JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

Existentialism23and it is not possible that it should not have existed: It is and it could not failto be. Roquentin sees that existence is contingent. Although what is is, thereis no reason for it to be: ‘The essential thing is contingency. I mean that, bydefinition, existence is not necessity’ (ibid., p. 188). From the fact thatsomething is it does not logically follow that it necessarily is. However,conversely, it does not logically follow that what exists exists contingentlyeither. Nobody from Parmenides to Heidegger has managed to provide‘existence’ with an adequate definition. What is existence? is an unsolvedphilosophical problem. So is whether what is has to be or could have notbeen.If everything that exists exists contingently and if Roquentin exists then itfollows that Roquentin exists contingently. It strikes Roquentin with the forceof a revelation ‘I too was superfluous’ (ibid., p. 184). The realisation thatthere is no necessity for his own existence produces in him a profoundanxiety: ‘I hadn’t any right to exist. I had appeared by chance, I existed like astone, a plant, a microbe’ (ibid., p. 124). The expression translated as‘superfluous’ here is ‘de trop’. ‘De trop’ also means ‘too much’ and ‘être detrop’ has the sense of ‘to be in the way’ or ‘unwelcome’. Roquentin is atonce fascinated and disgusted by there being no reason, no justification, forhis own existence.Not only is existence contingent for Roquentin but essence is contingentalso. It is a contingent fact about the things that are that they are what theyare. Everything could be other than what it is. Indeed, this is the force ofRoquentin’s surrealistic interpretations of his experiences. The tram seatand his own hand are seen as animals. Anything, including himself, can beother than what it is.Once essence is seen as illusion Roquentin realises that only particularthings exist, in all their uniqueness and individuality. In other words,Roquentin suddenly sees the world as if conceptualism or nominalismwere true. Conceptualism and nominalism are both solutions to the problemof universals which is that of stating what generality consists in, or what it isfor there to be types or sorts of things. According to nominalism, generalityonly belongs to language. According to conceptualism, generality belongsonly to our conceptual scheme, to our modes of classification. On boththeories there are not kinds or sorts of things outside language or concepts.The world is not already objectively divided up. We divide it up linguisticallyor conceptually by imposing an organising framework upon it. In Roquentin’s