Jean Paul Sartre's Existentialist Belief, We Are Completely Free

1163 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Sartre and freedom

Jean Paul Sartre is a philosopher that supports the philosophy of existentialism. Existentialism is a twentieth century philosophy that denies any crucial human nature and embraces that each of us produces our own essence through our free actions. Existentialists like Sartre believe there isn’t a God that determines people’s nature. So, existentialists believe that humans have no purpose or nature except the ones that they create for themselves. We are free and responsible for what we are and our engagements; even though we are mindful that this can cause agony.
Sartre is one of the constructors of the philosophy of existence that is existentialism. Humans must first be born and exist before they are able to define their essence. He states that there is no universal statement about what humans are. But, there is one overall statement about the circumstances that make us human, which is that we are free. He believes that when we have to make decisions nothing is forcing us to do what we are doing. Which leads to the idea that humans have to take full responsibility for our actions, beliefs and emotions. By being aware that we are free, the responsibility of this can cause “anguish” according to Sartre. One of the most painful thoughts can be that we alone are totally responsible for what happens to us. To avoid the pain of some of the bad decisions we make people can act as if they had no choice and may pretend that they are not free which would make them not responsible. When you act like you were not free and are not responsible is known as having bad faith. That is humans try to convince themselves that outside forces, forces that are beyond control or our conscious mental state helped determine the decisions we made.
I suppo...

... middle of paper ...

...ns given to us are not ideal, people do have a choice on which one they are going to stick one and the reason we are choosing is because of our experiences that got us there. I also agree that in order to create essence we must first be born. Once we are born we are given the responsibility of creating who we are and who we want to be by our actions. I think it is a good thing for people to feel that they are completely free because then they will take responsibility and action in their lives rather than blaming things on others. By having free will people should be more determined and interesting in shaping their lives and their experiences to make themselves who they want to be, not blame outside sources for who they are. In given circumstances people are still given choice, and it depends on how you choice to act in these experiences that makes you who you are.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Cordwainer Smith's Alpha Ralpha Street

    1125 Words  | 3 Pages

    The term existentialist, according to Sartre, means existence precedes essence. This means that an individual first exists, and then they exercise free will over themselves to do things that define themselves, thus their essence. For this ideology to work for Sartre, an atheistic stance needs to be taken. This is so because of how he defines God. God is compared to an artisan producing a knife, through a definition and a formula. Thus, “when God creates he knows precisely what he is creating.” Under this identification of God, that Sartre dictates is a common implication in philosophical writings, God creates with intent and seemingly, purpose. Hence, God

    Read More

  • Existentialism In 13 Going On Thirty By Jean-Paul Sartre

    1391 Words  | 3 Pages

    In his lecture, Existentialism is a Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre discusses common misconceptions people, specifically Communists and Christians, have about existentialism and extentanitalists (18). He wants to explain why these misconceptions are wrong and defend existentialism for what he believes it is. Sartre argues people are free to create themselves through their decisions and actions. This idea is illustrated in the movie 13 Going on Thirty, where one characters’ decision at her thirteenth birthday party and her actions afterwards make her become awful person by the time she turns thirty. She was free to make these decisions but she was also alone. Often the idea of having complete free will at first sounds refreshing, but when people

    Read More

  • Exploring Existential Ethics: Beauvoir's Response to Sartre

    647 Words  | 2 Pages

    At the end of Being and Nothingness,Jean-Paul Sartre concedes that he has not overcome one of the key objections to existentialism viz., an outline of ethics, and states that he will do so later. Although Sartre attempted the project of an existential ethics, it was never quite completed. Enter Simone De Beauvoir. In this book, De Beauvoir picks up where Sartre has left us, refusing to answer the question of ethics. For De Beauvoir, human nature involves and ontological ambiguity whose finitude is bound in a duality. This duality of body and consciousness is the ambiguity which remakes nature the way we want it to be as a facticity of transcendence. It is within this understanding that the project of ethics must begin in ambiguity. However,

    Read More

  • Sartre And Beauvoir Existentialism Analysis

    1885 Words  | 4 Pages

    Many Christians rejected the philosophy of existentialism on the grounds that it denies “the reality and seriousness of human affairs” and that man will “be incapable… of condemning either the point of view or the action of anyone else.” (Sartre 1). Sartre denies this claim later in Existentialism is a Humanism by rejecting the misconception that an existentialist holds no conviction. Rather, he states, existentialists have the most conviction of anyone, because in “choosing for himself he chooses for all men.” (Sartre 4) Sartre claims this to be the “deeper meaning of existentialism.” It is the subjectivity of what is good or evil, the essence that man decides for himself, that has an impact on everyone else; within this subjectivity lies the responsibility for bettering mankind, a responsibility few men would choose to ignore.

    Read More

  • Free Will and Choices

    1530 Words  | 4 Pages

    It has been sincerely obvious that our own experience of some source that we do leads in result of our own free choices. For example, we probably believe that we freely chose to do the tasks and thoughts that come to us making us doing the task. However, we may start to wonder if our choices that we chose are actually free. As we read further into the Fifty Readings in Philosophy by Donald C. Abel, all the readers would argue about the thought of free will. The first reading “The System of Human Freedom” by Baron D’Holbach, Holbach argues that “human being are wholly physical entities and therefore wholly subject to the law of nature. We have a will, but our will is not free because it necessarily seeks our well-being and self-preservation.” For example, if was extremely thirsty and came upon a fountain of water but you knew that the water was poisonous. If I refrain from drinking the water, that is because of the strength of my desire to avoid drinking the poisonous water. If I was too drink the water, it was because I presented my desire of the water by having the water overpowering me for overseeing the poison within the water. Whether I drink or refrain from the water, my action are the reason of the out coming and effect of the motion I take next. Holbach concludes that every human action that is take like everything occurring in nature, “is necessary consequences of cause, visible or concealed, that are forced to act according to their proper nature.” (pg. 269)

    Read More

  • Sartre: Authentic Existence in Living in Bad Faith

    311 Words  | 1 Pages

    Jean Paul Sartre's philosophy is one of the most popular systems of thought in the school called existentialism. Sartre valued human freedom and choice, and held it in the highest regard. To be able to live an authentic existence, one must take responsibility for all the actions that he freely chooses. This total freedom that man faces often throws him into a state of existential anguish, wherein he is burdened by the hardship of having to choose all the time. Thus, there ensues the temptation for man to live a life of inauthenticity, by leaning on preset rules or guidelines, and objective norms. This would consist the idea of bad faith.

    Read More

  • Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit and Existentialis

    981 Words  | 2 Pages

    the play may be pass to modern society, that one may not learn, or even

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Fall By Albert Camus

    2761 Words  | 6 Pages

    “It is better to encounter your existence in disgust, then never to encounter it at all.” What Sartre is saying is that it is better to determine who you are in dissatisfaction, rather than never truly discovering yourself. Sartre’s worst fear in life would be to realize that you have never truly lived. For example, if you were to land a career that you were not interested in and you were just going through the motions of everyday life, Sartre would say that life was not a life worth living. Sartre’s goal in life was to reach the ultimate level; he said life was “Nausea” , because we are always trying to reach the next level, we are always in motion. Sartre had two theories that determine our way of life, Being-In-Itself and Being-For-Itself. Being-In-Itself is the ultimate level, if you reach this level you have fulfilled yourself completely, you have lived your life to the fullest. Being-For-Itself is where we as human beings are, we are always trying to work to become perfect. Our goal in life is to find an authentic existence, and we get there by saying no. Sartre’s philosophy of freedom is obtained by saying no, when we say no we are giving ourselves the option of what we do in our life. By saying no, we receive freedom of our life. “You should say no about every belief if there is a doubt about it.” Sartre also says our human existence is always in

    Read More

  • The Level Of Freedom In Sartre's Our Limited Freedom

    999 Words  | 2 Pages

    Since we do not have freedom to choose our past experiences, and these past experiences affect our ability to make choices and perform actions, it is difficult to say with absolute resolve that man indeed is free and bears full responsibility for everything. At the very least, Sartre has no choice but to admit that there are individuals out there that do not have the same amount of freedom as other individuals and thus does not bear the same amount of

    Read More

  • Jean-Paul Sartre and Radical Freedom

    1790 Words  | 4 Pages

    The key belief of existentialists is that existence precedes essence. In order to understand that claim we must first understand what Jean- Paul Sartre means by the term “essence.” He gives an example of a person forging a paper-cutter. When an individual sets out to make any object, he/she has a purpose for it in mind and an idea of what the object will look like before beginning the actual production of it, so this object has an essence, or purpose, before it ever has an existence. The individual, as its creator, has given the paper-cutter its essence. Using the paper cutter example, Sartre argues that human beings cannot have an essence (or purpose) before their “production,” becaus...

    Read More

  • Jean-Paul Sartre’s Philosophy: Radical Freedom and Responsibility

    1238 Words  | 3 Pages

    Existentialism is a philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining his or her own development through acts of the will. To Sartre, saying that som...

    Read More

  • Jean-Paul Sartre - Problems with the Notion of Bad Faith

    4319 Words  | 9 Pages

    ...ating Sartre's attitudes towards the constituents of human action, that which constitutes human being. Even though it may, in the final analysis, prove to be an unsatisfactory account of consciousness, it serves to illuminate some possible further lines of study, if only as a negative example.

    Read More

  • Existentialism By Jean-Paul Sartre: The Common Man's Meaning

    1287 Words  | 3 Pages

    Existentialism is a term that was coined specifically by Jean-Paul Sartre in regards to his own life. Sartre had adopted the Atheistic approach to life and its meaning, and while he was not the first or only one to do so, was the first and only one to come up with a way to describe it. Under Existentialism, man lives without higher power or guidance and must rely solely on himself and what he is aiming to do in order to lead a fulfilling life. This can be anything. Critics of Sartre propose that, because such a vast array of options exists within the meaningfulness of life, this philosophy is obsolete and trivial in nature. This is not true, as it is seen in everyday examples – celebrities, namely – that a thirst

    Read More

  • Jean Paul Sartre Philosophy

    1310 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ur dreams and other places, but you cannot know what it contains or control what goes in it. I believe that you have no control over your actions. However, the point Sartre is trying to make the unconscious is that you cannot your “unconscious” as an excuse. I think it is an excuse, but nonetheless you are responsible for your actions due to it. I disagree with him on the existence of the unconscious, but agree that you are still responsible for your actions, whether they derive from your unconscious or not.

    Read More

  • A Comparison Of The Movie Groundhog Day And Jean-Paul Sartre

    718 Words  | 2 Pages

    As well, he defined freedom as we are free to make our own choices, but we are condemned to always bear the responsibility of the consequences of these choices. We are in this world helpless, without any creator who forced us to make our own choices and to bear their consequences. Sartre also claims that as an individual we are not free to be free since we are condemned to be free. Sartre claims that God is dead and there is no one who none command us. Sartre affirmed that all the way of life , we should find significance in our being . We are responsible for our own lives and the way we live it does define who we are. Sartre uses the main idea of existentialism as "existence precedes essence," he says that we have the choice in everything we do. Our "essence" is not something that is established before us, we should it by ourselves. His philosophy is that human beings exist first, and then can own a freedom that he decided who he wants to become.

    Read More

More about Jean Paul Sartre's Existentialist Belief, We Are Completely Free

Open Document