Sartre on questioning versus the curse of bad faith: The educational challenge

Abstract

Few educators and philosophers of education have discussed how to challenge the curse of bad faith that Sartre describes as central to human existence. This essay suggests that in pointing out that “consciousness is a being such that in its being, its being is in question in so far as its being implies a being other than itself” Sartre has suggested that questioning is ontologically primary and that by radical questioning a person can challenge bad faith. The educational challenge of assuming a manner of existence that will choose questioning over bad faith is described with the help of Sartre's novel Nausea and the ontology developed in Being and Nothingness.