This book is Jean Paul Sartre’s manifesto of what he saw existentialism as being. THe broader implications of what he saw existentialism had to other areas. In it he refers to phenomenology and Edmond Husserl and the concept that what is perceived is not an objective reality duplicated by the mind but a subjective experience that is the result of our minds own percipient activity. He argues for a very atheistic form of existentialism over Kierkegaard’s more christian form of it. The crux of it is that existence preceeds essence, rather then the ideal providing existence. But what does Sartre mean when he says existence preceeds essence, he argues that man exists and prior to existence there is nothing that defines who he is, dictates his character, goals, aspirations and personality.
“Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world - and defines himself afterwards’
Thus, the defing of the self is something that is always done in retrospect. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. This is a very liberating doctrine, one however that I think places a huge burden upon the individual to be a judge of their own self and the responsibility for them to live and be the correct person, as they bear the whole burdon for who they are, they have nothing to blame for what they are. Yet, this for me whilst I think is true to some extent, I think Sartre over states the role it plays, as we are not fully free, as he would have us to believe, to become who we want to be. His paper-knife theory holds that an object is created in essence as a theoretical entity prior to its construction, this he says is reversed for man. Man is created and then constructs his meaning. A point that I am struggling to comprehend is what he means when he says that what he chooses for himself he chooses for all mankind. I think that this refers to the concept that we can only be sure of our own existence and thus we project ourselves into the rest of mankind, so what we chose for ourselves in turn becomes our template for mankind. Sartre thus thinks that in fashioning himself he is fashioning the world, or at least, mankind. We therefore have responsibility not just for ourselves but for all mankind. This seems very similiar to Kants univseral ethics, what we choose must be what could be chosen universally in our situation. However this could be the point he makes later using Descartes cogito which is the initial stage for self awareness of our abandonment. I think therfore I am is the absulate truth of conciousness, and ones sense of self
Sartre quotes Dosteivosky when he said that “if God did not exist everything would be permitted.” THis statement is erronous as it assumes that mrality is derived only from God, and that it is God that imposes restrictions upon mankind, I would argue that Man imposes upon themselves their own limitations and prisons of their own perceptions. We want to limit ourselves through constructs and restrictions as it justifies us not acting to a fullness of our potential. As I was reading this it mad me think of Plato’s Euthyphro and his attempt to discover what holiness is and how one becomes holy. However Sartre uses the concept that man devoid of divinity finds himself with nothing to depend upon but himself and is confronted with an infinite number of choices through which he has to decide. It is this anguish of being confronted with so many choices of which we bear sole responsibility for the repercussions that he sees as the essence of existentialism, if essence could be used, perhaps the word core or fundamental feature would be more fitting.
Another term he tries to define in an existential context is abandonment. We alone our the judges that interpret the meaning of the events of our life. He uses the examples of a jesuit who interprets his life as a divine message being unraveled in front of his eyes, and the Kierkgaardian ‘Anguish of abraham’ to demonstrate this concept. This made me thing of the difficulty that we have in identfying the spirit in our own lives. I love his phrase Manpaints his own portrait and that is all he has. In the end who we are is all that we take with us, and in being.It is in in creating and inventing that man becomes as their is no pre-existing image of what man can become, or so Sartre says. Yet, in the light of the gospel we can see that this is not the case, we know both what the meaning of man is, and what he is to become, the image is given yet the practical way in which we become that is existential. I think that existential ideas work in light of our mortal existence but crumble in the eternal light of the gospel. The best thing about the book is the doctrine of freedom, action, and choice. It is these three areas which are its strengths its flaws are in the consistency and way in which they are applied and understood, the premises are true, but the conclusion is flawed.
“Life is nothing until it is lived; but it is yourss to make sense of, and the value of it is nothing but the sense that you choose.” (p. 54)
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