PhilosophersJean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

Existence precedes essence: we are condemned to be free.

Existentialism1905 – 1980 FrancePhilosopher of freedomAtheist existentialistNovelist and playwrightCommitted intellectual
l'homme est condamné à être libre
Man is condemned to be free. Lecture of 1945, §11.
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l'homme n'est rien d'autre que ce qu'il se fait
Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. Lecture of 1945, §8.
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la vie n'a pas de sens, a priori
There is no sense in life a priori. Lecture of 1945, §25.
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vous êtes libre, choisissez, c'est-à-dire inventez
You are free, therefore choose, that is to say, invent. Lecture of 1945, §14: Sartre's answer to the pupil torn between his mother and the Resistance.
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nous ne sommes pas libres de cesser d’être libres
We are not free to cease being free. Being and Nothingness, IV, 1, I (1943).
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l'enfer, c'est les Autres
Hell is other people. No Exit (1944), scene 5: a line of Garcin, a character, not a thesis stated by Sartre in his own name.
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Misconceptions

Nuanced
"Hell is other people": Sartre thinks other people are our hell.

The line is spoken by Garcin, a character in No Exit, near the end of the play, when he realises he is locked up with two other people who judge him. It is not a thesis that Sartre states in his own name. In the 1945 lecture he even writes that no truth about oneself can be reached without going through the other, who is "indispensable to my existence". The meaning Sartre himself gave the line is not in our corpus: do not quote it as his doctrine without checking.

Nuanced
Sartre coined "existence precedes essence" for his popular lecture of 1945.

The phrase is central in the lecture, where he explains it with the paper-knife. But Being and Nothingness (1943, IV, 1, I) already says that, for the human being, "existence precedes and conditions essence", which amounts to saying that man is free. The lecture is thus the simple version of an idea from the big book, not its origin.

Nuanced
For Sartre, without God everything is permitted, so anyone may do anything.

He takes Dostoevsky's phrase as a starting point: without God, no rule is given in advance, and that is what leaves man "forlorn" and anguished. He then writes that one may choose, but cannot not choose, and that choosing commits all humanity. He rejects the charge of caprice, while admitting that values are chosen. Whether this is enough to avoid arbitrariness is much debated.

False
Sartre accepted the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964.

The prize was awarded to him in 1964 and he refused it, as he refused official honours. His public statement about this refusal is not in our corpus.