This episode is the first in what I hope will be a series in which I present and critique *Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology* by Jean-Paul Sartre, published in French in 1943. In writing these episodes, I hope to join a venerable tradition in philosophy in which a critique is not so much a negative review but rather a thoughtful interpretation which uses its source as a jumping-off point for a new philosophical position.