Jean Paul Sartre

             From the early to late 20th century a philosopher by the name of Jean-Paul Sartre became a major spokes person for existentialism, catching the largest audience in all the history of philosophy. Sartre developed a sort of chain of philosophy with and responsibilities for humanity to live by. He expressed that every individuals first responsibility to, not only their self, but to humanity as well, was to realize they exist and define themselves as who they are and how they will be. From there he believed that everyone is free to make choices, and everyone is responsible for realizing that every choice made not only affects their future but humanities as well. Once those choices are made, he felt it is every individual's responsibility to get what they want, and not sit and wait for it to happen. He felt that humanity relied too much on God in all these aspects of life, and he felt God was too unreliable. People needed to be shown that every individual is responsible for every aspect of theirs and humanities future. People can only rely on themselves.
             People must realize that they exist without the help of God and learn to define themselves as human before anything else. This is the first step on Sartre's chain of philosophy. Everything that has been created has been developed from an idea or concept before it actually existed. Take for example a knife, the artisan who creates one has a concept of its appearance and usage before be begins to develop it. In this case the knifes essence came before its existence. But in the case of humans Sartre felt this was not so. His atheistic existentialist approach was that if God does not exist there is at least one being whose existence comes before its essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any concept of it. That he believed was humans. Therefore humans must first of all exist, encounter themselves, and then define themselves or develop their concept of self afterwards. ...

More Essays:

APA     MLA     Chicago
Jean Paul Sartre. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 12:00, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/95747.html