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Philosopher

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Jean-Paul Sartre

1905–1980 · Existentialism · Modern

Jean-Paul Sartre's public slogan, existence precedes essence, means that a human being is not made to a fixed pattern and then switched on. We find ourselves already here, and we are responsible for what we make of that. The slogan is from the 1945 lecture Existentialism Is a Humanism, a defence against the charge of despair, and it is thinner than Being and Nothingness, where situation, bad faith, the look, and the useless passion are argued at length.

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'Hell is other people' is a line of Garcin's in No Exit, not an ethics. Anguish, in the lecture, is the feeling of a choice that proposes an image of humanity. Nausea is a novel, and Roquentin's disgust at contingent existence is not yet the treatise. He wrote novels, plays, criticism, and a late attempt at biography and politics that does not cancel the early ontology and does complicate the whip people make of 'condemned to be free'.

Philip Mairet and Carol Macomber translate the lecture. Hazel Barnes translates Being and Nothingness. Name them. A French sentence without a translator is not yet an English quotation.

Start here

Existentialism Is a Humanism, then the chapter on bad faith in Being and Nothingness.

The lecture is the door and shows its own simplifications. Bad faith is where the philosophy becomes harder than the slogan.

Quotations

“Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.”

Jean-Paul Sartre · Existentialism

meaningdeathmind
Paraphrase or translation
Meaning & application
“By the mere appearance of the Other, I am put in the position of passing judgement on myself as an object.”

Jean-Paul Sartre · Existentialism

selfsocietymind
Paraphrase or translation
Meaning & application
“Anguish is the feeling of being responsible for all people through one's own choice.”

Jean-Paul Sartre · Existentialism

ethicsfreedomself
Paraphrase or translation
Meaning & application

Key ideas

  • Existence before essence

    No human pattern issued in advance. The making is the definition, inside a situation.

  • Bad faith

    A lie to oneself, with the twist that deceiver and deceived are the same.

  • The look

    The other reveals me as an object. Shame is the evidence. The play is not the whole chapter.

  • Commitment

    The lecture says that in choosing I choose an image of humanity. The later work argues about history.

Major works

  • Nausea (1938)

    A novel. Contingency as a physical discovery.

  • Being and Nothingness (1943)

    The treatise. Barnes's English.

  • No Exit (1944)

    A play. Garcin's last line.

  • Existentialism Is a Humanism (1945; published 1946)

    The lecture. Mairet or Macomber.

Influences

Influenced

Common misreadings

  • Existence precedes essence does not mean there are no facts about you. Situation is real.
  • 'Hell is other people' is Garcin, and Sartre later said he did not mean that others are hellish in general.
  • Condemned to be free is not a whip for people in hard circumstances. His later work knows the problem. The lecture still sounds like one.

Famous lines Jean-Paul Sartre never said

None of the lines this library files for Jean-Paul Sartre is marked Questionable or Misattributed. That is only a fact about these cards. It is not a certificate that every popular sentence is theirs.

FAQ

What is the best book to start with?

Existentialism Is a Humanism, then the chapter on bad faith in Being and Nothingness. The lecture is the door and shows its own simplifications. Bad faith is where the philosophy becomes harder than the slogan.

What is the most famous quote?

This library does not measure fame, and it does not rank lines by how often they are shared. The first line it files for Jean-Paul Sartre that is not marked Questionable or Misattributed is “Existence precedes essence.” (Existentialism Is a Humanism (lecture 1945, published 1946), Paraphrase or translation).

What is the most misquoted line?

None of the lines this library files for Jean-Paul Sartre is marked Misattributed or Questionable. That is a fact about these cards, not a certificate that every popular sentence is theirs.

What is one key idea, in a sentence?

Existence before essence: No human pattern issued in advance. The making is the definition, inside a situation.