In Part 1, we explicate Jean-Paul Sartre's attempt to build a total existential system hinges on an unusual account of the evanescent character of consciousness at the heart of the meaning of existence. In this episode, we cover the first half of Sartre's monumental work, Being and Nothingness, explaining core concepts derived from his philosophical progenitors found in Husserlian phenomenology and Heideggerian Existenz philosophy. After discussing Sartre's creative appropriations of these thinkers, we discuss the role of ontological nothingness, consciousness as a transcendence-within-immanence, bad faith, and ethical anguish. These concepts form the backbone of Sartre's unique system of phenomenological ontology that purports to avoid the pitfalls of subjective idealism and naive realism and instead deliver both the reality of consciousness and the world upon which it stamps its meaning and values.


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