ABSTRACT
Sartre's quest for freedom has three themes. We discussed one in the last chapter: man is free because consciousness is pure spontaneity. We turn now to a second thesis: man is free because consciousness is the origin of nothingness. I shall again begin with an outline of Sartre's train of thought. Being-in-itself, the world around us other than consciousness, contains bits and pieces of nothingness. But these bits and pieces, so Sartre reasons, cannot be the product of being-in-itself. Being-in-itself, he says, is sheer positivity. Whence, then, comes nothingness? It can only be projected into the world by being-for-itself, that is, by consciousness. Man, therefore, is the origin of nothingness. But how could consciousness project nothingness into the world if it were merely a causal effect of being-in-itself? How could consciousness bring nothingness into the world, if it could not disengage itself from the world of being-in-itself? Thus the appearance of nothingness presupposes that consciousness can sever its causal connection with being-in-itself. But to stand apart from the great causal chain of being-in-itself is to be free. Hence consciousness is free.
