Jean Paul Sartre's Views of Perception

Before beginning a discussion of Jean Paul Sartre's views on the importance of different types of perception the focus of this paper it will be useful to lay a groundwork that covers the basic overall philosophy of this great French thinker, dramatist, novelist, and political journalist, for his writings about perception are not in any way ancillary to his major philosophical contributions but lie at the core of his theoretical and political positions.

Sartre, who was born in Paris, June 21, 1905, and educated at the +c(le Normale SupTrieure in Paris, the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, and the French Institute in Berlin, taught philosophy at various lycTes (essentially analogous to American high schools) from 1929 until the outbreak of World War II, when he was called into military service. In 1940-41 he was imprisoned by the Germans; after his release, he taught in Neuilly, France, and later in Paris, and was active in the French Resistance.

The German authorities, unaware of his underground activities, permitted the production of his antiauthoritarian play The Flies in 1943 and the publication of his major philosophical work Being and Nothingness that same year. His experiences during the war deeply influenced his writings and thinking until he died, in 1980.

Sartre gave up teaching in 1945 and founded the political and literary magazine Les Temps Modernes, of which he became editor in chief. Sartre was active after 1947 as an independent socialist, cri

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ess, there remains a distinction between the real and the perception of it. "The schizophrenic knows quite well that the objects with which he surrounds himself are unreal; it is for that very reason that he makes them appear" (Sartre, 1962, pp. 190-1). In Being and Nothingness, Sartre also takes up the complex (because so self-referential) topic of the perception of one's own body. He recognizes this as a particularly difficult issue for the philosopher arguing for a distinction between perception and reality, for our knowledge of the structure of our own bodies is dependent on the perception of them by our bodily organs of perception (Manser, 1966, p. 81). This is further complicated by the fact that we tend to perceive ourselves not only through our own senses but as a reflection of the ways that other people see us. Sartre addresses the problem in this way: My perception of the other's sense-organs is the foundation for an explanation of sensations and in particular of my sensations; but, reciprocally, my sensations so conceived constitute the sole reality of my perceptions of the other's sense-organs � In appearance the structure of the classical theory of sensation is exactly that of the argument of the liar (Sartre,

Category: Philosophy - J