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Human existence is subjective
- The core tenets of existentialism include the belief that human existence is subjective and that individuals are free to make their own choices. Existentialists reject traditional values and beliefs and instead focus on personal freedom and responsibility.
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May 17, 2023 · Existentialism is a branch of philosophy that emphasizes individual experience and freedom. Its key figures such as Søren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Martin Heidegger have shaped the way we think about the world and our place in it.
Apr 27, 2023 · Existentialism is a philosophical movement that asks fundamental questions about morality and the meaning of life, like “how should I live?” and “what is it all for?” Founded in the nineteenth century, existentialism took shape mainly in the first half of the twentieth century.
In viewing the self not as a substance or thing but as a self-interpreting, meaning-giving activity that is always already bound up in the world, existentialism has also informed key developments in narrative and hermeneutic philosophy.
- Sartre’s Life
- Early Works
- The Ontology of Being and Nothingness
- The For-Itself in Being and Nothingness
- Relations with Others in Being and Nothingness
- Authenticity
- Other Contributions to Existential Phenomenology
- Conclusion
- References and Further Reading
Sartre was born in 1905 in Paris. After a childhood marked by the early death of his father, the important role played by his grandfather, and some rather unhappy experiences at school, Sartre finished High School at the Lycée Henri IV in Paris. After two years of preparation, he gained entrance to the prestigious Ecole Normale Supérieure, where, f...
Sartre’s early work is characterised by phenomenological analyses involving his own interpretation of Husserl’s method. Sartre’s methodology is Husserlian (as demonstrated in his paper “Intentionality: a fundamental ideal of Husserl’s phenomenology”) insofar as it is a form of intentional and eidetic analysis. This means that the acts by which cons...
Being and Nothingnesscan be characterized as a phenomenological investigation into the nature of what it is to be human, and thus be seen as a continuation of, and expansion upon, themes characterising the early works. In contrast with these however, an ontology is presented at the outset and guides the whole development of the investigation. One o...
The structure and characteristics of the for-itself are the main focal point of the phenomenological analyses of Being and Nothingness. Here, the theme of consciousness’s power of negation is explored in its different ramifications. These bring out the core claims of Sartre’s existential account of the human condition.
So far, we have presented the analysis of the for-itself without investigating how different individual for-itself’s interact. Far from neglecting the issue of inter-subjectivity, this represents an important part of Sartre’s phenomenological analysis in which the main themes discussed above receive their confirmation in, and extension to the inter...
If the picture which emerges from Sartre’s examination of human relationships seems rather hopeless, it is because bad faith is omnipresent and inescapable. In fact, Sartre’s philosophy has a very positive message which is that we have infinite freedom and that this enables us to make authentic choices which escape from the grip of bad faith. To un...
If Being and Nothingnessrepresents the culmination of Sartre’s purely existentialist work, existentialism permeates later writings, albeit in a hybrid form. We shall briefly indicate how these later writings extend and transform his project of existential phenomenology.
Sartre’s existentialist understanding of what it is to be human can be summarised in his view that the underlying motivation for action is to be found in the nature of consciousness which is a desire for being. It is up to each agent to exercise his freedom in such a way that he does not lose sight of his existence as a facticity, as well as a free...
a. Sartre’s Works
1. “Intentionality: a Fundamental Ideal of Husserl’s Phenomenology” (1970) transl. J.P.Fell, Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 1 (2), 4-5. 2. Psychology of the Imagination(1972) transl. Bernard Frechtman, Methuen, London. 3. Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions (1971) transl. Philip Mairet, Methuen, London. 4. The Transcendence of the Ego: An Existentialist Theory of Consciousness(1957) transl. and ed. Forrest Williams and Robert Kirkpatrick, Noonday, New York. 5. Being and Not...
b. Commentaries
1. Caws, P. (1979) Sartre, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. 2. Danto, A. C. (1991) Sartre, Fontana, London. 3. Howells, C. (1988) Sartre: The Necessity of Freedom, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 4. Howells, C. ed. (1992) Cambridge Companion to Sartre, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 5. Murdoch, I. (1987) Sartre: Romantic Rationalist, Chatto and Windus, London. 6. Natanson, M. (1972) A Critique of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Ontology, Haskell House Publishers, New York. 7. Schilpp, P. A...
Author Information
Christian J. Onof Email: c.onof@imperial.ac.uk University College, London United Kingdom
Dec 11, 2017 · But existentialists deny that there is any human nature or essence that tells us what we are or what we ought to do; rather, we exist first as concrete human subjects and then proceed to create our essence. Fate or a God don’t determine us, we determine ourselves.
Although there is no single doctrine common to all and only existentialists, existentialism is a philosophical movement in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe loosely held together by addressing fundamental questions about human existence. For example: Am I free? Am I responsible for my actions? Is life meaningful, or absurd?
The reason it’s called existentialism is the idea that our actual existence—what we’re doing or experiencing at any given moment, is primary, rather than some absolute reality, like god, behind the scenes. So, existentialism is a positive alternative to nihilism.
