Jean-Paul Sartre on Self Deception

Summary

In a captivating exploration of Jean-Paul Sartre's philosophy on self-deception, Martin Butler delves into the intricacies of how we lie to ourselves. In his seminal work, 'Being and Nothingness,' Sartre devotes significant attention to the nature of self-deception, contrasting it with Freudian concepts of the subconscious. Through engaging examples, such as a date scenario and a car salesman, Butler illustrates Sartre's view that self-deception involves knowing the truth yet choosing to live in a fairy tale. Butler elaborates on the concept of the 'transcendence-facticity duality,' where individuals create a fictional narrative that contradicts the harsh realities they wish to avoid. Ultimately, self-deception helps people persist by reinforcing an illusion of power and survival, albeit at the cost of confronting reality.

Highlights

• Self-deception, according to Sartre, involves knowing harsh truths but choosing a comforting lie, much like knowing it's sunny but predicting rain. ☀️➡️🌧️
• Example of a dating scenario: Sartre uses this to depict self-deception, where the woman believes the man's charm is pure when both have hidden agendas. 💏
• Sartre contrasts self-deception with Freudian subconscious notions, arguing that our true intentions are on the surface. 🤔🎭
• The transcendence-facticity duality: people live in a fairy tale of what they believe versus the reality they perceive. 🌈💭
• Self-deception persists due to the survival instinct, offering a skewed sense of power to navigate life. 🔄💪

Key Takeaways

• Sartre's philosophy reveals that self-deception is knowing the truth yet living in a fantasy to avoid it. 🌀
• Self-deception can involve everyday scenarios, like dating or buying a car, where charm and lies take center stage. 🚗💘
• Freud's idea of hidden subconscious desires is rejected in favor of visible, conscious intentions, according to Sartre. 👀
• The duality between reality and illusion (transcendence-facticity) is central to understanding self-deception. ✨➡️💡
• Self-deception may offer comfort but often leads to unrealistic life experiences and decisions. 🤔➡️🛤️

Overview

Jean-Paul Sartre delves into the perplexing world of self-deception in his renowned work, 'Being and Nothingness.' Martin Butler takes us through Sartre's rejection of Freudian associated ideas of the subconscious and instead suggests that our intentions speak louder than hidden desires. With colorful examples like dating dilemmas and opportunistic car salesmen, Butler unpacks Sartre's belief that self-deception involves a conscious choice to ignore reality for a favored fantasy.

In Sartre’s world, self-deception emerges as a fascinating dynamic where individuals knowingly choose a fairy tale over reality. Butler illustrates this through the 'transcendence-facticity duality,' where a person is aware of the facts yet opts to dwell in an imaginative realm of their own design. Consider the woman on a date, charmed by the man's demeanor while understanding the deeper, often primal intentions at play—a classic Sartrean conundrum.

Although comforting, self-deception can lead us astray, encasing us in bubbles of perpetual fantasy. This illusion of power helps us persist according to Sartre's interpretation. However, as Butler argues, it often results in an unrealistic confrontation with life, where dreams overshadow the truth. This reflection on Sartre’s philosophy encourages us to question whether our deceptive narratives truly aid us in the journey of life.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Self-Deception Jean-Paul Sartre, in 'Being and Nothingness,' explores the concept of self-deception, describing it as a form of lying. The chapter sets the foundation by suggesting that self-deception is a common aspect of daily life, hinting at underlying reasons to be explored further.
• 00:30 - 01:30: Nature of Lying and Truth The chapter discusses the relationship between lying and truthfulness, highlighting the necessity of knowing the truth to construct a lie. It presents an example where someone falsely claims it will rain, fully knowing it will be sunny, thereby illustrating the concept of lying as contingent upon an understanding of the truth.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Sartre's Rejection of Freudian Idea Jean-Paul Sartre explores the concept of lying, distinguishing between accidental misinformation and intentional deception. He asserts that when it comes to self-deception, the issue becomes more complicated. Sartre critiques the popular Freudian notion, prevalent during his era, which suggests that subconscious forces govern our actions. Instead, Sartre emphasizes conscious decision-making and personal responsibility in understanding human behavior.
• 02:00 - 03:00: Gestalt Perspective on Intentions The chapter discusses the concept of consciousness, describing it as encompassing everything we are aware of. The term 'ego' is explored as a subconscious element housing our darker instincts and primal desires. It emphasizes the idea that at our core, we have an animalistic consciousness driven by fundamental desires, some of which may be considered undesirable or primal.
• 04:30 - 05:30: Example of Romantic Date and Self-Deception The chapter explores Freud's concept of self-deception. It discusses how in mainstream society, individuals adjust their egos to fit in socially, often suppressing their subconscious desires (the id). Freud suggested that self-deception involves concealing one's true feelings to align with societal norms.
• 05:30 - 07:30: Self-Deception in Evolutionary Context The chapter discusses the concepts of self-deception from an evolutionary perspective. It examines Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theories, particularly focusing on the roles of the id and ego in shaping intentions and perceptions.
• 12:00 - 17:30: The Salesman and Charm as a Tool for Deception This chapter explores the concept of subconscious intentions and how they are often revealed through a person's body language, such as posture, expression, and gestures. Despite the individual's lack of awareness of these intentions, they can be observed and pointed out by others. The underlying theme is the potential for charm to be used as a deceptive tool, with the real intentions being subconsciously communicated through non-verbal cues.
• 17:30 - 19:30: Transcendence and Facticity Duality The chapter explores the concept of duality between transcendence and facticity. It delves into the difference between an individual's conscious intentions and their unconscious motivations, illustrated by the example of someone who appears generous to gain social capital rather than from genuine kindness. This highlights the division between self-perception and underlying intent.
• 19:30 - 24:30: Purpose of Telling Ourselves Lies The chapter delves into the concept of self-deception and how individuals often lie to themselves about their true nature. This self-deception is evident and obvious, yet people generally require someone else to point it out to them. This misalignment between perceived and actual self leads to neurosis, where individuals navigate life perceiving themselves as one type of person while they are actually quite different. The chapter references Sartre to illustrate these ideas, highlighting the complexity and commonality of self-imposed illusions.
• 24:30 - 27:00: Impact of Self-Deception on Reality The chapter titled 'Impact of Self-Deception on Reality' discusses the role of self-deception in human interactions, particularly in the context of dating. It touches upon the themes presented in evolutionary psychology to explain behaviors and dynamics that occur during such social interactions. The chapter begins with an example that is acknowledged to be politically incorrect by today's standards but serves as a demonstration of the concepts discussed. It focuses mainly on a traditional male-female dating scenario, while mentioning the uncertainty of these dynamics in same-sex dating.
• 27:00 - 31:00: Deeper Levels of Self-Deception The chapter "Deeper Levels of Self-Deception" explores the dynamics of self-deception in human relationships. Using a classic example of a man and a woman on a date, it examines the man's intentions, highlighting sex as the primary motive. It acknowledges objections that the man might have other goals, such as seeking companionship or like-minded conversation, but suggests these could also be obtained from male friends, indicating the specific interest in the female is predominately sexual.
• 31:30 - 32:00: Conclusion on Self-Deception and Survival The chapter discusses the theme of self-deception in social interactions, exemplified by a dinner scenario where a man's intentions are clear, but such intentions are often masked by mutual self-deception. The chapter implies that acknowledging such truths can be too harsh, causing individuals to deceive themselves to maintain comfort in social dynamics.

Jean-Paul Sartre on Self Deception Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 for most of us self-deception is our daily bread there are reasons for that which i'll get on to later but in his major work being in nothingness jean-paul sartre dedicated a fairly large section to uh the nature of self-deception now self-deception obviously is a form of lie um when we lie to other people
• 00:30 - 01:00 the horrible fact of the matter is that we know the truth in order to lie you have to know the truth so if you tell someone that um i don't know uh it's going to rain today and you know damn well it's going to be sunny then you can only call that a lie because of the fact that you know it's going to be sunny [Applause]
• 01:00 - 01:30 saying something out of error isn't a lie but knowing the truth and deliberately conveying information that goes against that truth is is a lie now when it comes to ourselves the whole situation gets a lot more complex sartre rejects the fashionable idea of the time which was freud's idea that we have
• 01:30 - 02:00 a consciousness uh consciousness being everything we are conscious of uh he called this ego a subconscious where dark and um fairly nasty things line waiting our the it is our kind of animal consciousness it's our basic desires and because our basic desires are not
• 02:00 - 02:30 uh tolerable in mainstream society then we have an ego that more or less fine-tunes for existence in society and the id which is this subconsciousness kind of gets hidden away and so freud's notion of self-deception was that we hide away our real feelings and
• 02:30 - 03:00 intentions in the id and the ego paints its own picture of things as i say sartre rejected this because he didn't think it was correct basically and actually movements in psychoanalysis that came after freud notably gestalt similarly didn't really believe in his
• 03:00 - 03:30 subconscious in gestalt it was always believed that our real intentions are always visible particularly in the body person's posture their expression their gestures all of those things betray real intentions although a person may not be aware of those written intentions and typically it requires a another person to point out gently or otherwise what a
• 03:30 - 04:00 person is really intending when they do something rather than what they pretend and of course this um this division between what we're conscious of oh i'm a nice generous kind person and the real intention which is i want people to think i'm a nice person because that gives me some social capital those two intentions the unconscious one and the conscious
• 04:00 - 04:30 one are in gestalt all plainly plainly available to see but people typically need someone to point it out to them and it creates neurosis so we're all neurotic wandering around thinking that we're one thing when in reality we're something quite different anyway um to illustrate this sartre gives an
• 04:30 - 05:00 example which is i suppose a bit politically incorrect these days but well to hell with that um if you read evolutionary psychology you'll be able to validate a lot of what he says in this example so he gives the example of a couple that have gone out for dinner it's a date a man and a woman i don't know if these dynamics apply to same-sex dating but
• 05:00 - 05:30 let's go to the archetypal example of a man and a woman out for a date now as sartre says the man's intentions are pretty clear he wants sex and you may object to that you know maybe he wants a few more things maybe he wants some companionship maybe he wants someone with a like mind but ultimately you can probably get that from other males it doesn't need to take a female out
• 05:30 - 06:00 to dinner to to get that so they're out at dinner um the man basically wants sex now where the self-deception comes in is that the woman actually knows this but that brutal fact is just too hard for us to acknowledge might not be quite the same these days but usually it is
• 06:00 - 06:30 and let me just go into a little bit of evolutionary psychology so you get a context for this according to evolutionary psychology men basically want to distribute their seed their sperms as widely as possible it's an expression of power it's the need to procreate
• 06:30 - 07:00 why not procreate with as many women as possible because that extends your power your genes get passed on to way more children if you can get away with it the british prime minister seems to have got away with it and the woman on the other hand so the man's looking for sex the woman is looking for resources you know shock horror so don't shoot me i'm just the messenger
• 07:00 - 07:30 typically women are attracted to men that are resourceful and have resources so the woman is looking for someone usually to create a nest now again the woman may not be able to accept this about herself so the self-deception may be oh i just want sex but women women never or very rarely just want sex they're
• 07:30 - 08:00 looking for a man who's capable who's resourceful for those kind of things i mean it's very easy to see that that's the case because the whole dining effort is the man's attempt to display that he has resources and typically men lie about their resourcefulness and their position at work and how much money they have and all the rest of it so they'll buy a reasonably impressive
• 08:00 - 08:30 motor vehicle to try and impress they'll buy maybe an expensive wine at the dinner just to try and impress but ultimately the man just wants sex the woman wants wants resources why well because you know the basic biology is that the woman is the bearer of new life she wants a stable environment in which to do that she wants a nest so this these dynamics are fairly um right pickings
• 08:30 - 09:00 for self-deception the man may not even admit to himself that all he wants is sex the woman may not admit to herself that all she wants is resources anyway they go out for dinner the woman and sartre focuses on the self-deception of the woman the woman is there enjoying maybe the conversation
• 09:00 - 09:30 and the uh the nice food and whatever but she cannot and will not accept to herself that all this flattery that maybe is coming from the male all this uh attention and so on is geared towards one thing it's just too brutal for her to accept and so what she does is she effectively in her mind believes that this is all about how
• 09:30 - 10:00 wonderful she is uh how caring and considerate the man is and so on and so forth and so she deceives herself the the fact that she really knows what's going on is kind of hidden away it's not the subconscious as such she's there she knows it but she's lying to herself and i'll tell you why she's like to herself
• 10:00 - 10:30 later anyway sartre goes on to say well you know if the man so they're out for dinner it's the first date and the man reaches over and touches her hand which is obviously an attempt to um trying to try and invoke some kind of intimacy the woman will see this as just a um a gesture that in a way she cannot acknowledge
• 10:30 - 11:00 because it's a i think it's a further move towards phys physical intimacy and so as sartre says you know she may just leave her hand there she may pull it away if she doesn't want that kind of intimacy but she may leave her hand there and be focusing on the other stuff the romance of the situation and so on and so there's a self-deception she knows why the man is there she knows why
• 11:00 - 11:30 he's taking her out for dinner she knows what the gesture is of touching her hand but she's not she doesn't want to know that what she wants to know or what she wants to tell herself is a lie about the intentions of this man of being kind and caring and women need kind and caring men because they need
• 11:30 - 12:00 that as a stable environment or stable background in which to raise children so as i say don't shoot me i'm just the messenger um a similar situation this is not one that satra talks about but it's the same thing the salesman say you're going to buy a secondhand car um and by the way uh
• 12:00 - 12:30 the man in the dating situation the salesman are always going to use one weapon more than anything else and it's called charm and as um nasim talab says charm isn't it is an inoffensive way of causing someone harm remember that when an in whenever anybody is being charming
• 12:30 - 13:00 it's because they want something and they know that without the charm they're not going to get it so we go back to the salesman the salesman um knows his his trade you go there he's not going well if he's a skill salesman he's not going to immediately show you the biggest pile of crap and as you ask you for as much money as he can get he's going to try and befriend you he's
• 13:00 - 13:30 going to be charming he's going to show your attention he's going to ask you about your kids if you've got kids or he's going to ask you about what you're doing that day or is going to ask you anything just to try and get some kind of empathic feeling going between the two of you i mean of course for him it's not empathic it's just manipulation but you may be flattered by the attention you may be flattered by his jokes you may be flattered by
• 13:30 - 14:00 his um his interest in who you are and what you do and then eventually you'll get round to showing you this pile of junk that is trying to sell and his aim is to sell you the worst possible the lowest value possible thing for the highest possible value or highest possible price so you know he shows you a pile of junk it's worth two thousand dollars and um he says look um
• 14:00 - 14:30 you know i really like you or something uh i can do you this for ten thousand dollars yeah i'm gonna have to go and speak to my manager about it because really i should be asking fifteen he'll come out with some crap like that and he'll disappear for two minutes and he'll come back saying oh god i'm gonna lose my job if i keep doing this but yeah i can get this for ten thousand dollars and all that kind of nonsense will go on and same with the dating situation
• 14:30 - 15:00 as the buyer of the car you know in your mind in your reasoning mind that this guy wants as much money from you for the biggest pile of crap that he can sell you that's the way it works and you know that your reasoning mind can tell you that but you don't want to hear that because this guy has just been flattering you he's shown you a lot of attention he's shared a few jokes with you
• 15:00 - 15:30 sartre so just back to the salesman you may buy this pile of junk because you're overwhelmed with the salesman's charm and he has in the most charming way inflicted harm upon you because once you've got this pile of junk you can't then sell it to anybody for the ten thousand dollars that you've just paid for it
• 15:30 - 16:00 uh sartre describes this this duality of as knowing what's going on but not wanting to accept it and instead wanting to accept the fairy tale version of what's going on as the transcend transcendence fact god i can't read it the transcendence facticity duality transcendence is
• 16:00 - 16:30 in the term that uh sartre is using it here transcendence is not some spiritual thing or anything it's basically something that doesn't exist the facticity is you know the fact about the salesman he's going to be charming he's going to try and screw as much money out of you as possible and he's going to sell you something that he can't normally get rid of properly you know that as a fact the transcendence is oh this man's so charming so lovely oh he's
• 16:30 - 17:00 got me a special deal and he's made me feel special and all those kind of things so the transcendence facticity duality the fact the transcendence is you're believing in some kind of fairy tale the factity is you know but yet you will deceive yourself and this deception self-deception doesn't necessarily have to involve other people in this kind of
• 17:00 - 17:30 way it can be you telling yourself that um you're the smartest person you know and you tell yourself that for a very specific reason when in actual fact you know that actually you're not all that smart and you will tell yourself this story about being smart just to boost yourself up in some way anyway all this uh transcendence and facticity
• 17:30 - 18:00 that sacha talks about is understandable again from evolutionary psychology or from looking at some of the old some of the older philosophers particularly spinoza we tell ourselves these stories because they give us a feeling of power and what kind of power well the power to persist in our existence the power to
• 18:00 - 18:30 continue surviving as well as we possibly can it's much better to tell yourself a story about how smart you are and how charming you are because that will make you feel good when the reality is that you're not particularly charming and you're not particularly smart and in the example of the couple out for dinner the the woman will tell herself the lie that this man is caring and sharing and all that kind of stuff
• 18:30 - 19:00 because that's what she's looking for she's looking for someone who is resourceful and has resources to provide a nest uh i should say that i've seen that in reverse i've seen men looking for a woman who's resourceful and has resources to provide the nest and the man will become the effectively um caregiver for the kids
• 19:00 - 19:30 so it's not necessarily male female it's just the roles you know the roles can swap anyway the bottom line is that uh the woman is not looking for someone to have sex with her and then just you know move on the next day i mean women do but ultimately they're looking for a man who's resourceful and has resources so they will tell themselves lies about his intention the fact is that the factity is um
• 19:30 - 20:00 sartre will call it or called it is that she knows he just wants sex the transcendence is that it's a whole fairy tale about you know what this guy might provide and all that kind of thing how caring he is and so on so we tell ourselves lies all kinds of lies so that we feel better in life the
• 20:00 - 20:30 problem is that these lies very often don't serve us very well so in the example of the salesman you know he's your new buddy until he takes the money off you for the woman she may decide that um you know she wants sex with this guy and then be disappointed because you know he was just some jerk who charmed and uh flattered his way into that situation
• 20:30 - 21:00 so the self-deception doesn't really serve us we end up not dealing with reality but with our dreams um there are deeper levels of self-deception i mean very briefly because this has gone on long enough uh we can deceive ourselves that we are a person it's a much deeper consideration
• 21:00 - 21:30 instead of the reality that we are just a set of experiences anyway self-deception is part of our makeup it isn't all always in fact very often isn't a very useful thing for us to do but we do it because we're driven by the survival drive and we will do anything and believe anything that we believe enhances our
• 21:30 - 22:00 survival prospects