Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, and political activist who was the leading figure of existentialism and one of the most prominent intellectuals of the 20th century. His thesis that 'existence precedes essence' — that human beings have no predetermined nature and must create themselves through free choice — and his analysis of bad faith, radical freedom, and the fundamental structures of consciousness made existentialism a worldwide cultural phenomenon.
Key Ideas
Key Contributions
- ● Articulated the central thesis of existentialism: existence precedes essence — human beings have no predetermined nature and must create themselves through free choice
- ● Developed the concept of bad faith (mauvaise foi) — the self-deceptive denial of one's own freedom
- ● Analyzed consciousness as pure nothingness (néant) — a lack of being that is the source of human freedom
- ● Distinguished between being-in-itself (en-soi, the mode of being of objects) and being-for-itself (pour-soi, the mode of being of consciousness)
- ● Developed the concept of the 'look' (le regard) — how the gaze of the other objectifies and threatens my freedom
- ● Articulated the doctrine of radical responsibility: since we are free, we are responsible for everything we do and are
Core Questions
Key Claims
- ✓ Existence precedes essence — there is no human nature; we are what we make of ourselves
- ✓ Man is condemned to be free — we did not choose to exist, but once we exist, we are responsible for everything we do
- ✓ Consciousness is nothingness — it is not a thing but a lack, a nihilation, and this nothingness is the source of freedom
- ✓ Bad faith is the attempt to deny one's own freedom by treating oneself as a fixed object
- ✓ Hell is other people — the look of the other objectifies me and threatens my freedom
- ✓ We are always choosing, and even not choosing is a choice — there is no escape from freedom and responsibility
Biography
Life
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was born on June 21, 1905, in Paris. He studied philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure, where he met Simone de Beauvoir, who became his lifelong intellectual partner. He studied Husserl and Heidegger in Berlin (1933–1934), and his philosophical novel Nausea (1938) established him as a literary figure.
His major philosophical work, Being and Nothingness (L'Être et le Néant, 1943), written during the German occupation of Paris, developed a comprehensive existentialist philosophy. After the war, Sartre became the most famous intellectual in the world, championing political causes from anti-colonialism to Marxism. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964 but refused it. He died on April 15, 1980; 50,000 people attended his funeral.
Legacy
Sartre's existentialism, his concept of radical freedom, and his model of the politically engaged intellectual have had immeasurable influence on philosophy, literature, and political culture.
Methods
Notable Quotes
"{'text': 'Existence precedes essence.', 'source': 'Existentialism Is a Humanism', 'year': 1946}"
"{'text': 'Man is condemned to be free.', 'source': 'Existentialism Is a Humanism', 'year': 1946}"
"{'text': 'Hell is other people.', 'source': 'No Exit (Huis clos)', 'year': 1944}"
"{'text': 'Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.', 'source': 'Nausea', 'year': 1938}"
"{'text': 'Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.', 'source': 'attributed, various compilations', 'year': None}"
Major Works
- Nausea Book (1938)
- Being and Nothingness Treatise (1943)
- No Exit Book (1944)
- Existentialism Is a Humanism Lecture (1946)
- Critique of Dialectical Reason Treatise (1960)
Influenced
- Simone de Beauvoir · influence
- Frantz Fanon · influence
Influenced by
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel · influence
- Søren Kierkegaard · influence
- Karl Marx · influence
- Friedrich Nietzsche · influence
- Edmund Husserl · influence
- Martin Heidegger · influence
Sources
- Being and Nothingness (trans. Hazel Barnes)
- Sartre by Jonathan Webber (Routledge)
- The Cambridge Companion to Sartre (ed. Christina Howells)
External Links
Translations
Discussions
No discussions yet.