Sartre and the possibility of authentic love

Thesis

In 'Being and Nothingness', Jean-Paul Sartre claims that all love is doomed to failure. According to Sartre, love is a bad faith attempt to capture the Other’s freedom in order to secure for oneself a fixed nature. This thesis presents a novel argument for the possibility of authentic romantic love. I propose that the capacity for authentic romantic love is grounded in a prior experience of authentic love in early infancy.

Drawing on Sartre’s characterisation of the mother-child relationship in 'The Family Idiot', I argue that mother and infant exist in an ambiguous union; a relation where the boundaries between self and Other are in a process of becoming. The infant’s original awareness of the Other as a subject is acquired through being the object of a loving Look. This Look, since it is non-conflictual, allows for an authentic relation of mutual comprehension to develop between mother and child.

However, as the child matures, she comes to realise her ontological separation from the Other; this, combined with her socialisation into bad faith, is what makes the Look turn hostile. Alienated by the Other’s Look, the child takes up the bad faith project of trying to capture the Other’s freedom, causing relations with others to become conflictual.

I argue that authentic romantic love is the result of a dialectical movement that combines and surpasses the original ambiguous union and our alienated separation from the Other. In authentic love, the lovers comprehend each other as ambiguous beings whilst retaining an awareness of their ontological separation. This thesis therefore concludes that authentic romantic love is possible. I consider an implication of this for Sartre’s ontology: by tracing the ontological formation of the subject, we can enhance our understanding of being-for-the-Other.

Authors: Gibson, C

• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Love; Maternity; C20th French Philosophy; Phenomenology; Jean-Paul Sartre; Existentialism
• Subjects: Philosophy