As if Sartre didn't produce enough words all by himself!
ChatGPT's response to the following prompt is instructive for those of us who are concerned about ChatGPT being used to cheat. Read past the content of the answer to notice the made-up citations. The "consciousness is a question..." line is in fact in the Barnes translation of Being and Nothingness, but is actually a term in the glossary provided by the translator (so it's not on p. 60 - it's on p. 629). Where did the AI find this? I'm guessing on the Wikipedia page for the book, which has a "special terms" section that includes the quote (and attributes it to Barnes. I should add as an aside that Barnes puts it in quote marks, but doesn't reference any source). The "separation" quote is, as far as I can tell, made up whole cloth. It does sound vaguely Sartrean, but it doesn't appear to be in the Barnes translation, and I can't find it on Google. It's also worth pointing out that neither quote is from the section about the cafe - both page numbers are from the bad faith discussion.
I don't doubt that LLMs will get better (etc etc etc) but for now, bogus citations are a well-known hallmark of ChatGPT. Watch it make-up quotes from Foucault (and generally cause him to turn over in his grave) here.
Prompt:
Please write 300-400 words to answer the following prompt: Sartre famously uses a figure/ground analysis of a café to explain nihilation. Explain Sartre's argument and what he means by nihilation. How does this argument show that nihilation is an originary part of experience, and not just a grammatical/logical point? Cite the text twice.
Response:
Jean-Paul Sartre was a prominent philosopher in the 20th century who sought to understand the nature of human consciousness and experience. One of his key concepts was "nihilation," which he famously illustrated using the figure/ground analysis of a café in his work "Being and Nothingness."
In this analysis, Sartre describes a person sitting in a café, observing the objects around them, such as tables, chairs, and other people. These objects form the "figure" of the experience, or what is in the foreground of the person's awareness. However, Sartre argues that there is also a "ground" to the experience, which is the person's own consciousness. This consciousness is not an object in the world like the tables and chairs, but rather the "nothingness" or "negativity" that allows the objects to appear in the first place.
Sartre writes, "Consciousness is a being such that in its being, its being is in question in so far as this being implies a being other than itself" (Sartre, "Being and Nothingness," p. 60). In other words, consciousness is always aware of something other than itself, and this awareness necessitates a kind of self-negation or "nihilation." Sartre argues that this nihilation is an essential aspect of consciousness and experience, as it allows for the objects of the world to appear in consciousness.
This argument shows that nihilation is not just a grammatical or logical point, but an originary part of experience. Sartre writes, "It is not we who make a separation between consciousness and being; on the contrary, this separation is essential to the existence of consciousness" (p. 66). In other words, the separation between consciousness and being is not something that we choose to do, but rather a necessary condition for consciousness to exist at all. This implies that nihilation is not something that can be overcome or eliminated, but rather a fundamental aspect of human experience.
Overall, Sartre's figure/ground analysis of a café is a powerful illustration of the concept of nihilation. By showing how consciousness is always aware of something other than itself, Sartre demonstrates that nihilation is an essential part of human experience. This argument also shows that nihilation is not just a grammatical or logical point, but a fundamental aspect of consciousness itself.
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