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A review by raoul_g
Existentialism Is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre
4.0
'Existentialism is a Humanism' was originally a lecture given by Jean-Paul Sartre in which he tried to convey his basic understanding of existentialist philosophy. In my opinion he succeeds, and I think that the resulting text is one very well suited as an introduction to existentialist thought.
He starts with the basic affirmation of existentialism, namely that "existence comes before essence". What this basically means is that man exists first, and encounters himself, before he defines himself. This self-encounter is the immediate sense of one's self (something akin to the Cartesian cogito: "I think therefore I am") and forms the grounding truth of existentialism. From this subjectivity, and as a first step towards a self-defining of man, follows the need for mediation of another, what I would call inter-subjectivity. In the words of Sartre: "I cannot obtain any truth whatsoever about myself, except through the mediation of another. The other is indispensable to my existence, and equally so to any knowledge I can have of myself." This echoes Hegel's idea that we only gain self-consciousness through a process of mutual recognition.
After man's self-encounter through his subjectivity and the recognition of others, arises the question of essence. Who will I be? What is my identity? What is the meaning of my life? For Sartre, there is no a priori answer to these questions: "Life is nothing until it is lived; but it is yours to make sense of, and the value of it is nothing else but the sense that you choose." From this follows another of Sartre's famous affirmations: "Man is condemned to be free." It is a great freedom that man has: to decide what to do in any given situation, to decide the values by which he wants to live, to decide what is meaningful to him. But at the same time it is also a great responsibility: Man must choose. No one else can choose for him. And by choosing, man affirms the value of the chosen thing and is thus implicitly willing it for all of mankind. Even not choosing anything in any given situation is also a choice. These choices and the actions that arise out of them are what ultimately define us according to Sartre: "a man is no other than a series of undertakings, ... he is the sum, the organisation, the set of relations that constitute these undertakings."
My own conclusion from this is the following: Who I truly am might, in a certain sense, be more obvious for those around me, observing my actions, than it is to myself. Why is this so? Because I rarely am able to see my own actions undistorted by my knowledge of my motivations, intentions and desires. Might this also explain why we are so concerned with how we are perceived by others? As you see (or should I say: as I see you seeing me?) I'm getting too psychoanalytical once again...
He starts with the basic affirmation of existentialism, namely that "existence comes before essence". What this basically means is that man exists first, and encounters himself, before he defines himself. This self-encounter is the immediate sense of one's self (something akin to the Cartesian cogito: "I think therefore I am") and forms the grounding truth of existentialism. From this subjectivity, and as a first step towards a self-defining of man, follows the need for mediation of another, what I would call inter-subjectivity. In the words of Sartre: "I cannot obtain any truth whatsoever about myself, except through the mediation of another. The other is indispensable to my existence, and equally so to any knowledge I can have of myself." This echoes Hegel's idea that we only gain self-consciousness through a process of mutual recognition.
After man's self-encounter through his subjectivity and the recognition of others, arises the question of essence. Who will I be? What is my identity? What is the meaning of my life? For Sartre, there is no a priori answer to these questions: "Life is nothing until it is lived; but it is yours to make sense of, and the value of it is nothing else but the sense that you choose." From this follows another of Sartre's famous affirmations: "Man is condemned to be free." It is a great freedom that man has: to decide what to do in any given situation, to decide the values by which he wants to live, to decide what is meaningful to him. But at the same time it is also a great responsibility: Man must choose. No one else can choose for him. And by choosing, man affirms the value of the chosen thing and is thus implicitly willing it for all of mankind. Even not choosing anything in any given situation is also a choice. These choices and the actions that arise out of them are what ultimately define us according to Sartre: "a man is no other than a series of undertakings, ... he is the sum, the organisation, the set of relations that constitute these undertakings."
My own conclusion from this is the following: Who I truly am might, in a certain sense, be more obvious for those around me, observing my actions, than it is to myself. Why is this so? Because I rarely am able to see my own actions undistorted by my knowledge of my motivations, intentions and desires. Might this also explain why we are so concerned with how we are perceived by others? As you see (or should I say: as I see you seeing me?) I'm getting too psychoanalytical once again...