Date of Award
Summer 2022
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Philosophy
Committee Chairperson
Jea Sophia Oh, PhD
Committee Member
Robert Main, PhD
Committee Member
Helen Schroepfer, PhD
Abstract
This thesis examines Jean-Paul Sartre’s ontology and argues that his conception of consciousness as individuated nothingness is responsible for the discontented human condition he describes. It further argues that this ontology is at variance with our experience, and as such the human condition is not inevitably unhappy. Instead, a phenomenological description of consciousness as transpersonal and full is advanced. A transpersonal ontology of consciousness asserts that consciousnesses are not entirely individuated from one another, but constitutively constructed by “other” consciousnesses, which renders them full. Consciousness as transpersonal leads to a reconceptualization of the subject-other relationship as an I-as-other-other-as-me relationship. Transpersonal consciousness is then employed to re-interpret Sartre’s discontents, and largely resolves the unhappy features of the human condition by leading to the possibility of peaceful relationships with ourselves and harmonious relationships with others.
Recommended Citation
Contri, Douglas, "Nauseated, Anguished and Ashamed: Where Did Sartre Go Wrong?" (2022). West Chester University Master’s Theses. 246.
https://digitalcommons.wcupa.edu/all_theses/246