It’s because we are not only human reality [Dasein] as Heidegger believes.
We are a transcendental consciousnessthat makes itselfhuman reality”
(CDG 138 – 139 , emphasis his). Heidegger famously abstains from refer-
ence to consciousness, transcendental or otherwise, in his masterwork
whereas the Husserl that Sartre knew showed little interest in historicity.
The term that will capture this aspect of authenticity will be
“commitment,” which Sartre has yet to employ. But it will satisfy neither
Husserlian intellectualism nor Heideggerian voluntarism.^22
Freedom and nothingnessSartre has become known as the philosopher of freedom. Indeed,
“freedom” has plausibly been proposed as the principal, if not the only,
value that he embraces. If one allows for the gradual “thickening” of that
value to include more than the “Stoic” freedom that is the definition of the
human as in the expression “I am condemned to be free” (BN 439 )and
includes the concrete socioeconomic freedom that Isaiah Berlin famously
denoted “positive liberty” – under these conditions, the ascription rings
true.^23 But the linking of freedom with nothingness is peculiarly Sartrean.
He admits having learned it from Heidegger who, he discovers while in
the army, drew considerably upon Kierkegaard. Reflecting on a text of
Kierkegaard’s,The Concept of Dread– “the relation of dread to its object,
to something which is nothing (language in this instance is also pregnant:
it speaks of being in dread of nothing)” – Sartre remarks: “The influence
upon Heidegger is clear: use of the stock phrase ‘to be in dread of nothing’
is found word for word inSein und Zeit. But it’s true that for Heidegger
anguish is anguish-at-Nothingness, which is not Nothing but, as [Jean]
Wahl says, ‘a cosmic fact against which existence stands out.’ Whereas, for
Kierkegaard,” Sartre insists, “it’s a question of ‘a psychological anguish’
and a ‘nothing that is in the mind.’ This nothing, in short, is possibility...
It’s there...as a sign of freedom” (March 18 , 1920 ,WD 131 ).
Sartre introduces the expression “to nihilate” as distinct from “to
annihilate” to denote what we may call the “othering” character of the
(^22) I use these terms realizing that both adjectives are disputed when applied to each
23 philosopher.
Isaiah Berlin,Four Essays on Liberty(Oxford University Press, 1969 ), “Two Concepts of
Freedom.”
Authenticity: initial sketches 171