Being and Nothingness

Structure and Organization

Jean-Paul Sartre's «Being and Nothingness», first published in 1943, is a fundamental work by the French philosopher and one of the key texts of existentialism. Structurally, the work is divided into four main parts, each of which includes several chapters exploring various aspects of the ontological question of being and nothingness, freedom, consciousness and self-awareness, as well as the relationships between subject and object. Sartre analyzes phenomenological and existential problems, using philosophical research methods proposed by thinkers such as Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, but brings his unique interpretation to them. Special attention in the work is given to the concepts of 'in-itself' and 'for-itself', as well as the question of the essence of nothingness and the role of bad faith as a fundamental human experience.