Jean-Paul Sartre
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Jean-Paul Sartre was not only a leading philosopher of his generation but also a playwright, novelist, political theorist, and literary critic. Sartre in his writings in the 1940s and after was reacting to the horrors of war, in this case World War II, but he was viewing the devastation of war not in terms of its effect on a specific country or people but on humanity. He was continuing in an intellectual tradition extending back to the nineteenth century and to the works of Dostoyevsky, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. His philosophy is not collective in the way Marxism is nor built on social classes and hierarchies in the way Hitler's is. His view is described as a contemporary form of humanism, with the individual at the center and with a belief in the ability of each individual to shape his or her own existence. Sartre's philosophy was a reaction to the collectivism of both the Communists and the Fascists. He did not center human actions on a political entity such as the fatherland or on a sense of racial identity. Instead, he begins with the human-centered situation of life and rejects the view that defines human essence or being and then tries to determine the purpose and values of human existence from that identity. For Sartre, God is not necessary and is in fact non-existent, and so man is free in a way that can be terrifying and that imposes responsibility. Sartre was born in Paris in 1905, the son of a naval engineer. His mother was first cousin to Albert Sch
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followed by The Transcendence of the Ego in 1937. His first novel, La NausTe (Nausea), was published in 1937 as well. His stories were published in 1939 under the title The Wall and were well-received (Brosman 8-9).
Sartre offers a form of existentialist philosophy that is very much his own. Sartre asserts that existence is prior to essence and that our condition is what defines human nature rather than the other way round. We do not live by preexisting values and meaning but instead have the responsibility of creating our own, and through the choices we make we determine values for all:
Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism. It is also what is called subjectivity, the name we are labeled with when charges are brought against us. . . existentialism's first move is to make every man aware of what he is and to make the full responsibility of his existence rest on him (Sartre Existentialism and Human Emotions 15-16).
Sartre rejected any doctrine that is imposed to tell others how to behave and to assert some higher destiny. Values are not given and are seen by Sartre as vague at best. He sees human beings as operating best by instinct. Sartre also argues wit
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Approximate Word count = 1318
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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