to me as an object. “In experiencing the look, in experiencing myself as an unrevealed object-ness, I experience the in apprehensible subjectivity of the Other directly and with my being”.
The look does not only prove the existence of the others, but also proves that my existence is an existence that exists for the other’s existence. “The look… makes us feel concretely—and in the indubitable certainty of the cogito—that we exist for all living men; that is, there are (some) consciousness for whom I exist”.
The look: the Second Scenario
In the second scenario, Sartre says that I am a jealous man who finds himself alone and decides to look through a keyhole to know what is happening in the room. And whilst peeping through the keyhole, I leave myself to itself. In other words, I become totally absorbed in this act. “I am my acts… I am a pure consciousness of things… My consciousness sticks to my acts, it is my acts, and my acts are commanded only be the end to be attained and the instruments to be employed”.
Myself is lost in its world, my present hastens to be its future’s past, and I stop passing judgments on either myself or the present moment. “The end justifies the means; the means do not exist for themselves and outside the end”.
“But all of the sudden I hear footsteps in the hall. Someone is looking at me”. But I do not need the other’s eyes in order to be seen, and the other’s eyes are not the other’s look. In other words, “the look will be given as well as on occasion when there is a rustling of branches, or the sound of a footstep followed by silence, or the slight opening of a shutter, or a light movement of a curtain”.
The other’s look obliges myself to see itself, helps myself to regain control of itself, and metamorphoses my unreflective consciousness into a reflective consciousness that is “inhabited by a self”. Myself becomes an object for my consciousness and for the other’s look. And accordingly, the other’s look apprehends and objectifies me, and obliges myself to leave itself. I see “myself escaping myself” because “I have my foundation outside myself. I am for myself as I am a pure reference to the Other”.
The other’s look objectifies me, and divides myself into two selves; the self that the other sees and knows, and the self that I have. In fact, the other’s look confines me to a world that is both this world and a world that exists “beyond this world”. My freedom is lost in the world that is escaping me and “flowing toward the Other”. I am nothing but an object that is “seen in the world and from the standpoint of the world”. “The Other as a look is only that – my transcendence transcended”.
Before being seen, objectified, and imprisoned by the other’s look, I was a pure transcendence, a transcendence that was not willing to define, control, or judge his acts. In other words, “I am what I am not and I am not what I am— I cannot even define myself as truly being in the process of listening at doors”. But after being seen, my transcendence has been transcended.
“I offer myself to the Other’s appraisal… To be looked at is to apprehend oneself as the unknown object of unknowable appraisals… A judgment is the transcendental act of a free being. Thus being-seen constitutes me as a defenseless being for a freedom which is not my freedom. It is in this sense that we can consider ourselves as “slaves” in so far as we appear to the Other… I am a slave to the degree that my being is dependent at the center of a freedom which is not mine and which is the very condition of my being”
Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness
In order to free myself from the other’s look, I must endeavor to enslave the other by objectifying him. But whilst endeavoring to enslave the other, the other will resist my attempts to objectify him. For Sartre, whilst being the other’s slave, the other’s existence is proved, and whilst realizing the hopelessness of my situation, the other’s mind is accessed. Accordingly, “conflict is the original meaning of being-for-others”, and “hell is—other people”.
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