Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Sartre's philosophy
Jean paul sartre essays
Jean paul sartre essays
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
John Paul Sartre
John Paul Sartre is known as one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. He wrote many philosophical works novels and plays. Much of his work is tied into politics. The essay Existentialism is a Humanism is just one of his many works. Existentialism is a Humanism is a political essay that was written in 1945. Its purpose was to address a small public during World War II in Nazi occupied France. This essay stressed the public not to conform. Sartre introduced a great number of philosophical concepts in Existentialism. Two of these concepts are anguish and forlornness. They are simply defined, as anguish is feeling responsible for yourself as well as others and knowing that your actions affect others and forlornness is realizing that you are alone in your decisions. These two concepts are interwoven throughout the essay and throughout many of Sartre's other works. Sartre's view of anguish and forlornness in Existentialism is a Humanism addresses his view of life and man.
Sartre based his views on the basic ideas of existentialism. The idea that existence precedes essence is the central factor in the atheistic view of man. The belief that existence precedes essence states that there is "no pre-existing concept of man." (2) In the existentialist view, man is what he makes of himself.
They believe that man was indefinable at first; "he first appears, then defines himself." (1) There are no set plans as to how a man must live. He must make his own decisions and move towards his future with no help [from the outside world. The main idea of existential is what Sartre simply stated as…"I am responsible for myself and for everyone else. I am creating a certain image of my own choosing. In choosing myself is choose man." (1) He is saying that man creates his own image of the self and it is different for all men. The belief that existence precedes essence directly ties into the fact that the atheistic existentialist believes that there is no god. They believe that there is no human nature and that humans are inherently free.
The concept of anguish is one of Sartre's central ideas in Existentialism as a Humanism. It involves the realization that the choices and decisions a person makes not only affect the self, but they affect everyone.
The term existentialist, according to Sartre, means existence precedes essence. This means that an individual first exists, and then they exercise free will over themselves to do things that define themselves, thus their essence. For this ideology to work for Sartre, an atheistic stance needs to be taken. This is so because of how he defines God. God is compared to an artisan producing a knife, through a definition and a formula. Thus, “when God creates he knows precisely what he is creating.” Under this identification of God, that Sartre dictates is a common implication in philosophical writings, God creates with intent and seemingly, purpose. Hence, God
In his essay “Existentialism”, Jean Paul Sartre discusses the main beliefs of existentialism. Perhaps the most important belief of existentialism is that there is no human nature, and there is no God. This means that each individual man has control of his own destiny. The definition of each individual man is the sum of his life and all he has accomplished in his life. He is also responsible for all the choices and actions he makes in his life. These types of choices and actions can be seen in the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel. This book is a story about a boy, Wiesel, who is taken to a concentration camp with his family. It follows him and his father through their trials and movement from Auschwitz to Burkenau, and to Buna and how they continue to narrowly escape death. By the end of the story, readers see how Wiesel has become indifferent to the horrors of the camps. From the beginning to this point in the book, Wiesel and other characters make decisions that Sartre would call existentialist.
Sartre describes anguish as what someone experiences when they realize the profound and full responsibility of their choices to themselves and humanity (25). Sartre explains anguish by describing the responsibility a military officer faces. A military leader gets a vage order from a higher up that he must use his own knowledge of his troops and location to choose how to go about fulfilling the order (27). This situation depicts the anguish described by existentialism because the military officer has to realize his decision will directly affect his troops, himself and the greater effort of the army. Additionally, free will results in the feeling of abandonment. Sartre describes abandonment as the understanding that we are alone and “cannot find anything to rely on”(29). This means there is no one that can validate a person’s actions and they must take full responsibility for what they do. Sartre describes abandonment through the dilemma one of his students faced. His student came to him for advice because he had to choose between staying home and taking care of his heartbroken mother or leaving to fight evil and avenge his brothers death (30). Sartre told him that he and he alone could make the choice (33). If if he tried to avoid deciding by seeking the advice of someone else, he would still be making a decision. Who he would chose to consult would depend on the advice he wants to receive; if he chose to go to go someone whos supported the war effort, he would be making the choice he wants to go and fight and vice a versa (33). Sartre wants to illustrate that even if you think you are choosing not to chose or deciding based on someone else, you are still making a decision and are still responsible for that action. Finally, Sartre believes that our freedom results in despair. Sartre describes despair as the idea that “we must limit ourselves
Many Christians rejected the philosophy of existentialism on the grounds that it denies “the reality and seriousness of human affairs” and that man will “be incapable… of condemning either the point of view or the action of anyone else.” (Sartre 1). Sartre denies this claim later in Existentialism is a Humanism by rejecting the misconception that an existentialist holds no conviction. Rather, he states, existentialists have the most conviction of anyone, because in “choosing for himself he chooses for all men.” (Sartre 4) Sartre claims this to be the “deeper meaning of existentialism.” It is the subjectivity of what is good or evil, the essence that man decides for himself, that has an impact on everyone else; within this subjectivity lies the responsibility for bettering mankind, a responsibility few men would choose to ignore.
...existed somewhere in the universe, which is how he changed the world. Sartre took the broken and put it together into the philosophy of Existentialism.
The key belief of existentialists is that existence precedes essence. In order to understand that claim we must first understand what Jean- Paul Sartre means by the term “essence.” He gives an example of a person forging a paper-cutter. When an individual sets out to make any object, he/she has a purpose for it in mind and an idea of what the object will look like before beginning the actual production of it, so this object has an essence, or purpose, before it ever has an existence. The individual, as its creator, has given the paper-cutter its essence. Using the paper cutter example, Sartre argues that human beings cannot have an essence (or purpose) before their “production,” becaus...
There are two kinds of existentialist; first those who are Christian, and on the other hand the atheistic existentialists. Many unfamiliar with the subject people associate existentialism with atheism, but they are wrong. The truth is that the majority of existentialists are not atheists. Sartre, which we place among atheists, stress that central concern of philosophy is human existence. He says that human being is a special kind of consciousness (being-for- itself). Everything else is matter (being-in-itself). He believes that human being has no God-given essence and is absolutely free and absolutely responsible. According to him, anguish is the result of the absolute freedom and responsibility. He also says that human existence is absurd and unjustified. Therefore, the goal of human being is to justify his/her existence.(2) Sartre believes that there are those in our history who have established a religion to reassure nothing more than what he calls a "fundamental project." That means that when we become anguished by the affairs of life we pursue a fundamental project in attempt to flee this anguish. He says that we try to make ourselves Gods in hopes that others would see us divine, and hold us in higher regard. To pursue a fundame...
Existentialism prescribes individuals to adopt their own values and life direction; although Gardner feels this will lead to nihilism. In a PBS television documentary in 1978, Gardner stated Sartre's philosophy as “paranoid and loveless and faithless and egoistic” (The Originals: The Writer in America). Gardner’s remark exemplifies a belief in organized society that benefits its citizens--he most likely wouldn’t be opposed to socialism. This is nothing Gardner fears more than passionless and sacrilegious human beings, per what Grendel
Existentialism is a philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining his or her own development through acts of the will. To Sartre, saying that som...
...ating Sartre's attitudes towards the constituents of human action, that which constitutes human being. Even though it may, in the final analysis, prove to be an unsatisfactory account of consciousness, it serves to illuminate some possible further lines of study, if only as a negative example.
Man goes through life, waking each day and participating in his own existence without truly existing. He is always in search of a greater meaning, and in the process fails to find one as he is on a constant search for something that cannot be grasped by the normality that is the human psyche. A similar example can be found in the capitalistic work force of modern day. Man works the majority of his life, always training and aiming for more, only to retire and live on a portion of what he was making. During his time working he lost out on his family, his sleep, often times his own enjoyment, for an ideal that often times is never achieved. This is a trivial situation, yet it is painted in a rather angelic light in our society. Why is it, then, that Sartre can be dismissed as trivial when trivialities exist in nearly every day to day life? Quite likely, this is because Existentialism is an “on-paper theory” so to speak, and in theory is looks quite differently than in reality. Man, as in this case, does not realise that he often follows the rules which he opposes. In addition, much of today’s society exists under a form of organized religion, a society with which Existentialism exists in
Sartre’s existentialist ideas are mostly closely tied to the theory of free will. If existence precedes essence, that is if there is no purpose to why we are here, this grants humans ultimate free will (and ultimate responsibility) to create themselves, the world and fill it with meaning. I disagree with Sartre’s claim that existence precedes essence, and furthermore that free will can still exist outside these boundaries.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Existentialism is Humanism.” Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre. Ed. Walter Kaufman. Meridian Publishing
Existentialism tends to focus on the question of human existence — the feeling that there is no purpose, indeed nothing, at the core of existence. The term itself suggests one major theme: the stress on concrete individual existence and, consequently, on subjectivity, individual freedom, and choice. Sartre did not believe in God, so there was no place for the essence of humanity to be before human existence. For Existentialists like Sartre, the absence of God has a much larger significance than the metaphysics of creation. Without God there is no purpose, no value, and no meaning in the world. Existentialism posits that individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives, as opposed to deities or authorities creating it for them. Meursault, the main character and narrator of The Outsider, lives existentially and knows that his life will terminate one day. To Meursault, Life is all a person possesses, and there is no intrinsic meaning in life:
Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Existentialism is Humanism.” Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre. Ed. Walter Kaufman. Meridian Publishing