ABSTRACT
Jean-Paul Sartre reinterprets solipsism, dualism and idealism as active forms of consciousness. Solipsism is not an idle theory but a powerful moment in consciousness. Dualism poses as realist commonsense. There is a 'real' mind, and a 'real' body, and a 'real' connection between them. Sartre describes this dualism as 'realism', not to praise it, but to expose its self-conceit. Idealism, often parodied, paraded as the ultimate nonsense professional philosophy creates, is a serious challenge for Sartre. Sartre allows the repressed preoccupation of metaphysics to emerge in metaphor and anecdote. Sartre introduces one's being 'for-others' through examples of sexual shame. As Descartes differed mind and body, Sartre differed being-in-itself from being-for-itself to register equally with women and with men. Society, religion and philosophy tend to place women as the incomplete part of the system.
