Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, author and critic. 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.
In effect, 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 Readings by Jean-Paul Sartre
- The Transcendence of the Ego, 1936
- Nausea, 1938
- Sketch for a Theory of Emotions, 1939
- Being and Nothingness, 1943
- Existentialism and Humanism, 1948
- Critique of Dialectical Reason, 1960
Sources:
Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una Mcgovern, Chambers, 2002
Philosophy, the Great Thinkers, by Philip Stokes, Capella, 2007
