LIBERTATEA DE CONȘTIINȚĂ
Freedom of Conscience

Summary/Abstract: The basis of Sartrean freedom is ontological: we are free because we are not a self (an in-itself ) but a presence-to-self (the transcendence or “nihilation” of our self ). This implies that we are “other” to our selves, that whatever we are or whatever others may ascribe to us, we are “in the manner of not being it,” that is, in the manner of being able to assume a perspective in its regard. This inner distance reflects not only the nonself-identity of the for-itself and the ekstatic temporality that it generates but forms the site of what Sartre calls “freedom as the definition of man.” To that freedom corresponds a coextensive responsibility. We are responsible for our “world” as the horizon of meaning in which we operate and thus for everything in it insofar as their meaning and value are assigned by virtue of our life-orienting fundamental “choice.” At this point the ontological and the psychological overlap while remaining distinct as occurs so often in phenomenology.

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