PhilosophersJean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Existence precedes essence: we are condemned to be free.
Existentialism1905 – 1980 FrancePhilosopher of freedomAtheist existentialistNovelist and playwrightCommitted intellectual
Inspirations
René Descartes "I think, therefore I am" as a starting point
Søren Kierkegaard Abraham's anguish, choice without guarantees, but without God in Sartre
Edmund Husserlphenomenology, the method of Being and Nothingness
Martin Heidegger "human reality", forlornness (words quoted in the lecture)
Emmanuel Kant a universal human nature, and a rule that does not settle the pupil's case
criticHeirs
Simone de Beauvoir intellectual companion: ethics and the condition of women thought through freedom
Albert Camus keeps lucidity, refuses to make history the judge
criticMaurice Merleau-Pontyfreedom is always "situated" in the body and the world
criticClaude Lévi-Straussstructures before the free subject
criticPierre Bourdieuhabitus weighs on our "choices"
criticSimilar and opposite philosophers
how it is computedClosest
Simone de Beauvoir One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.
97 %Peter Wessel Zapffe Sees human consciousness as an evolutionary excess: people bear it only by limiting it, and the only way out would be to stop passing on life.
86 %Roderick Chisholm When we act freely, we cause our acts, and nothing causes us to cause them: each of us would be a "prime mover unmoved".
86 %John Leslie Mackie Evil makes belief in a God both all-powerful and wholly good incoherent.
86 %