JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

(1905-80)

BACKGROUND

  • Grandfathers:
    • (paternal)
      • Dr. Eymard Sartre
      • noted country doctor
      • published medical books
    • (maternal)
      • Karl Scweitzer
      • uncle to Albert
      • published books on philosophy, religion, language
      • strict, domineering
      • womanizer (religious hypocrite)
  • Father:
    • Jean-Baptiste
    • officer in the French navy
    • died (entercolitis) when JPS = 15 months
      • lives with maternal grandfather
      • "...I didn't even have to forget him."
  • Mother:
    • Anne-Marie Schweitzer
    • she = 1st cousin to Albert Schweitzer
      • German missionary
    • moves in w/her father (see above)
    • later remarries
      • Joseph Mancy
      • JPS = 12, sees this as betrayal, rebels
  • Appearance:
    • short, unattractive
    • wandering right eye (early illness)
    • --> teasing & abuse from other children
    • --> his bitter, retaliatory personality
    • --> his writing (power & vengeance)
  • Pride:
    • sense of pride in his family & intelligence
  • Education:
    • Lycee in Paris (Henry IV)
    • Lycee in La Rochelle
    • Paris' Ecole Normale Superieure
      • one of the country's most prestigious schools
  • "Marriage":
    • he considered it a bourgeois institution
    • had a life companion
      • Simone de Beauvoir
    • whom he had met at school

BACKGROUND

  • Philosophical Background:
    • schoolmates = C. Levi-Strauss, J. Hippolyte
    • after graduation (1929), taught at Le Havre
    • moved to Germany, on stipend (1932)
    • studied works of M. Heidegger, E. Husserl
      • EH's phenomenological method, idea of a free, fully intentional consciousness
      • MH's existentialism
    • back in Paris, frequented left Bank cafes
  • WWII:
    • drafted (1939)
    • captured, imprisoned in Germany (1940)
    • back in Paris, joined the French Resistance movement
      • unknown to Nazis (or they wouldn't have allowed his books to be published)
  • Occupations:
    • journalist
    • writer
    • teacher, professor
  • Writings:
    • early literary work = psychological
    • resistance magazines during WWII
    • founded Modern Times, literary & political review
    • 1936:  Imagination; A Psychological Critique
    • 1938:  Nausea (novel)
      • life without purpose
      • the excessiveness of this world
      • which leads to a psychological nausea
      • banality of the bourgeois culture
    • 1939:  Sketch for a Theory of Emotions
    • 1940:  The Psychology of Imagination
    • 1943:  Being and Nothingness, The Flies
    • 1944:  No Exit
    • 1946:  Existentialism & Human Emotions
    • 1960:  The Critique of Dialectical Reason
    • 1980:  The Family Idiot (unfinished bio of Flaubert)
  • 1964:
    • Nobel Prize
    • Words, autobiography
    • JPS later refuses the award
      • saw it as "bourgeois"
  • "a Narcissus who does not like himself" (Josette Pacaly)

THEMES

 

SARTRE'S EXISTENTIALISM:

  • influences

    • Heidegger, Husserl

    • Albert Camus, friend (The Stranger, 1942)

    • Karl Marx

    • Spanish Civil War, WWII

    • Nazi Occupation of France

  • yet original

  • laid bare in

    • philosophical treatise

    • Being and Nothingness (1943)

  • "Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth."

  • "Sartrian Socialism"

  • "Existential Humanism"

  • concerns @ the nature of -

    • existence, freedom, responsibility

    • consciousness, time

  • bullet points:

    • existence over "essence"

    • meaninglessness of life

    • no God, godless universe

    • existential fear

    • stems from man's freedom w/o god

    • humans create meaning, whatever meaning there is

      • not God, not religion

  • not Nihilism:

    • optimist

    • advocate for social change

    • detailed social responsibility

    • belief in human dignity

    • humanist

      • Existentialism and Humanism (1946)

  • leftist

    • communist leanings

    • though never joined the party

    • source of tension with Camus

    • broke altogether w/communists in 1950s

  • Sartrian Socialism:

    • Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960)

    • demands that Marxism

      • respect human freedom

      • recognize differences between societies

  • philosophical backgrounds:

    • Cartesian rationalism (existence proven by thought)

    • transcendence of the ego (nature of the self)

    • Husserlian phenomenology (study of structures of subjective experience, consciousness)

  • psychology:

    • emotions

    • imagination

      • (early works)

THEMES

SARTRE'S EXISTENTIALISM:

  • *Existence precedes Essence:

    • existence = human consciousness

    • essence = identity

    • things exist in themselves

      • "being-in-itself"

      • inanimate objects

      • character is assigned to it

      • its essence is applied by the observer of its traits

    • things exist for themselves

      • humans, human consciousness

      • "being-for-itself"

      • 1st it exists, then it defines its own essence

      • no fixed character

      • self-fashioning

      • we are free to define ourselves

  • existential fear/dread:

    • realize limits to knowledge

    • realize mortality, limits to life

  • atheism:

    • no God; godless universe;

    • the "loss of God" is not mourned

  • freedom -

    • condemned to freedom

      • from all authority (God, religion)

      • complete/total responsibility for one's own actions

        • --> fear, dread

        • --> self-deception, self-imprisonment

        • = BAD FAITH (inauthenticity)

    • one may seek to evade, distort, and deny

    • but s/he will have to face

    • if he is to become a moral being (Good Faith)

  • meaninglessness of life:

    • meaning does not precede existence

    • meaning of a man's life is not established before his existence

  • commitment:

    • --> acknowledge freedom --> make this meaning himself, commit himself to a role in this world, has to commit his freedom

  • solidarity:

    • needs other people

    • otherwise, attempting to make oneself = futile 

  • against:

    • anti-capitalism

    • anti-materialism

    • anti-West

    • anti-USA

    • anti-bourgeoisie

    • anti-religion (atheist - The Devil & the Good Lord)

    • anti-literature (later, "idolatry of words" in his youth)

  • contradictions (over career):

    • anti-bourgeoisie & from bourgeoisie

      • hated the middle class yet from it

    • individualist who saw need for collectivity

    • concerned with individual existence yet also for all society

    • writer who later denounced writing/literature

    • reformer & moralist who lived immorally

THEMES

  • FREEDOM

    • "condemned to be free" (B&N)

    • even under torture & threat of death (The Victors)

    • absence of freedom (No Exit, twisted relationships, when one exists through & for others rather than lives authentically)

  • phenomenological ontology (man as subject & object)

  • pre-WWII:    apolitical

  • post-WWII:  leftist politically

  • 1950s+ = radicalization of his thinking:

    • atheism

    • violence & revolution

    • Marxism

    • existential humanism

    • self-debate

    • dialectical reasoning

      • (the synthesis between 2 opposing sides)

 THEMES

  • LITERATURE:

    • ideas about literature = set forth in 1948's "What Is Literature?":

    • literature =

      • no longer an activity for itself

      • nor primarily descriptive of characters and situations

      • but is concerned with human freedom

      • and its (and the author's) commitment

    • literature = committed act

    • literature (& all artistic creation) = a moral activity

  • alienation and commitment

  • salvation through art

STYLE

  • autobiographical

  • philosophical

  • philosophy through fiction

    • not parables, allegories

    • but thinly veiled narratives

  • "literature":

    • plays, novels, short stories

    • autobiographical stories

    • philosophical stories

    • strong use of metaphor

    • command of dialogue

    • issues of relationships, sexuality, action, insanity

 STYLE

  • genres:

    • psychological research (early work)

    • philosophical treatises

    • biographical works

    • autobiographical works (autobio. & in literary works)

    • letters, epistolary

    • philosophical novels (literature as philosophical treatise)

    • literary theory ("What Is Literature?")

    • literature:  short stories, plays, novels

LINKS LINKS