Others

Abstract

The subject of others draws out some of the most significant differences among existentialist thinkers. This chapter shows how consideration of others for some existentialists, including Sartre and Beauvoir, begins with separation and potential opposition between self and others, while for other existentialists, including Heidegger and Marcel, being with others is intrinsic to our very being. Marcel’s critique of Sartre’s hostile rendering of the self-other relation is considered, along with the apparent ability of Sartre and Beauvoir to account in existential terms for human oppression, and the merits of Camus’s notion of rebellion on behalf of the freedom of others.