Sartre Says the Gamblers Betrayal of His Resolve Not to Gamble Again
There'southward a famous (though cursory) passage early on in Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Pettiness (originally published in 1943) in which the French philosopher uses the instance of a trouble gambler to help illustrate what he means by "nothingness" and how it differs from "beingness."
I suppose Sartre could've used a different instance to brand his betoken, but I tin can see a couple of reasons why he chose the gambler. For i, doing so enabled him to acknowledge in a subtle style the influence of Fyodor Dostoevsky. I've written here before virtually Dostoevsky'due south 19th-century novel The Gambler and his status as a thinker whose ideas helped provide some of the groundwork for modernistic existentialism. Dostoevsky was likewise himself an inveterate gambler -- indeed, Sartre is referring to the Russian writer's life (and not his fiction) when he brings him up here.
The example of a gambler who is trying to quit gambling besides demonstrates in a specially useful mode Sartre's argument about existence. In particular, speaking of a problem gambler helps Sartre conspicuously distinguish the divergence between who nosotros are and our ideas about who we are.
I'm probably asking for all sorts of problem, but I thought it'd exist worth trying to take a shot at presenting Sartre'due south gambler. My primary motive hither is just to try to sort out what Sartre is saying in order to understand information technology better myself. Merely I as well thought others might be interested, besides, equally some of what Sartre says most his gambler seems to prefigure certain ideas I've seen explored from fourth dimension to time in discussions of poker (both strategic and theoretical). That is to say, whether or not y'all buy Sartre's explanations of being, I think poker players might at least be somewhat intrigued by some of the diverse implications of what comes up in this here passage.
Gonna try to pull this off in three posts. In this start i, I'll meet if I tin can present in at least a semi-coherent way Sartre'due south full general argument about "being" and "nothingness" in club to give us a context for reading the passage. In the next post, I'll do my best to summarize what Sartre is maxim in that passage about the gambler. And so, in a 3rd mail service, I'll try to connect Sartre'south gambler to certain ideas I've seen specifically expressed by a few poker players.
Being and Pettiness
Existence and Nothingness is a big, thick, imposing volume. And making matters worse, it begins with a very hard-to-read introduction in which Sartre explains what he thinks "beingness" is. A lot of readers never become beyond the first few pages of this introduction. It's understandable -- the prose is very rough-going, and the arguments not actually as conclusive as what one finds elsewhere in the book.
Sartre starts out by rejecting "the dualism of advent and essence" that he says has long "embarrassed" philosophy. Co-ordinate to Sartre, there is no such thing as "essence" (or "soul" or a "noumenon" or whatever y'all desire to phone call that stuff that isn't really there but which many philosophers insist is somehow attainable to u.s.a.). No, says Sartre, "the existence of an existent is exactly what it appears." There is no "interior" or "secret reverse side" or whatsoever.
Of course, when it comes to the states poor humans, we accept this thing called "consciousness" that tends to complicate our experience of the world. Consciousness is what makes me unlike from, say, a poker flake or a playing card or all of the other stuff that exists but lacks consciousness.
Everything that exists -- me, the chip, the card -- has what Sartre calls "beingness-in-itself." Of each of these "existents" we can say "information technology is what it is." Just unlike the chip and the carte, I also accept consciousness, which means I am likewise aware of all sorts of stuff that is not -- i.eastward., that is not at that place, that is not me, etc.
This leads to a distinction that Sartre is willing to make, and which is adequately of import to everything else he has to say in Being and Nothingness. In that location's "being-in-itself," which I have, but which the fleck and the card have, too. That'southward a kind of beingness that is "unconscious" or "unaware." We can only say that "it is" and null more.
And then there'south "being-for-itself," which I take but which the carte du jour and chip do non -- namely, a kind of existence that is "conscious," but nosotros're not talking simply cocky-consciousness. Rather, says Sartre, "existence-for-itself" is "consciousness conceived as a lack of Being." To put it broadly, it is being conscious of what I am not. And that is "pettiness" -- the idea, I hateful, not the "being-for-itself." Pettiness not a type of beingness; rather, pettiness is brought into the globe past those of us who are conscious of our being.
So unlike a lot of before philosophers, Sartre is not a "substance dualist." There's just the i substance for Sartre, and that is "existence-in-itself."
Later that hard introduction, Sartre gets into function one of the volume where he addresses "The Problem of Nothingness" and this part is much more accessible. He presents some examples to illustrate nothingness. (This is the part of the volume where his discussion of the problem gambler comes in.)
Ane such example involves a person looking in his wallet and expecting to find i,500 francs, withal but seeing one,300. As he "experiences the absence" of 200 francs, Sartre would say, he "brings pettiness" into the world. He gives some other example of going to the café to meet his friend Pierre at four o'clock and discovering he isn't in that location. Once again, he experiences the absence of Pierre, or, to put it differently, he brings "pettiness" into the globe.
Notice how both of those examples involved expectations beingness foiled. In other words, unlike "being-in-itself" (that mode of being that exists without needing anyone to be aware of it), "nothingness" is wholly dependent on our awareness.
Sartre goes on to talk about some other aspects of pettiness, but I'grand going to leave it at that place. You can probably already encounter how this way of explaining our experience of the world -- talking about "being" (all the stuff in the world, including ourselves) and "nothingness" (all the stuff we imagine near the earth, including what we imagine nearly ourselves) -- potentially relates to poker.
As I said, in the next post I'll see if I can summarize Sartre'southward portrait of the gambler, and then add ane more where I'll try to make a connexion or ii to poker.
Labels: *by the book, Being and Nothingness, existentialism, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Jean-Paul Sartre, The Gambler
Source: http://hardboiledpoker.blogspot.com/2008/05/sartres-gambler-1-of-3.html
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