Jean-Paul Sartre: Existentialism, Life, and Philosophy
Historically, the Second Industrial Revolution took place between 1870 and 1914. The prestige of science and its applications was enormous. Extreme versions of positivism (natural and psychological) emerged. Husserl’s phenomenology arose in response, attempting to establish a rigorous science of humanity. In short, the predominant idea was that knowledge of the world and physical science was true, while other forms of knowledge were not. The science of phenomenology would be present in Sartre’s conception of the subject. Subject and object are the two poles of Sartre’s ontology.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, liberal ideology was implemented. Liberal governments were unable to prevent social chaos and the great economic crisis. Dictatorships emerged in response, including fascism and socialism, which sought to seize power. Existentialism arose in response to these seizures, one of whose theses is that human beings are beings thrown into the world, chaotic, godless, without values. Besides Husserl’s phenomenology, Kierkegaard is considered a precursor of existentialism, and Nietzsche, the prophet of the death of God and nihilism.
Life and Works of Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre was born in Paris in 1905 and died there in 1980. He was a philosopher, writer, and long-time committed playwright. He was aligned with communism, which he considered the alternative to liberalism and capitalism. Sartre was considered the representative of existentialism. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure de Paris and earned a Ph.D. in 1929. He was a professor in several French cities, and finally in Paris. He undertook extensive studies in Berlin and Freiburg. In 1939, he joined the French army, was imprisoned, and after his release in 1941, he returned to Paris to teach. His philosophical and literary activity can be divided into two periods. The initial phase included phenomenological essays such as Imagination (1936). His first period begins in 1940 with the existentialist novel Nausea. His most important philosophical writing is Being and Nothingness: An Essay of Phenomenological Ontology (1943). This season featured a traumatized Sartre experiencing the war, a pessimistic, negative, and even nihilistic worldview. The second period changes with the existentialist conference titled Existentialism is Humanism. He took advantage of the attacks to defend his philosophy and present a new, more hopeful version of existentialism. His major work of this period is The Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960).
Existentialism is a Humanism: Key Concepts
Existentialism is a Humanism is the written text of the conference given in 1945. The purpose of this text was to defend against accusations of pessimism. Sartre defends responsibility, the creative value of freedom, and the idea that man is no longer a useless passion but can make himself. Optimism is now an existentialist doctrine in action. The work is brief, but given the success of the conference, it has since become one of the most defended works of Sartre. Its themes are: atheism, the absence of default values, the absence of human nature, unrestricted freedom, we are project, we only have ourselves in the world with our condition. Our responsibility is absolute, although this leads to existential angst.
Sartre’s Lasting Influence
Sartre’s influence was notable during the twentieth century. Even today, his influence can be detected both in philosophy and in how many people conceive of life: atheism, denial of traditional values…