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order to be conscious, one must always be conscious of something.And that means that consciousness can never be empty, separated from the object.This leads directly to Sartre’s notionof man, which says that man is not a being in himself as objects are, but is a being “for himself,” that he is conscious of himself.This leads to a notion of man divided in two, with an empty space.It is for this reason that Sartre’s book is called Nothingness .This nothingness is a kind of water spray or Niagara Falls which always goes from the interior to the exterior.
    For example, I am conscious of this painting, my consciousness is not only within me, it is in the painting (object of the consciousness).Consciousness is, so to speak, outside of me .
    When I read that in Being and Nothingness , I shouted with enthusiasm, since it is precisely the notion of man which creates form and which cannot really be authentic.
    Ferdydurke fortunately appeared in 1937 and Being and Nothingness in 1943.And this is why someone kindly credits me with anticipating existentialism.Let us return to our task.
    I spoke of Husserl’s phenomenological method because it made existential philosophy possible.In truth, existentialism cannot produce any philosophy.
    Me, I am alone, concrete, independent of any logic, of any concept.
    What to do in this situation?
    Be crucified like Jesus Christ?
    Be lost in one’s pain?
    One lives alone, one dies alone.
    Impenetrable.
    But with the phenomenological method, one can organize the facts of our consciousness concerning our existence.And that is the only thing we are left with.
    Husserl’s method has been compared to the way to eat an artichoke, that is, that I observe a notion in my consciousness.
    Example: the color yellow.I try to reduce it to its purest state, like the artichoke, leaf after leaf.And when we finally reach the heart, we throw ourselves upon it and devour it.
    Phenomenology is a descent to the most profound notion, the last notion of a phenomenon, and when it is purified, we throw ourselves upon it and swallow it by direct intuition.
    I remind you that intuition is direct knowledge without reasoning.
    Thus existentialism is the profound and most definitive description of our facts concerning existence.
    Sartre appropriated a lot from Heidegger.Heidegger is more creative than Sartre, but Sartre is clearer.
    Sartre offered this description of existence.I must speak again of a very profound difference between existentialism and the previous philosophy.
    Classical philosophy was rather a philosophy of things where even man was treated somewhat like a thing, while existentialism is supposed to be a philosophy of BEING.
    Every object is both object plus being .
    It is true that this difference almost always existed in philosophy, even in Hegel’s philosophy of becoming.
    But existentialism focused on this and on a single type of BEING , which is precisely existence.
    Three different kinds of BEING:
    1.The being in itself (being of things).
    2.The being for itself (being of dead consciousness.Being independent of that).
    3.Living beings or existing beings.
    The word “existence” means only conscious human existence, only inasmuch as one is conscious of existence.Men who live in an unconscious manner have no existence.
    Animals have no consciousness.
    This is practically Sartre’s classification.This is precisely the theme of Being and Nothingness .
    How can one define the characteristics of “the Being in itself,” that is, the being of objects?
    1.We have to say that only phenomena exist (Husserl).Everything manifests itself as a phenomenon.One cannot say, according to Sartre, that people are intelligent if they express themselves only in stupid deeds.Man is nothing more than what one sees.
    Notice that each thing has no limit.
    Lamp, etc., are arbitrary definitions sanctified by our language.
    One can see that existentialism moves into structuralism.
    The Being in itself can be neither created by