Jean-Paul Sartre and Existentialism

A Few Basics

 Jean Paul Sartre was born in Paris on June 21, 1905. He was a dramatist and screenwriter, novelist and critic. nguyenvuhao@hotmail.com

 Sartre entered the cole Normale Suprieure in 1924 received first place in the agrgation of philosophy in 1929. Sartre took a teaching job at a Lyce in Le Havre. There he wrote his first novel, Nausea in 1938.

 In 1939 Sartre was drafted into the French army, where he served as a meteorologist. German troops captured him in 1940 in Padoux, and he spent nine months as a prisoner of war.

 After the war Sartre abandoned teaching, determined to support himself by writing. He was also determined that his writing and thinking should be engag. Sartre suffered from detrimental health throughout the 1970s. He died of a lung ailment in April 15, 1980.

Marxism
Besides existentialism writings, Sartre also wrote about Marxism. Marxism-the synthesis of philosophy and political action. Any political practice or theory that is based on an interpretation of the works of Marx and Engels may be termed Marxism

Nausea
His first novel, Nausea (1938), narrates the feeling of revulsion that a young man experiences when confronted with the contingency of existence.

Being And Nothingness

In Being and Nothingness (1943), he places human consciousness in opposition to being; consciousness is nonmatter and thus escapes all determinism.

The Seeds of Existentialism

Kierkegaard Nietzsche Hegel Husserl Heidegger Dostoevsky Kafka Camus

Basic Sartre
Objects
Objects exist and simultaneously have an essence (identity, nature) All objects have an essence: A rock is a rock Sartre called this being in itself

Basic Sartre
Human Beings "existence precedes and rules essence" Sartre calls this being for itself
As human beings we are conscious of our complete free will Human beings have existence but no essence except for what we make for ourselves

End result All responsibility for what we are is our own!

What is the difference?

According to Sartre,
what I am (my essence) is a product of my choices & actions (my manner of existing).
Thus, since I freely create myself (my essence), I am responsible for my choices & actions & and what I have created.

Therefore, I am responsible for myself and for everyone else.

According to Sartre, if I recognize

that I am not made to be what I am but rather freely choose my own essence, that what I am is my own responsibility because my self is my own creation, that, through my choices, I become responsible not only for myself but also for [all?] others, & that I cannot look to God for guidance in this process since God does not exist,

Another distinction between subjects (persons) & objects (things):

Subjects (persons) are

free, self-creating, & therefore personally responsible for what they create & do.

Objects (things)
have no freedom, are not selfcreating, & thus have no responsibility for what they are or for how they function.

Existentialism defined
existence precedes essence in order to make a table, the artisan must first have a conception of the table not so with human beings; we come into the world existent but without a nature, without essence; we define ourselves while existing we are the sum of our experiences

Characteristics of Existentialism
reaction against rationalism existentialist Angst
German for dread a recurrent state of disquiet concerning ones life

choice
you must make choices; nothing forces you to do anything: I have to go to class today--Sartre argues you want to go to class today

What are life and death?

life is choice all one can experience is life; death is absence of experience; therefore it has no reality Hell is other people (No Exit)

Freedom
any situation in which one finds oneself is his own creation therefore, one creates his own world by supplying the meanings, the interpretations, the significance for things and events since the world is the product of my choice, I and and I alone bear responsibility for the world

Bad Faith
not a value judgment (bad vs. good) Sartres conception of self-deception the deliberate creation in oneself of the appearance of a belief which one in fact knows to be false people oftentimes lie to themselves: I am not an alcoholic, says the alcoholic determinism is really the root of bad faith

Nothingness
not exactly the type of nihilistic philosophy one finds in Nietzsche part of the argument hinges on discussions of matter and reality; can we ever actually have nothing? If we are thinking and existing, then the answer must be no. but ..

Nothing, Something, Whatever

human existence has no ground it arises from nothing it ends in nothing its meaning consists in anticipation of death but Sartre does argue that human being consists in nothing; this is why we can talk about the absence of a guest

Meaning and Life

There is no ultimate meaning or purpose inherent in human life; in this sense life is absurd. Sartre insists that the only foundation for values is human freedom; there can be no external objective justification for the values one chooses to adopt

Radical Freedom?
Radical Freedom is a:
A condition of human existence: we must commit ourselves at every moment. Not characteristic of human nature.

Who we are is a function of the choices we make, not vice-versa.

More of Sartres ideas, on . ..

FREEDOM is the central and unique potentiality which constitutes us as human. Sartre rejects determinism, saying that it is our choice how we respond to determining tendencies. CHOICE. I am my choices. I cannot not choose. If I do not choose, that is still a choice. If faced with inevitable circumstances, we still choose how we are in those circumstances.

 RESPONSIBILITY. Each of us is responsible for everything we do. If we seek advice from others, we choose our advisor and have some idea of the course he or she will recommend. "I am responsible for my very desire of fleeing responsibilities."

Sartre was awarded

which he REFUSED on the grounds that such honors could interfere with a writer's responsibilities to his readers.

Achievements
He refused the Legion of Honor awarded him by the government. Participated in the founding of the Rassemblement Democratique Revolutionnaire (RDR), but he later on became disaffected with the group and left it the following year. Served in the French army during World War II.

Critical interpretation
Sartres sense of freedom is, in effect, definitional. It does not entail that there are no forces on us which causally determine our choices. Thus, Sartre does not defeat determinism.

Objection to Sartre
Had I lived in a time when I did not have to make this terrible choice (e.g., join the Resistance and sacrifice my family, or acquiesce with the Nazi regime), I would not have acted as I did. Sartres response: I am not separable from the epoch in which I find myself.