st since Plato.
But what did Sartre mean by "existence precedes essence," and how can we relate it to the notions of consciousness and freedom?
Previous philosophers posited that there was in each man something known as "human nature" and that human nature was viewed as a particular example (in the case of each individual) of the general and universal conception of Man. In short, then, before Sartre, philosophers generally accepted that all men possessed the same essence, and that essence preceded their historical and experiential confrontation with life, with existence.
For Sartre, however, in Being and Nothingness, this essence is by no means assumed to be established before experience begins to shape it and define it. To understand the book, we must under-stand the three kinds of being as explained by Sartre.
Sartre wrote that objects have being en soi ('in-itself'); people have being 'for-itself,' due to the fact that conscious-
ness exists for itself, while objects do not. Then there is
"being-for-others," which means that each of us exists in the view of other people. This last type of being is significant because our own view of ourselves is largely determined by
the view others hold of us. Consciousness in this context for Sartre is therefore founded on the presence of others, on the reflection back to us of others' views of us. An individual without social contact would have little and finally no selfconsciousness.
What Sartre emerges with after his examination of these types of being is the principle that without consciousness there is no true existence. With consciousness, and with the awarenesses of oneself, of things, of others, there comes freedom---the freedom to shape (or to not shape) one's own essence. Thus, essence follows existence, and thus does man possess the freedom to build and define that essence as his consciousness grows and as far as he is able to accept that consciousness. Sartr...