Metin BAL, Sema SÖKMEN

SARTRE’S CONCEPTION OF ART GROUNDED ON HUMANIST EXISTENTIALISM AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL ONTOLOGY

This presentation would be considered as an attempt to introduce a new bridge between philosophy and art. The main problem of this presentation is “how can a conception of art grounded on humanist existentialism and phenomenological ontology be possible?” For the answer, this presentation concentrates on Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophy. Existentialism and phenomenology are the two influential concepts of contemporary philosophy. Sartre brings these two concepts together and develops a new type of existentialism. Answering the question “how would the existence of human being be without belief in the existence of God?” Sartre develops his humanist atheistic existentialism. Sartre’s existentialism indicates a new understanding of the human being that comes after the destruction of onto-theo-logical constitution of the conception of the human being essential to western metaphysics. Thus Sartre introduces the concept of “phenomenological ontology”. Throughout this presentation, the fundementals of Sartre’s conception of art are tried to be explored. By doing so demarcations between Sartre’s philosophy and his conception of art are tried to be shown. To sum up, firstly the root of existentialism in the history of philosophy is summed up. Then Sartre’s humanist atheistic existentialism is explained. And thirdly Sartre’s great contribution to the contemporary philosophy, namely “phenomenological ontology” is introduced. In the end a new idea of art formed by phenomenological ontology is tried to be explained.

Keywords:

Jean-Paul Sartre, existentialism, phenomenological ontology, philosophy of art, imaginary, work of art plays, novels,

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