Jean-Paul Sartre : Reviews Of Works

The name of Jean-Paul Sartre is known all over the world for his great contribution into the development of philosophic thought and is usually associated with his most famous writings L’être et le néant (Being and Nothingness) (1943) and the play Huis-clos (No Exit) (1944). These writings are vitally important for presentation of the ideas of the philosopher upon human beings, reality, relations between people and the surrounding world, experiences and moral aspects. There were a lot of existential thinkers in the twentieth century, however Sartre was one of the most outstanding figures among them thanks to his versatile and complete treating of existentialism issues, correspondingly he is till the moment considered to be the brightest representative of the existentialism school.

Sartre supported the central idea of the rest existentialist philosophers that “existence precedes essence”. For him all the things, which existed in our material world, had no meaning till the moment, they were consciously perceived and understood by human beings. The phenomenological movements by Edmund Husserl had serious impact upon the formation of the views of Sartre. “This teaching held that all human knowledge can be traced back (reduced) to an original ‘lived experience’. This gave concrete descriptive analyses of our basic experiences priority over purely logical, abstract reasoning.” (Busch 1990). Sartre split the reality into two models of being: the in-itself – the state of materials things, how it is without people being conscious about them and the for-itself – the state of things, how it is experienced by human beings with the help of their consciousness. The philosopher was sure that consciousness could not exist without concrete objects, about which human beings could be conscious. In other words he treated consciousness not as empty receptacle, but as nothingness. Sartre explained that first comes the object of the world or existence and then comes understanding of these objects – essence. Sartre didn’t base his theory upon presence of any real essences, he was sure that individuals could see only subjective meanings of all things, which were correspondingly created out of nothingness, which he also called freedom. It is difficult to argue that in reality all the things, which surround people, could be seen by each individual differently, although objectively they are the same for everybody. Their appearing and existence is certainly primary to humans’ perception of them, first the sun rises and then people understand that it is morning already and not wise verse.

Sartre wrote that people need to be ready to accept the “hard truths of reality” (Busch 1990). Along with considering of all materials things to be meaningless, Sartre underlined the importance of individual’s freedom. However, this freedom has two sides – “Although we are free to create ourselves, which gives us a degree of nobility as well as some flexibility in choosing our actions for ourselves, the full realization and acceptance of our freedom comes at a great price. Sartre describes this great price in terms of anguish, forlornness, and despair.” (Busch 1990). The difficulty here is related to the fact that as soon as people acknowledge absence of God, they should correspondingly forget about such ethical values, which were rooting from goodness and rightness. This results in anguish, which is the form of recognition of human freedom. At the same time each individual remains alone with his own moral choices and actions. There is no need to ask somebody else about his advice, if individuals are limited to their own moral values. At the same time as soon as a person chooses somebody to ask for a piece of advice, he already could assume what kind of advice he would get from this individual. For example if he goes to Church for help and advice – he will be told about his moral duties and serving to God. However, it is necessary to understand here that Sartre was not writing about some everyday problems and decisions, he meant the key decisions, each person has to take during his life, which actually defined the major course of his life and activities. The process of self-realization could be rather pressing and difficult for an individual, as all of his achievements long with all his failures are absolutely his and nobody else is involved into them. This approach to self-determination, suggested by Sartre, was criticized, blaming the philosopher of his too naïve approach. Maybe this was the reason why “in later years Sartre tried to reconcile his existential volunteerism with a more Marxist view that stresses social, political, and economic forces; few critics, however, have been convinced by his attempt.” (Detmer 1988). Certainly there are some relations between human freedom and ethical and moral choices, but it is not correct to attach ethics and morality purely to God and church. In this case those individuals, who are atheists, should not take care of their ethics and morality, but it is not possible. Each individual has to make the choices, every minute and every day of his life, these choices would form the basis for his moral principles. And on the contrary – stable moral principles are responsible for making of choices and taking decisions for each person.  The idea of Sartre that those choices are judged only by this individual, who makes them, seems to be only partially correct, as most of people live in societies and they need to build their relations with each other, this certainly leads to the fact that people around also make their own judgments about the choices of other individuals.

The previous part of Sartre’s philosophies seems to be rather gloomy and pessimistic, whereas an authenticity analysis adds more positive notes to the whole philosophic approach. Human freedom is not only the defining means for taking decisions and making choices, it also passes the responsibility for the actions, which in their turn contribute to determination of individuals. There are cases, when individuals do not want to bear this responsibility, their state is described by Sartre as “bad faith”. “In bad faith we deceive ourselves, either by denying our freedom in claiming that we “have no choice” or else by giving into daydreams and so imagining ourselves to be what we are not. Instead we are to accept responsibility for what we are (past) as well as our freedom to choose what to become (future).” (Detmer 1988). This is a way for all human beings to become authentic. Individuals are able to choose themselves, their world, humanity. Making any moral choice, it is utterly important to judge about it not in the frames of only your life, but also consider this choice in the background of the whole society, whether it could be seen as correct for the whole humanity or not. This is absolutely correct of course, because each person is a constituent part of the society, he is living in, he has meaning for the present time, as well as for the future, as today is the basis for tomorrow. Sometimes making of the choice with consideration of the whole humanity is much easier, than purely on the basis of some personal interests, however, realization of this is much more difficult, as all individuals are egoistic by nature. The extent of the egoism is various, which defines the behavior and choices of each person. There is no use to argue about it, rather it is necessary to find the correct balance between being egoistic and devoted to humanity.

Sartre was not purely a philosopher, he developed his unique approach to studying and describing of his philosophical views with the help of pieces of literature, as he was sure that all the ideas, developed by individuals, are the results of their real life experience, gained in real situations. Thus plays and novels, based on the experience, gained by other people, are most luckily to have not only literature, but also philosophical values for the readers. Nausea is one of the most well-known novels, produced by Sartre with the aim of analyzing of the basic existential encounters. Another important writing of Sartre is considered to be his famous Huis-Clos (No Exit), which is sometimes translated as Hell in other people. This writing is related to Sartre’s idea about Being and Nothingness. However, it is necessary not to miss the irony of the author, in order not to do any wrong judgments about his position of skepticism. The key idea of the writing is the description, how all individuals are used to think of others within their own frames only, depriving other human beings of their freedom to create their essences. People look at each other and think that they are looking in mirrors, looking to see their own reflections in other individuals. This is one of the key problems in any social relations and another form of human egoism. The whole meaning of the play the author concentrated into one phrase “hell is – other people”, which certainly needs to be interpreted correctly, otherwise it might have a different meaning. Or maybe this was an idea of the author to formulate this phrase in such a way, that each reader would understand it a bit differently.

Overall, Jean-Paul Sartre was an outstanding philosopher and playwright, his innovative ideas and approaches to the key concepts for human lives have been relevant for a long period of time and his existentialism was a real breakthrough for the traditional philosophical views of the Enlightenment period.

 

Works cited:

Busch, T. The Power of Consciousness and the Force of Circumstances in Sartre’s Philosophy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990

Detmer, D. Freedom as a Value: A Critique of the Ethical Theory of Jean-Paul Sartre. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1988

Sartre, J. P. Being and Nothingness. Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis Books Ltd, 2003

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016.

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

freeessays.club (2016) The terms offer and acceptance [Online].
Available at:

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]
close
Haven't found the right essay?
Get an expert to write you the one you need!
print

Professional writers and researchers

quotes

Sources and citation are provided

clock

3 hour delivery

person