The Concept of 'Bad Faith' in the Philosophy of Sartre

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The Concept of ‘Bad Faith’ in the Philosophy of Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre was the French philosopher and a versatile thinker and writer. He is today known for two systematic and extraordinary works in the field of philosophy. Besides these two phenomenal works- ‘Being and Nothingness’ and ‘Critique of Dialectical Reason’- Sartre developed some shorter philosophical versions including; several screenplays, plays, and novels; essays on art and literary criticism; short stories; an autobiography; scores of journalistic and political writing; and original and distinctive biographies of different writers. In the post-World War Two period, Sartre is regarded as one of the most famous philosophers with a large audience across the world. Sartre was the key representative of ‘existentialism’: a major philosophical movement that continued to dominate intellectual life especially in Europe in the decades of 1940s and 1950s. Understanding the concept of bad faith means to comprehend the existentialist philosophy of Sartre. The concept of bad faith forms the basis of his moral psychology. Also, bad faith continued to remain main theme throughout Sartre’s philosophical works. The concept emphasizes that bad faith, similar to all our attitudes, determines the manner in which the world and every person within it appears. Bad faith shapes all our beliefs, views, and actions specifically as agents in the world. In this context, the paper will discuss the concept of bad faith as included in the philosophy of Sartre.
Sartre- in ‘Being and Nothingness’- explains human relations basically as an opposition of Other and self. The Other interferes into the world of consciousness that is confronted with the anguished, fearful, and shameful identification...

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...warranted conviction and do not take into account any future evidence (Fox, 2008).
The paper has discussed in detail the concept of bad faith in the philosophy of Sartre. Jean-Paul Sartre was the French philosopher and versatile thinker and writer. The concept of bad faith forms the basis of his moral psychology. The concept emphasizes that bad faith, similar to all our attitudes, determines the manner in which the world and every person within it appears.

Works Cited

Detmer, D. (1988). Freedom As a Value: A Critique of the Ethical Theory of Jean-Paul Sartre.
Open Court

Fisher, T. (2009). Bad Faith and the Actor: Onto-Mimetology from a Sartrean Point of View.
Sartre Studies International, 15(1):74-91

Fox, M. A. (2008). The Remarkable Existentialists. Humanity Books

Webber, J. (2010). Reading Sartre: On Phenomenology and Existentialism. Taylor & Francis

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