Sartre's Two Worlds

Within his essay “Freedom and Facticity: The Situation”, Sartre establishes that reality – as far as the “being-for-itself” is concerned – is not based in absolute facticity, or “brute” things. Instead the reality of a conscious being is shaped in part by its freedom. This is well within the liking of Sartre’s previously established principle that the conscious being is absolutely free. Following this path of logic, it is then established that an individual’s freedom interacts with its perceptions of its environment, and beyond into the whole extent of its reality. (However, freedom does not negate “brute existents” – the facticity of things. It can only go so far as to have them go unnoticed by the individual.)

Using this understanding, Sartre implies there is a reality contained of only “brute existents,” as well as the reality perceived by each “being-for-itself” which is manipulated almost entirely by that being’s freedom. These two existences are inseparable, as they exist in the same time and space. They cannot negate one another – just as an individual cannot transcended its facticity absolutely and its transcendence can never be absolutely denied by the same facticity; a person’s freedom is not absolute, but a person is always free.

Therefore are therefore intrinsic and compose what can be described as human experience in which freedom is the defining component. Even to feel this notion is to acknowledge that it is part of your existence following the logic of Sartre, for it is through freedom that you can attempt to flee it in anyway. Freedom, therefore, not only provides an understanding of reality for the conscious being, but influences its entire perception of brute things. This, in turn, allows an individual’s freedom to ascribe meaning to the facticity of its existence.

All these components create what is known as “the situation.” It is within “the situation” that is becomes impossible to discern the influence of freedom on the “brute existents” of reality.

At this point, I wish to interject my own consideration on this mediation of what is essentially the human experience. If our realities are defined in part by our freedom and the actual facticity of existence, how is “the situation” every truly escapable? Is there every a time in which a person can absolutely understand, without a doubt, the line between the components of their reality drawn from their freedom, and those parts which are unable to be changed – no matter how they are attempted to be perceived?

I would very much appreciate any opinion. I might just not be getting it and would be happy to hear it made more clear. Thank you.