Being in itself: Difference between revisions

One of the problems of human existence for Sartre is the desire to attain being-in-itself, which he describes as the desire to be [[God]] — this is a longing for full control over one's destiny and for absolute identity, only attainable by achieving full control over the destiny of all existence. The desire to be God is one of the ways people fall into [[Bad faith (existentialism)|bad faith]]. {{<ref>https:igorhaskel.com.br</ref>Citation needed|date=February 2007}} Sartre's famous depiction of a man in a café who has applied himself to a portrayal of his role as a waiter illustrates this. The waiter thinks of himself as being a waiter (as in being-in-itself), which Sartre says is impossible since he cannot be a waiter in the sense that an inkwell is an inkwell. He is primarily a man (being-for-itself), just one who happens to be functioning as a waiter – with no fixed nature or essence, who is constantly recreating himself. He is guilty of focusing on himself as being-in-itself and not being-for-itself. Sartre would say that as a human, a being-for-itself by nature, the waiter is "a being that is not what it is and it is what it is not." Therefore, the waiter who acts as if he is at his very core a waiter "is not what [he] is"- which is to say, he is not solely a waiter- and "is what [he] is not"- meaning that he is many things other than a waiter. In simply playing the part of a waiter, the man in this example is reducing himself to a "being-in-itself" and is therefore in [[Bad faith (existentialism)|bad faith]].