Sartre’s Existentialism: Man as a Project
Man as a Project: Sartre’s Existentialism
At the beginning of the 20th century, existentialist philosophy arose, a product of a social and cultural situation of grave crisis resulting from two world wars. Philosophers pondered the true meaning of life. Two representatives of existentialism are Heidegger, with his division of *being-in-the-world* and *being-in-time*, and Sartre, who divides the Self into *being-in-itself* and *being-for-itself*. Sartre has been characterized as the chief representative and disseminator of existentialism.
Sartre’s Phenomenological Ontology
The most outstanding aspect of his thought is his phenomenological ontology: it starts from the claim that what exists is what appears, the phenomenon. The appearance does not hide but reveals its essence. This phenomenological description of the phenomenon led him to distinguish between *being-in-itself* and *being-for-itself*, Being and Nothingness.
- Being-in-itself is the object, the thing being what it is and nothing more. It aspires to nothing more than just simply being. It is solid, opaque, and unknowable. But this being is not the whole being; it does not cover all the complexity of existence. There is another being.
- Being-for-itself is consciousness or human reality. It is to be, noticing that something is missing; therefore, it seeks to be another being in a different way. This is when consciousness arises out of nothing: You want what you do not have.
So, while *being-in-itself* is what it is, *being-for-itself* is not yet, but has to be. For this, we say that man is none other than his project. In the *being-in-itself* is a quiet possession of something that rests upon him without question, and he is well enough. While in the other being, there is unrest, a desire to be otherwise. This awareness produces a feeling of vertigo, which Sartre called *nausea*.
Freedom and Responsibility
For Sartre, nothingness is identified with freedom: it is the man who is aware that he is a project that has to be. Man must be because he has the ability to go by himself. Thus, freedom is simply not possible to realize; the human being *is* freedom. To be human is to be free, and this requires man to *be*, instead of staying rooted to the *being-in-itself*. To be free is to break causal determinism, break with the past, and run away from the facts left behind. In short, freedom is nothing; freedom is created.
For Sartre, man’s existence precedes essence. His essence is the result of successive acts of free choice he has made during his lifetime (it is projecting). This could end with the phrase: “Man is born; he does.” Freedom is not a philosophical problem for man; the fact is essentially attached to his being (born free). Every man is ethically worth the ability to use his own power of choice.
But this freedom means that man is responsible for what he is, what he is becoming. So the first step of existentialism is putting man in possession of what he is, putting on him the full responsibility for his existence. Man’s responsibility derives from the consciousness of freedom and generates suffering from anxiety. Anxiety is defined as the fear of oneself, fear of our decisions, and the consequences these may bring. This responsibility increases when we realize that our elections are not at the individual level but refer to the social level. Everything we do has a social dimension.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the project of man might be summarized with the following steps: being is divided into the phenomenon (*being-in-itself*) and consciousness (*being-for-itself*). This is what makes a man want to overcome since he is free. But freedom makes a man responsible for his actions, and this creates anxiety.