The Adventures of Jean-Paul Sartre

Sam Kelly says Jean-Paul Sartre was the Hunter S. Thompson of existentialism.

- Sam Kelly

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) is perhaps the most famous expo-nent of existentialism. His philos-ophy asserts that human beings are cursed with the impossible burden of having to make decisions without any higher justifications. There is no God or other transcendent force to dictate what they should do with their lives. Human beings are alone, and, born without an essence, are forced to define themselves through their own actions. Since we have the sole power to determine our actions, we can (and should) be judged on what we choose to do with our freedom. This is a crushing weight. We live in anguish and despair because every success and every failure rests squarely on our shoulders. The core of Sartre’s existentialism is that human beings are ‘condemned to be free’.

Sartre further explained that people lie to themselves, hoping to escape the curse of free choice. They pretend their choices have been made for them and thus are out of their control: “I can’t do what I chose because I have a family, I have a job, I have responsibilities, I have to earn money…” Sartre called this sort of attitude ‘living in bad faith’.

He also believed a person is “nothing else but the sum of his actions.” So what were the sum of Sartre’s actions? How did he choose to define his existence?