Sartre, Badiou and Bad Faith
Sartre, Badiou and Bad Faith
(Some preliminary remarks)
[1] Well the lack of activity on the site has prompted me to put some of my latest musings up, on Badiou yet again. One day I'll write on something other than Badiou, but at least this time Sartre is the centre of attention. These remarks are not yet fully formed, and after spending some time reading the Critique of Dialectical Reason it is my first attempt to understand how the concept of bad faith has developed. Despite Sartre's later book screaming out for an editor, there is a considerable amount of interesting stuff in the sections on series and group formation. My initial idea was to see how Sartre's discussions had influenced Badiou's, and to situate Sartre as a somewhat banal predecessor to Badiou. But I have come to see that Sartre's theory has some considerable advantages over Badiou, especially for a political cynic like myself. I find the pessimism somewhat refreshing after reading so much of Badiou's enthusiasm for, and belief in, the possiblity of political action/reveloution.
Complexity and Development of Bad Faith
[2] Badiou’s philosophy of the event shares a great number of similarities to Sartre’s later work on group action found in the Critique of Dialectical Reason. In this later work the concept of bad faith does not appear, and this is not without good reason. The problem of bad faith is not a concept that is exhausted in Being and Nothingness; it is an idea that is still raised as a problem on the final page of the book, problematizeing the very possibility that a free for-itself could ever live outside of bad faith in a totally authentic existence.[1] The simple opposition of terms like good and bad faith, or authentic and inauthentic existence become far too limited for Sartre, who needs a more carefully graded system to bring out the variety of forms of bad faith and their various transformations.
[3] These ideas are developed in the Critique of Dialectical Reason, a book which examines in great depth the relation between free individuals and their situation. The idea of the situation is initially introduced in Being and Nothingness. Here, the situation is introduced as how an individual apprehends the world in terms of his freedom. This situation has an interior and an exterior, the interior being the those in-itself aspects of the world that the for-itself can manipulate and change, the exterior being the limit of the situation as delimited by other free for-themselves.[2] This exteriority is encountered within a situation every time the for-itself finds a meaning in the world that it did not create, generally speaking, our entire social environment. These aspects point beyond the situation to some other for-itself who produced these meanings; the exterior, or limit, is never directly encountered within the situation. The discovery of exteriority leads to the recognition that our actions, the meaning we give to the situation in our manipulation of it, has an exterior, for the other. Hence the meaning we give to something can be appropriated by the other and hence alienated. This section of Being and Nothingness concludes with a discussion of death as a totalized way of considering the limit of our situation, and hence that all our actions will become, immediately, alienated:
It is absurd that we are born; it is absurd that we die. On the other hand, this absurdity is presented as the permanent alienation of my being-possibility which is no longer my possibility but that of the Other. It is therefore an external and factual limit of my subjectivity![3]
[4] Death as the total limit of the situation as constituted by the Other, and as the permanent alienation of all my actions seems a terribly pessimistic conclusion to Being and Nothingness. Is this the new type of inescapable bad faith that Sartre worries about on the concluding page? It is clear that this alienation occurs because of the relations that the free for-themselves have with each other, that is, permanently mediated by the situation. There is no reciprocity between the free individuals, only via activity in the world in which their free action is alienated, and becomes an in-itself for the other. Sartre’s aim, therefore, is to describe a form of relation between individuals that is not mediated via their alienated action in a situation, a true reciprocity between free individuals.
[5] Here we can see the problem of bad faith problematized by alienation. Although a free individual might not think of himself as determined by in-itself qualities, as an isolated individual acting in the situation the perpetual alienation that he suffers through his actions is a permanent becoming-in-itself. The freedom experienced by the free isolated individual is a perpetual fight against this becoming, rather than a positive becoming, this positive notion can only be realised in group action.
[6] The point of the Critique of Dialectical Reason is to develop these ideas. Key concepts that are developed are of the two types of dialectic, or dialectic and antic-dialectic, which Sartre uses to differentiate between individual and group action, and these are called: the constituent dialectic and the constituted dialectic. The transcendent freedom of the individual is the motor of the dialectic, the for-itself as perpetually transcending itself. Hence the constituent dialectic describes the structures that emerge in the interaction between these constituent elements. When a group is formed, it is always formed from the constituent elements of free individuals; a group is always a compound, never a new type of individual, hence its actions and interaction with other individuals and groups can only ever be described as a constituted dialectic. It is also called an anti-dialectic as, due to its lack of individual freedom, it cannot transcend itself; it is only the specially co-ordinated activity of a number of individuals. This has important consequences, especially in regards to Badiou’s philosophy.[4]
[7] In this set up bad faith can be seen in the transition from active passivity to passive activity, and suffered in the mode of passive activity as alienation. [5] Activity within groups is active passivity, and that of isolated individuals is passive activity. Both types of activity are subject to change through the increase of the type of inertia encountered in the situation. The two types of inertia are serial inertia and pledged inertia.
[8] Serial inertia is experienced as the alienation that an isolated subject experiences within a situation for which it is not responsible. The for-itself's freedom fights against, and is usually crushed, by the inert structures that it encounters; freedom fights against this passivity. The individual’s activity is reduced to passivity by the inertia of the situation. On the other hand, pledged inertia is the positive passivity freely given by an individual within a group to work toward common goals. The transition occurs between the two types when the organised group becomes institutionalized.[6]
[9] We can see from this that the structure of bad faith has become considerably more complicated. One final point to make is that passive activity can never become active passivity through a simple transition, once a group is lost and has returned to a mere serial arrangement of individuals it cannot be reconstituted. A new group will have to be formed, and this can only happen in an event of novelty in which the group appears as a spontaneous fusion of individuals united against some threat. [7] This apocalyptic moment introduces something truly novel to the situation, and it initially operates free from all inertia, so its activity is neither active passivity, nor passive activity.[8]
[10] Finally, we can see how close Sartre is to Badiou in terms of his conception of the formation of the group in fusion as opposed to Badiou’s event. I have only touched on the complexity of this issue in the Critique of Dialectical Reason, but even now it clearly raises issues about the relation between Badiou and Sartre.
Badiou’s reliance on bad faith
[11] Why might we expect the problem of bad faith to be an issue for Badiou? Sartre tries very carefully not to import the problems of the individual, especially those that are the consequence of its fundamental existential make up, to the group level. The group is something radically different, something in which the individuals remain singular, free and never completely dissolved. This is why there can never be a return of a group, as a group has no actual unity; it is not a supra-individual. If it was possible for a group to exist as a constituent rather than as constituted its lapse into an institution would be equivalent to an individual being in bad faith. A group, as a group, cannot be in bad faith.
[12] In Badiou’s philosophy this is not the case, there is a subject to an event, and this can involve a number of individuals. Therefore, a subject composed from a number of individuals is possible. Here the term subject has a very specific meaning: being a finite portion of a truth procedure. So we might expect the problems that arise in bad faith for Sartre’s individual subjects to arise at this ‘higher’ level. One such problem is recognised and navigated by Badiou’s use of the future anterior to refer to subjects as something that will have been. This is close to Sartre recognising that although I can never say that I am X, I can say, without being in bad faith, that I was X.[9]
[13] Also in Being and Nothingness Sartre clearly states that the problem with bad faith is faith.[10] Now, if we consider the importance of the concept of fidelity to Badiou, we can recognise that there might be a problem here.
[14] Of course, the traffic flows both ways, and we can find criticisms of Sartre in Badiou. For Badiou, freedom on its own is insufficient to constitute a subject/group.[11] Freedom, or intervention, used in the absence of an event is a form of evil for Badiou, and leads inevitably not to the production of novelty but to the complete determination of the ontological situation: freedom used freely is un-free.[12] This is a consequence of the Axiom of Choice, which was the motivation for Zermelo’s initial introduction of the axiom, as it allowed him to state that all sets could be well ordered.
As I promised, nothing conclusive!
References:
[1] Sartre, Jean-Paul, Being and Nothingness, (Routledge, 2000) p628
[2] Ibid. pp509-10
[3] Ibid. p547
[4] Sartre, Jean-Paul, Critique of Dialectical Reason, (Verso, 1991) p332
[5] Ibid. p603
[6] Ibid. p603
[7] Ibid. p401
[8] Ibid. p398
[9] Sartre, Jean-Paul, Being and Nothingness, (Routledge, 2000) p65
[10] Ibid. p67
[11] Badiou, Alain, Being and Event, (Continuum, 2006) p210
[12] Ibid. pp230-31
(Some preliminary remarks)
[1] Well the lack of activity on the site has prompted me to put some of my latest musings up, on Badiou yet again. One day I'll write on something other than Badiou, but at least this time Sartre is the centre of attention. These remarks are not yet fully formed, and after spending some time reading the Critique of Dialectical Reason it is my first attempt to understand how the concept of bad faith has developed. Despite Sartre's later book screaming out for an editor, there is a considerable amount of interesting stuff in the sections on series and group formation. My initial idea was to see how Sartre's discussions had influenced Badiou's, and to situate Sartre as a somewhat banal predecessor to Badiou. But I have come to see that Sartre's theory has some considerable advantages over Badiou, especially for a political cynic like myself. I find the pessimism somewhat refreshing after reading so much of Badiou's enthusiasm for, and belief in, the possiblity of political action/reveloution.
Complexity and Development of Bad Faith
[2] Badiou’s philosophy of the event shares a great number of similarities to Sartre’s later work on group action found in the Critique of Dialectical Reason. In this later work the concept of bad faith does not appear, and this is not without good reason. The problem of bad faith is not a concept that is exhausted in Being and Nothingness; it is an idea that is still raised as a problem on the final page of the book, problematizeing the very possibility that a free for-itself could ever live outside of bad faith in a totally authentic existence.[1] The simple opposition of terms like good and bad faith, or authentic and inauthentic existence become far too limited for Sartre, who needs a more carefully graded system to bring out the variety of forms of bad faith and their various transformations.
[3] These ideas are developed in the Critique of Dialectical Reason, a book which examines in great depth the relation between free individuals and their situation. The idea of the situation is initially introduced in Being and Nothingness. Here, the situation is introduced as how an individual apprehends the world in terms of his freedom. This situation has an interior and an exterior, the interior being the those in-itself aspects of the world that the for-itself can manipulate and change, the exterior being the limit of the situation as delimited by other free for-themselves.[2] This exteriority is encountered within a situation every time the for-itself finds a meaning in the world that it did not create, generally speaking, our entire social environment. These aspects point beyond the situation to some other for-itself who produced these meanings; the exterior, or limit, is never directly encountered within the situation. The discovery of exteriority leads to the recognition that our actions, the meaning we give to the situation in our manipulation of it, has an exterior, for the other. Hence the meaning we give to something can be appropriated by the other and hence alienated. This section of Being and Nothingness concludes with a discussion of death as a totalized way of considering the limit of our situation, and hence that all our actions will become, immediately, alienated:
It is absurd that we are born; it is absurd that we die. On the other hand, this absurdity is presented as the permanent alienation of my being-possibility which is no longer my possibility but that of the Other. It is therefore an external and factual limit of my subjectivity![3]
[4] Death as the total limit of the situation as constituted by the Other, and as the permanent alienation of all my actions seems a terribly pessimistic conclusion to Being and Nothingness. Is this the new type of inescapable bad faith that Sartre worries about on the concluding page? It is clear that this alienation occurs because of the relations that the free for-themselves have with each other, that is, permanently mediated by the situation. There is no reciprocity between the free individuals, only via activity in the world in which their free action is alienated, and becomes an in-itself for the other. Sartre’s aim, therefore, is to describe a form of relation between individuals that is not mediated via their alienated action in a situation, a true reciprocity between free individuals.
[5] Here we can see the problem of bad faith problematized by alienation. Although a free individual might not think of himself as determined by in-itself qualities, as an isolated individual acting in the situation the perpetual alienation that he suffers through his actions is a permanent becoming-in-itself. The freedom experienced by the free isolated individual is a perpetual fight against this becoming, rather than a positive becoming, this positive notion can only be realised in group action.
[6] The point of the Critique of Dialectical Reason is to develop these ideas. Key concepts that are developed are of the two types of dialectic, or dialectic and antic-dialectic, which Sartre uses to differentiate between individual and group action, and these are called: the constituent dialectic and the constituted dialectic. The transcendent freedom of the individual is the motor of the dialectic, the for-itself as perpetually transcending itself. Hence the constituent dialectic describes the structures that emerge in the interaction between these constituent elements. When a group is formed, it is always formed from the constituent elements of free individuals; a group is always a compound, never a new type of individual, hence its actions and interaction with other individuals and groups can only ever be described as a constituted dialectic. It is also called an anti-dialectic as, due to its lack of individual freedom, it cannot transcend itself; it is only the specially co-ordinated activity of a number of individuals. This has important consequences, especially in regards to Badiou’s philosophy.[4]
[7] In this set up bad faith can be seen in the transition from active passivity to passive activity, and suffered in the mode of passive activity as alienation. [5] Activity within groups is active passivity, and that of isolated individuals is passive activity. Both types of activity are subject to change through the increase of the type of inertia encountered in the situation. The two types of inertia are serial inertia and pledged inertia.
[8] Serial inertia is experienced as the alienation that an isolated subject experiences within a situation for which it is not responsible. The for-itself's freedom fights against, and is usually crushed, by the inert structures that it encounters; freedom fights against this passivity. The individual’s activity is reduced to passivity by the inertia of the situation. On the other hand, pledged inertia is the positive passivity freely given by an individual within a group to work toward common goals. The transition occurs between the two types when the organised group becomes institutionalized.[6]
[9] We can see from this that the structure of bad faith has become considerably more complicated. One final point to make is that passive activity can never become active passivity through a simple transition, once a group is lost and has returned to a mere serial arrangement of individuals it cannot be reconstituted. A new group will have to be formed, and this can only happen in an event of novelty in which the group appears as a spontaneous fusion of individuals united against some threat. [7] This apocalyptic moment introduces something truly novel to the situation, and it initially operates free from all inertia, so its activity is neither active passivity, nor passive activity.[8]
[10] Finally, we can see how close Sartre is to Badiou in terms of his conception of the formation of the group in fusion as opposed to Badiou’s event. I have only touched on the complexity of this issue in the Critique of Dialectical Reason, but even now it clearly raises issues about the relation between Badiou and Sartre.
Badiou’s reliance on bad faith
[11] Why might we expect the problem of bad faith to be an issue for Badiou? Sartre tries very carefully not to import the problems of the individual, especially those that are the consequence of its fundamental existential make up, to the group level. The group is something radically different, something in which the individuals remain singular, free and never completely dissolved. This is why there can never be a return of a group, as a group has no actual unity; it is not a supra-individual. If it was possible for a group to exist as a constituent rather than as constituted its lapse into an institution would be equivalent to an individual being in bad faith. A group, as a group, cannot be in bad faith.
[12] In Badiou’s philosophy this is not the case, there is a subject to an event, and this can involve a number of individuals. Therefore, a subject composed from a number of individuals is possible. Here the term subject has a very specific meaning: being a finite portion of a truth procedure. So we might expect the problems that arise in bad faith for Sartre’s individual subjects to arise at this ‘higher’ level. One such problem is recognised and navigated by Badiou’s use of the future anterior to refer to subjects as something that will have been. This is close to Sartre recognising that although I can never say that I am X, I can say, without being in bad faith, that I was X.[9]
[13] Also in Being and Nothingness Sartre clearly states that the problem with bad faith is faith.[10] Now, if we consider the importance of the concept of fidelity to Badiou, we can recognise that there might be a problem here.
[14] Of course, the traffic flows both ways, and we can find criticisms of Sartre in Badiou. For Badiou, freedom on its own is insufficient to constitute a subject/group.[11] Freedom, or intervention, used in the absence of an event is a form of evil for Badiou, and leads inevitably not to the production of novelty but to the complete determination of the ontological situation: freedom used freely is un-free.[12] This is a consequence of the Axiom of Choice, which was the motivation for Zermelo’s initial introduction of the axiom, as it allowed him to state that all sets could be well ordered.
As I promised, nothing conclusive!
References:
[1] Sartre, Jean-Paul, Being and Nothingness, (Routledge, 2000) p628
[2] Ibid. pp509-10
[3] Ibid. p547
[4] Sartre, Jean-Paul, Critique of Dialectical Reason, (Verso, 1991) p332
[5] Ibid. p603
[6] Ibid. p603
[7] Ibid. p401
[8] Ibid. p398
[9] Sartre, Jean-Paul, Being and Nothingness, (Routledge, 2000) p65
[10] Ibid. p67
[11] Badiou, Alain, Being and Event, (Continuum, 2006) p210
[12] Ibid. pp230-31
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