Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialist
French Philosopher, Author and Playwright, Known for Existentialism
Jun 26, 2008
Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, writer and playwright. Famous for Being and Nothingness, he was a leading figure in 20th century French philosophy and a principal spokesman for the existentialist movement in post-war France.
Jean-Paul Sartre (June 21, 1905-April 15, 1980) was born in Paris to Jean-Baptiste Sartre, an officer of the French Navy, and Anne-Marie Schweitzer, of Alsatian origin, and a cousin of French Nobel prize laureate Albert Schweitzer. Sartre's philosophy possesses a clarity and force that captured the spirit of his times in a more powerful way. His prominent contemporaries include his lifelong partner Simone de Beauvoir, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
Existentialism Versus Non-Existentialism
The central theme of all existentialist philosophies is the claim that 'existence precedes essence.' Sartre conveys the view that a person first exists without purpose or definition, and since there is no God, finds him/herself in the world, and only then, as a reaction to experience, an individual can define the meaning of his/her life.
It is the opposite of the argument presented by Aristotle in his Ethics that a person is created to fulfil a purpose or goal, and that fulfillment of a life consists in striving towards that goal.
Sartre's radical freedom has weighty consequences, since everyone is responsible for everything one does. A person cannot, in Sartrean existentialism, make excuses or defer responsibility to either a divine being or human nature: to do so would constitute a self-deception.
This leads to three, related burdens on the individual:
- Anguish. This arises from the awareness of the weight of responsibility a person holds. Everything done affects not only the self, but by choices and actions set. Such responsibility is a consequence, Sartre insists, of the fact that one defines one's own meaning of life, which is reflected in actions. When a choice is made, it is not merely a personal preference, but a statement to the world that this is how life should be led.
- Abandonment. The existentialist finds it "embarrassing" that God does not exist. For it follows that a person is then alone without help or guidance in moral matters. Literally, a person must make it up and face life along the way.
- Despair. By this Sartre means that a person must act without hope, foregoing the instinct to trust that things will turn out for the best. There is no providence. A person must rely only on that which can affect by one's own will and action.
Sartre's existentialism "condemned an individual to be free" which exhibits a strictness of optimism as his detractors accused his philosophy of. One positive point is that Sartre's philosophy has placed the destiny of an individual within himself.
Recommended Philosophy Readings by Jean-Paul Sartre
- The Transcendence of the Ego, 1936
- Sketch for a Theory of Emotions, 1939
- Being and Nothingness, 1943
- Existentialism and Humanism, 1948
- The Problem of Method, 1960
- Critique of Dialectical Reason, 1960
- The Family Idiot (on Gustave Flaubert, 1971)
Link to Sartre as a writer: Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre Novelist and Playwright
Sources:
Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una Mcgovern, Chambers, 2002
Philosophy, the Great Thinkers, by Philip Stokes, Capella, 2007
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