Existentialism is a Humanism

Last Book Read: Existentialism and Human Emotions - J.P. Sartre

In this short work, Sartre responds to some criticism and attempts to lay out basic principles of existentialism. These principles derive from the foundation that Man is the being whose being is the lack of being. This nothingness is brought into the world through consciousness, leaving Man alone to be the creator of values, unable to escape from freedom. There are many overtones of Nietzsche throughout this work: the transvaluation of values, the spirit of seriousness, and the will to power. Here Sartre tries to make a new, solid foundation and pronounces that Existentialism is the realization that for Man, existence precedes essence.

Existentialism is nothing else than an attempt to draw all the consequences of a coherent atheistic position. It isn't trying to lunge man into despair at all. But if one calls every attitude of unbelief despair, like the Christians, then the word is not being used in its original sense. Existentialism isn't so atheistic that it wears itself out showing that God doesn't exist. Rather, it declares that even if God did exist, that would change nothing. There you've got our point of view. Not that we believe God exists, but we think the problem of His existence is not the issue.

"Man is nothing else than what he makes of himself." This is the first principle of existentialism - subjectivity. Sartre defines freedom and responsibility and explains why we can never escape these. We can always go to others for advice, but in doing so we choose who to seek out for this advice, and we choose whose responses we will consider. It ultimately always comes back to ourselves.

Sartre goes on to discuss existential psychoanalysis, by which one attempts to find their original project, their original choice. Here Sartre dismisses the notion of the unconscious mind and attempts to refute Freudian and empirical psychoanalysis. He even thinks the tastes we have for certain foods can be consciously linked to our original project. Sartre then discusses holes, and how life is an attempt to fill these holes , to "preserve the totality of the In-itself." Ultimately Man attempts to become God, by synthesizing For-itself into In-itself-for-itself, which is self defeating. This is what God would be, but because it is a logical impossibility, it can never be achieved.

After a rather incomplete discussion of this analysis Sartre move on to ethical implications. Sartre noted that in aesthetics, there are no a priori values. The same could be said for ethics. " What art and ethics have in common is that we have creation and invention in both cases. . . Man makes himself. He isn't ready made at the start. In choosing his ethics, he makes himself." "The one thing that counts is knowing whether the inventing that has been done, has been done in the name of freedom." But, in the final chapter on ethics Sartre delays discussion to a future work- one which would never come.

This work really just contains basic principles that can be found in any introduction book, and here they are somewhat obscured by technical languauge, but there are many small details which enhance Sartre's philosophy.