Jean-Paul Sartre ( )

His life:  He was the son of a naval officer.  He studied at Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris and showed a gift in literary field.  He was attracted to the philosophy of Henry Bergson and then, got himself attach to philosophy which he considered to be the fountain of truth.  In 1934, he studied at the Institut Francais in Berlin and become acquainted to Husserl’s phenomenological method.

 He became German’s prisoner-of-war during WW II when he was still active in the French Resistance movement.  During this time, he read the philosophy of Heidegger who also gave him a strong influence.  After teaching at the Lycee at Havre, Henry IV and Cordorcet, he focused into writing.  As a political activist, his influence of Marxism however, did not make him a member of the Communist party.

 Sartre made a joyful life-long companion with Simone de Beauvoir for about fifty-one years.  She was a fellow student at the Ecole Normale Superieure and like him; she was also a brilliant student.  Beauvior became a great help to Sartre especially in his literary works.  In fact, it has been said, that Sartre always sought for her approval before he publishes his work.

 She was a well-known feminist and also a writer.  Both of them were honored by the Nobel Prize Committee.  Unfortunately, their long companionship did not end up into marriage.  Their loyalty, friendship and love remained strong and in-tact until the end.  For Sartre, Beauvior was her privilege.  He died at the age of 74.

Existence Precedes Essence:  For Sartre, the traditional belief in God defines human nature in a certain way.  It defines human nature as the product if a creator and as a creature towards his creator.  It only suggests that from the very start, the definition of human nature already depends on the knowledge of God.  In this case, it would rather follow the axiom of ‘essence precedes existence.’

 It means that, before an individual is born his human nature was already predetermined according to how God conceived of him.  Literature would tell us that some traditional practices can lead us to the same consequence.  For example, the archaic practice of what they call pre-arranged marriage.

 In such gesture, parents would settle their offspring as couple even before they are born.  In this case, the essence of their offspring have already been defined or determined before existing.  But for Sartre, human nature cannot be defined in advance because it cannot be thought out in advance.

 People exist first and only after or later that they find and become their essential selves.  Thus, existence precedes essence mean that people have to exist first, confront themselves, and define themselves afterwards.  What we are, will depend on what we make from ourselves.  Person has a greater dignity more than what a stone has.

 It is because the person can create himself.  He has a consciousness which is moving towards ‘a future.’  The essence of existence depends on the responsibility of each individual to make it.  The stone cannot do this.  Thus, a stone cannot be held responsible for what it is.

Bad Faith:  For Sartre, we are what we make ourselves.  The value of life is nothing but the way each person fashions it.  Therefore, anyone who puts the blame on things, in mysterious forces within us, in human passions and desires, or even into one’s inherited genetic code for one’s fate would be guilty of bad faith (self-deception) or inauthenticity.

 These blames on other things would only be excuses to avoid any responsibility.  According to Sartre, all people are guilty of bad faith.  In other words, people are guilty of disguising and playing roles over their actual personality.  For him, genuine humanity or existence is then expressed in honesty.  However, honesty in this sense is no longer a mere expression or an ideal but it becomes one’s very being.

Freedom:  With Sartre’s famous axiom existence precedes essence, we can have the following realizations: 1. It is only in the disbelief of God that freedom is permitted 2. That we are what we make ourselves and therefore, no one is worthy of blame other than oneself.

 According to Sartre, each individual is free.  People are condemned to be free.  We find ourselves thrown into the world.  As soon as we become conscious of ourselves, we become responsible for everything we do.  For Sartre, freedom appalling.  Since we are all free, therefore, in whatever ways we must choose or invent because there are no rules of general morality which can show us what we ought to do.

 There is no God and no determinism.  There are no guidelines that give guarantee.  Nothing forces an individual to behave in a given way or in a certain pattern leading him to the future.  For him, “I” am the only thing that exists.  However, according to Sartre, while we are responsible for our own existence, each individual is also responsible for all the people.

 It is because the individual’s free way of action assumes a general human essence that makes his action relevant to all people.  Nothing can be better for any one of us unless it is also better for all.  Our experiences of human beings suggest that all people must choose and make decisions whether they are willing that others choose the same action.

 To assume that others will not do such act or do the same act of choice is a self-deception.  This act of choice according to Sartre, is done is a state of anguish.  It is not only because we are bound to act for our own but we are also bound to act for everybody.  To escape from this responsibility will not only deceive oneself but will also bother one’s cosncience.

 During Sartre’s later life, his account bent a little back into admitting the position of the soft determinist’s point of view.  Although he remained faithful to his notion that each individual is free, he accepted the fact that limitations work upon human choice.  For examples, the limitations of birth, social status, and family background are the evidences of these.

 But they should not lead a person to use them as excuses (bad faith0 for behaving or evading his responsibility.  So from his axiom of “we are what we make ourselves,” it has changed into, “we becomes what we are in the context of what others have made us.”  Social conditioning exists every minute in our lives and that historical conditions affect human behavior.  Human beings are still capable of shaping the history.  Within these given limitations, a person is still free and responsible.

Nothingness:  Sartre compared the human experience of nothingness to that human experience of despair which according to him, can be realized in the finiteness of human beings.  The finitude of human beings would tell us about a person’s limit and what he can only will for himself.  Finitude does not only pertain to the individual’s shortcomings, ignorance and the possibility of committing errors.  It also manifests one’s guilt, loneliness and despair.

Consciousness:  For Sartre, without consciousness, the world simply appears as it is without a meaning.  Consciousness constitutes the meaning of things in the world.  Things appear as intelligible system of separate and related things only in the consciousness.  He classified two ways of existence: 1. Being-in-itself (‘l en-soi) 2. Being-for-itself (le pour-soi)

 Being-in-itself – like stone, it only exists.  In this existence, the person’s existence is just the same with the existence of everything.  It is not different from the rest of the things in the world that exist.  Like everything, it is just being there.  Being-for-itself – the person’s existence involves a conscious subject.  Stones are not conscious.

 Thus, as conscious, the person can relate both to things which are not conscious as well as to those existence which are conscious.  Aside from being conscious of the possibilities in him, the person is also conscious of the world (others’ consciousness) beyond him, whether they share the same consciousness with him or differ from what he is conscious of.

 According to Sartre, the meaning of the things in the world will depend on the choices that people make.  A table can have alternative meanings depending on the person’s way of “choosing” or making use of it.  We can therefore, say that the activity of the consciousness depends on each person’s choice.