FREEDOM OF ELECTOR, DECIDES AND RESPONSIBLE (Paulinus Kalkoy, Religious Philosophy)

 

A. LIFE AND SARTRE WORKS

Jean-Paul Sartre was born in 1905 as the son of Jean-Batiste, a French navy officer, and Anne-Marie Schweiter. Since youth, he has shown great interest and talent in literary works. His interest in philosophy grew when he met Hendri Bergson (1849-1941) at Ėncole Normale, Paris, where he studied. Between 1934-1935, Sartre spent his time at the Francais Institute in Berlin, where he studied Husserl's phenmonology. Sartre wrote the book Transcenental Ego (1936) in Germany while he was still at the Institute. He claimed that his book was written on the influence of Husserl. In Berlin he also wrote his famous novel La Nausėe (nausea) which he regarded himself as his best work to the end of his career.
During World War II, Sartre was active in the French defense until he became a prisoner of war of the German army. In the prisoner of war camp, he read Heidegger's writings. His references to Heidegger's thoughts show that Heidegger's thoughts have a profound effect on them. This is especially evident in his monumental work of L'être et le Nėant (Being and Nothingness, Existence and Absence). Sartre wrote many books and he produced more than 30 volumes of books and as a continuation of Being and Nothingness (1943), he wrote his great work Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960). His last book is a three volume work on Fleubert, entitled The Idiot of the Familiy, 1971-1972. Sartre was a man of commitment to freedom and this led him to refuse to accept the Nobel Prize for literature awarded to him in 1964. The reason is, "I do not want to be transformed into a situation bond." Sartre lived a modest life with little property in a small apartment in Paris. Her health declined and was almost blind. He eventually died on April 15, 1980, at the age of seventy-four.

 B. HUMAN AND FREEDOMThe name Sartre is often identified with existentialism, because it always refers to the writings of other philosophers discussing existentialism. His thoughts on existentialism are contained in his writings L'Existentialism est un humanism, a lecture material he published in 1946. The attempt to understand his thinking about man and his freedom is good if it begins with an attempt to understand his understanding of human existence and essence.
1. Human Existence and Essence: Understanding Freedom.During his lifetime, Sartre almost put most of his philosophical studies on the existence of individual human beings. As a result, he formulates the core basic principle of existentialism: existence precedes essence. [1] How does this formulation help us understand human nature?
Sartre argues that attempts to explain the reality of human existence are not the same as the reality of things. The implicit intentions Sartre wanted to show here were that humans possessed a sublime dignity beyond the existing things. This emphasis on human subjects, as well as to reveal the existence of a freedom in each person to make himself in accordance with what he wanted. Man is freedom that creates totally, then he perfects himself, he is a design for the future. Thus, human nature (human essence) can not be determined, but it is open at all. It means that man is a "thing" that moves itself into the future and the movement is consciously realized. This forward movement opens up possibilities and opportunities for itself to freely determine what it desires itself for itself. This is what Sartre means by human essence: self-determination without intervention and interference from other people or parties. However, for him, this determination can only happen if man has come first. The human being called it by the term ėrtre pour-soi, being for itself, the way of being open, dynamic, and with subjective consciousness. [2] A reality different from the things Sartre termed Sartre with ėrtre en-soi. What is meant by being this way is the way to be that is closed, static, passive, and without consciousness.

 2. Man is the Freedom to Choose and Decide.Sartre argues that the human hectare is freedom and human freedom is absolute. [3] Again, that freedom is only possessed by mere mortals. [4] It is a necessity because it is a requirement for human development and development. Human rality is free, bassically and completely free. [5] While freedom appears in the fact that man is not himself, but always in a situation of being yourself. The situation in which man is required not to stop himself but strives to change himself. This endeavor is accompanied by decisions on choices that human beings can choose. In this endeavor man acts alone without the help of others. He must determine for himself and for all mankind. In deciding, I have no evidence or reason that the verdict is true. I'm the only one who guarantees the verdict is true.
To this end, Sartre merely draws attention to one of the most obvious human experiences, namely that all humans must choose, have to make decisions and, without authoritative determinations, humans must choose. This decision-making is directly related to the determination of the essence of man himself. Thus, man is the individual who first exists and then he himself determines his essence by making free choices on the various possibilities he faces. This choice in the determination of life is a form of a project which man endeavors both to himself and to the world. To the self, man seeks a project that aims to achieve a possibility in his existence. Those possibilities continue to connect as long as humans still exist. And this effort takes place in the world because man is being-in-the world. [6]
3. Human Freedom Demands Responsibility To Yourself and OthersMan is free to determine what is his essence. And this determination is done by making choices. However, the freedom to make this choice is accompanied by a deep fear, because with that choice man declares his responsibility not to himself but also to others. Sartre explains, because man first realizes that he exists, it means man realizes that he is facing the future, and he realizes he does. This emphasizes a responsibility in humans. [7] According to him, when a man realizes himself confronted with something, realizing that he has chosen to be, he is at the same time responsible for deciding for himself and for everyone, and at that very moment man can not escape from total responsibility. So he says that we are responsible for the whole of our existence and even we are responsible for all human beings, because we are constantly human beings who choose and by choosing ourselves as well we also choose for others. Against ourselves, humans are also required to be accountable to nature. Man is fully responsible, even to his nature, because his feelings are shaped by his own deeds.
In relation to others as part of the fact of human existence that exist together freely, Sartre also argues that my freedom must also take into account the freedom of others. I can not make my freedom a goal without simultaneously making the same thing with the freedom of others. So I am free, but in my freedom I should also give others the opportunity to express their freedom. In this context, giving meaning to life and the world of life will become possible. Indeed he once mentions others as "hell", but then he wants a bond and he finds others as a condition for his own existence. In relation to this, he once expressed his view of relationships with others as follows: the nature of relationships between human beings is a conflict: others make me an object or I make the same thing to others. Man will only be closer to one another, if he joins against a third person, because then will appear an objective "us". [8] The context of this view is to criticize the fact that human life is shackled in the habit of making others as an object that serves as a tool for self-development.


4. Human Freedom As In Relation With God's ExistenceSartre's assertion that existence precedes essence has in fact caused the denial of God's existence. What does God say about the phrase? The essence of Sartre's talk of God is that he denies the existence of God. He criticized the view that put God as a creator who, in other words, wanted to say that the essence of man had existed before. The essence of God who gains existence in the creation or presence of man in the world. Sartre rejects this view by arguing that the first exists in humankind namely its existence then the essence of man's own, not God or any other person. If there is an omniscient and omnipotent God, he says, then everything that is not God is His creation. In that case, in God there is a kind of creation plan in which the essence of things, including the essence of man, has been determined. Thus, a human can not change essentially and can not attain a higher level than the one prescribed by God. Sartre rejects this fact. He said, if God existed, He would be the full identity of existence and consciousness. That is why he consciously chooses atheism as his way of life.
In the context of freedom, the question can be asked: how could man determine freely his life if he had to act in accordance with the intervention of God? Man is the freedom so that he alone determines his essence and not the essence it already existed in God before man existed. In this way, the existence of God is rejected by Sartre. If God exists, man is not free. On the other hand, if man is free, God must be absent. [9] This is Sartre's anthropological thought placed in the frame of his talk of freedom.
Thus has been discussed about human freedom in determining its essence in the view of Jean-Paul Sartre. The point is that man is the subject that determines his own essence after he exists. This determination is done by various choices that require him to decide which value should be part of it. In this effort, humans not only move alone but also together with others. The consequence of this view is that the existence of God must be rejected, because if there is a God's existence then man has no freedom to determine his essence.