le regard
Sartre: being seen by another turns me into an object for them, and thereby reveals that they are a subject.
In lecture order, as Marci Shore presents each view. The time opens that minute of the lecture on YouTube.
Shore's plug for Stein: much of what later made Sartre famous appears in her dissertation years earlier. She is not saying he stole it, and grants he writes more elegantly.
Being looked at makes me someone's object, and that very fact brings home that the looker is a subject. In Sartre's words, "I cannot be an object for an object."
Put simply Sartre: when someone looks at me, I become an object for them. Only a subject can make me an object, so that is how I discover the looker is a person, not a thing.
Levinas's Other calls to me where Sartre's looks at me, Shore observes: the call is a summons to responsibility, a demand that the I account for itself.
Put simply Shore: Sartre's other person looks at me; Levinas's other person calls on me, asking me to take responsibility and account for myself.
Links from these claims to others in the course. Each shows the earlier claim, then the later one that answers it. “Our inference” marks a link Shore does not state outright.
SteinEmpathy does more than reveal others, Stein argues: it hands me my own self, teaching me that other subjects take me as their object, in body and psyche alike. L17 · 26:48
SartreBeing looked at makes me someone's object, and that very fact brings home that the looker is a subject. In Sartre's words, "I cannot be an object for an object." L17 · 32:07
Shore says Sartre takes up Stein's idea that I am an object for other subjects; she does not claim direct borrowing.
HegelOn one reading, a master is master only through a slave's acknowledgment, yet only subjects can recognize, and he has made the slave a thing; hence his permanent dissatisfaction. L4 · 43:04
SartreBeing looked at makes me someone's object, and that very fact brings home that the looker is a subject. In Sartre's words, "I cannot be an object for an object." L17 · 32:07
Only a subject can objectify me; like Hegel's master, the gaze needs the other as subject.Our inference
Throughlines that pass through one of these claims.
Terms that appear in the same claims.