ASSESSMENT 1: PEOPLE AND PARADIGMS ESSAY
The French Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre spent a lifetime defying conventional logic. The man, who never felt so free, than under German occupation in World War II, would go on to challenge almost every assumption about the way we live, in his search for the meaning of freedom. His works became the basis for the philosophy known as Existentialism, which would transform the mental landscape of post war Europe. An idea so potent, they would turn Sartre himself into a cult figure, an entirely new kind of thinker, who seemed to speak to the ordinary people. (Human, All Too Human: The Road to Freedom, 1999)
The central philosophy of Existentialism derives from the concept that there is no fixed essence that gives shape to human life beyond the goals that we actively commit ourselves to and which give substance to our existence. This is captured in the existentialists’ famous slogan, ‘Existence precedes essence’, which in Sartre’s hands is moulded into the claim that we are what we choose to be, this is supported by a personal quote from Sartre
“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.’ (Sartre, 1946)
– in other words, that we are products of the significant choices we make for ourselves. If freedom is as complete as he says, then one is faced with a valueless universe, and that is a fear that Sartre manifested in people. (Warnock1970)
Such an uncompromising philosophy of freedom might seem impossible to live by, but that is exactly what Sartre tried to do throughout his long and controversial life. Born in France in 1905 to an upper middle class family, the death of his father and hatred of his stepfather drove the precocious ...
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...on-tis ‘absurdity’-in the sense that we are thrust, products of chance without reason or purpose, into an uncaring world which is itself beyond rational explanation. (Duprè 2009 pg.52) Existential broodiness was perfectly in tune with the mood of despondency and anxiety that coloured the decades following the Second World War, and it is popularly thought of as (primarily) a 20th-century phenomenon. This perception was reinforced by the figure of Sartre himself, who (with the French writer Albert Camus) became the popular face of existentialism. Sartre’s intellectual and literary skills combined perfectly to give expression to a movement that straddled the conventional boundaries between academia and popular culture. Philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy (1999) asserts that Sartre embodied the physical, nearly physiological sense of freedom, that “he was freedom”.
Schlipp, Paul Arthur ed. The Philosophy Of Jean-Paul Sartre. The Library of Living Philosophers Vol. XVI, La Salle, Ill: Open Court 1981.
In his lecture, Existentialism is a Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre discusses common misconceptions people, specifically Communists and Christians, have about existentialism and extentanitalists (18). He wants to explain why these misconceptions are wrong and defend existentialism for what he believes it is. Sartre argues people are free to create themselves through their decisions and actions. This idea is illustrated in the movie 13 Going on Thirty, where one characters’ decision at her thirteenth birthday party and her actions afterwards make her become awful person by the time she turns thirty. She was free to make these decisions but she was also alone. Often the idea of having complete free will at first sounds refreshing, but when people
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.
...ar idea with Stephen; they both wanted to do anything and create their own human nature, and our value of freedom through those free choices. Generally, Sartre suggested that men have freedom to construct their nature and essence through their actions.
As well, he defined freedom as we are free to make our own choices, but we are condemned to always bear the responsibility of the consequences of these choices. We are in this world helpless, without any creator who forced us to make our own choices and to bear their consequences. Sartre also claims that as an individual we are not free to be free since we are condemned to be free. Sartre claims that God is dead and there is no one who none command us. Sartre affirmed that all the way of life , we should find significance in our being . We are responsible for our own lives and the way we live it does define who we are. Sartre uses the main idea of existentialism as "existence precedes essence," he says that we have the choice in everything we do. Our "essence" is not something that is established before us, we should it by ourselves. His philosophy is that human beings exist first, and then can own a freedom that he decided who he wants to become.
At the time of his death on the fifteenth of April, 1980, at the age of seventy-four, Jean-Paul Sartre’s greatest literary and philosophical works were twenty-five years in the past. Although the small man existed in the popular mind as the politically inconsistent champion of unpopular causes and had spent the last seven years of his life in relative stagnation, his influence was still great enough to draw a crowd of over fifty thousand people – admirers or otherwise – for his funeral procession. Sartre was eminently quotable, a favorite in the press, because his statements were always controversial. He was the leader of the shortly popular Existential movement in philosophy which turned quickly into a fad for the disillusioned post-World War I generation, so even when the ideas criticized were not the ideas of Sartre’s Existentialism, he still came to the public mind. Sartre was alternately celebrated and vilified, depending on which side of the issue the speaker or writer was on, and whether or not Sartre had early espoused – and possibly later turned against – the ideals in question. Despite Sartre’s many political and philosophical about-faces, fellow Marxist political philosopher Herbert Marcuse said of him, “He may not want to be the world’s conscience, but he is.” [Hayman, 458]
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...
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...
Existentialism is a Humanism, written by French philosopher Jean- Paul Sartre, was written in 1946 based on a lecture that Sartre gave at Club Maintenant in Paris in 1945. Existentialism is defined as “a philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of will” (Merriam- Webster Dictionary). In Existentialism is a Humanism, Sartre portrays existentialism as an essentially optimistic philosophy. He uses key existentialist terms such as anguish, abandonment, and despair to defend his view as well as provide examples that help us to analyze his claim. After doing so, we can conclude that Sartre’s claim is wrong and existentialism
Jean Paul Sartre's philosophy is one of the most popular systems of thought in the school called existentialism. Sartre valued human freedom and choice, and held it in the highest regard. To be able to live an authentic existence, one must take responsibility for all the actions that he freely chooses. This total freedom that man faces often throws him into a state of existential anguish, wherein he is burdened by the hardship of having to choose all the time. Thus, there ensues the temptation for man to live a life of inauthenticity, by leaning on preset rules or guidelines, and objective norms. This would consist the idea of bad faith.
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.
Existentialism is a term that was coined specifically by Jean-Paul Sartre in regards to his own life. Sartre had adopted the Atheistic approach to life and its meaning, and while he was not the first or only one to do so, was the first and only one to come up with a way to describe it. Under Existentialism, man lives without higher power or guidance and must rely solely on himself and what he is aiming to do in order to lead a fulfilling life. This can be anything. Critics of Sartre propose that, because such a vast array of options exists within the meaningfulness of life, this philosophy is obsolete and trivial in nature. This is not true, as it is seen in everyday examples – celebrities, namely – that a thirst
Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Existentialism is Humanism.” Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre. Ed. Walter Kaufman. Meridian Publishing
Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Existentialism is Humanism.” Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre. Ed. Walter Kaufman. Meridian Publishing
...hat Sartre goes a little too far by saying that making a choice we are saying that humanity as a whole should be making the same choice. I think that he should have generalized his viewpoint by saying that every individual has their ideal “self” that they strive to be, but every once in a while we make choices that we regret. Like James said we all have choices of regret that we wish we could go back and change. If Sartre had said this in regards to his libertarian viewpoints, I would be in total agreement with him.