Jean-Paul Sartre & Existentialism

Jean-Paul Sartre was a prominent french existentialist intellectual in the 20th century. Existentialism is a term to group a wide variety of philosophers, but existentialists would be best summarized as those thinkers that focus on humans and think of our meaning, purpose, value, or perhaps lack thereof. Jean-Paul Sartre is responsible for identifying the central dogma of existentialism: that existence precedes essence.

Essence means the property of something that makes it what it is. With this in mind, the phrase “existence precedes essence” seems outlandish. After all, how could something exist without it being something? Atheist existentialists and Theistic existentialists have differing views on this topic, but using different methods they both manage to arrive at the same conclusion.

When a craftsman makes a paper-knife, the knife serves a definite purpose because the craftsman acted purposefully and with intent in crafting the paper-knife. However, what makes something a paper-knife is whether or not it cuts paper, which is its essence. But as one may notice, before the knife has ever cut a single sheet of paper it has been crafted and has come into existence. This communicates the theistic view of existentialism, substituting God for the craftsman and humans for the paper-knife. In this case, the paper-knives exist before they are defined by the craftsman’s conception of them.

For atheistic existentialists, there is no craftsman in the equation, and as a result, instead of God defining man after creating him, man “first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world - and defines himself afterward” (Sartre). This means that to Sartre, a human is not made what they are by anything besides themselves.

To be human is to be characterized by existing before having an essence. Humans lack any common essential qualities or purpose except that which we determine, “thus there is no human nature” (Sartre). Personality is not built over any common blueprint but is shaped and molded through experiences that result from action and choice.

Sartre believed that in choosing for himself, man chooses for all men. This is because we want to be as we think we ought to be, so choices of conduct are the same as choosing which action one affirms to be of value. Since there is no essence of man, what a man chooses expresses his notion of what man ought to be, because he is unable to choose otherwise. These expressions through action by men of what man ought to be make up the image man makes of himself, or his essence.

Sartre holds that if an action is valid for the essence-building of one person, it must be valid for all people, which means that a large responsibility, as well as an opportunity, is placed on each and every one of us to ‘lead by example,’ as we have a responsibility not just for ourselves, but “our responsibility concerns mankind as a whole” (Sartre). Take Sartre’s call and define yourself with care, because much is at stake.

Author Alex Gabriel

Editor Suhh Yeon Kim

Bibliography

SARTRE, JEAN-PAUL. Existentialism Is a Humanism. Yale University Press, 2007.

Crowell, Steven. “Existentialism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford

University, 9 June 2020, plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/#ExiPreEss.