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JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
Beauvoir, Sartre and Che Guevara,
1960, Cuba
Jean-Paul Sartre (19051980)
French existentialist philosopher,
writer, and political activist.
LIFE
Born in Paris.
In 1939 he went
to war.
In 1940 the
Germans captured him.
Existentialism is Humanism: (1945)
1.
Descartes subjectivity is his starting point.
There is no picture behind the picture (Fallini).
Although embarrassment and shame
imply other
minds.
When other minds intrude, we respond by dominating
them, or being dominated.
Relationships are parasitic.
2. There is no
God, so everything is permissible.
3. Existence
precedes essence.
Atheism is incompatible with essences preceding
existence.
At
first we are nothing.
(tabula rosa)
Than we
create and define yourself through our actions.
4. We are
radically free.
Bad faith
is covering up our freedom with determinism and
universal rules.
Seeking to
conceal our freedom entails that we recognize it.
5. We are
responsible for mankind and ourselves.
6. The result
is anguish, forlorn, and despair.
3.
My Position:
At
first you are empty- not nothing.
Than
your epoch creates/defines you.
Only
philosophers and nihilists create/define themselves.
Creating/defining yourself requires that you go back
to your emptiness.
Now
you're alone, destitute, alienated, with no one to
turn to.
No
universal rule or book can help you define yourself.
Sartre has
confused his own philosophical nature with the
condition that everyone is in. It is not a
commonplace condition. It is only the condition of
philosophers and nihilists.
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