Quotation
Last reviewed:
“In choosing myself, I choose man.”
Jean-Paul Sartre · Existentialism · Modern · 1946
What does it mean?
In choosing myself, I choose an image of humanity. The lecture's claim is that nothing legislates for me from outside, so my choice proposes what a human being should be, and I am responsible for that proposal to everyone. A rival reading hears megalomania: my career choice redesigns the species. He means the choice has an exemplary structure, not that it causes other lives. Another reading thinks this smuggles a universal ethic back into a philosophy that had denied a human nature. He wants the responsibility without the nature.
Did Jean-Paul Sartre really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. A paraphrase of the lecture's claim that in choosing we choose an image of humanity, an image of man as we think he ought to be. Mairet and Macomber both carry the claim. The card compresses it into one clause.
Where it comes from
Existentialism Is a Humanism
Approximate date: 1946.
How to use it
Someone justifying a harsh management style in a warehouse in the Midlands says it is just their way. The lecture says the way proposes an image of how people in that job may be treated. You can reject the leap from personal style to humanity. You should not pretend he only said 'be authentic'. Authenticity, in the lecture, arrives with this responsibility, or it does not arrive.
A mindset reading
A paraphrase labelled as one is honest. The dishonest move is to put quotation marks around 'I choose man' as if the lecture's syntax were that short. The syntax is an argument about anguish. Anguish is the feeling of this responsibility.
Understand the philosophy
The same lecture holds 'condemned to be free' and 'existence precedes essence'. This claim is how he answers the charge of egoism, before Beauvoir answers it more carefully in The Ethics of Ambiguity. Read them as a pair if the lecture feels too quick, because it is too quick.
- ethics
- freedom
- society
FAQ
What does it mean?
In choosing myself, I choose an image of humanity. The lecture's claim is that nothing legislates for me from outside, so my choice proposes what a human being should be, and I am responsible for that proposal to everyone. A rival reading hears megalomania: my career choice redesigns the species. He means the choice has an exemplary structure, not that it causes other lives. Another reading thinks this smuggles a universal ethic back into a philosophy that had denied a human nature. He wants the responsibility without the nature.
Did Jean-Paul Sartre really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. A paraphrase of the lecture's claim that in choosing we choose an image of humanity, an image of man as we think he ought to be. Mairet and Macomber both carry the claim. The card compresses it into one clause.
Which work is it in?
Existentialism Is a Humanism Approximate date: 1946.