Being and Nothingness

⚖The case for it

Existence precedes essence: you are not born with a nature, you create one through choices. Sartre's analysis of consciousness, bad faith, the look of the Other, and radical freedom is existentialism's central philosophical statement. Written during the German Occupation, it's philosophy forged under pressure. 'Man is condemned to be free.' The waiter playing at being a waiter is everyone you've ever met.

— the canon

✕The case against

Seven hundred pages of phenomenological ontology supporting insights the waiter and the keyhole deliver in five. Sartre denies the unconscious, holds you responsible for everything down to your own emotions, and the ethics promised on the final page never got written. The anecdotes are immortal; the ontology wrapped around them is a slog, and Being-in-itself versus Being-for-itself does a lot of repetitive lifting.

— the honest librarian