Exam
According to Sartre, what is his idea that “existence precedes essence”, how is it related to the concept of “anguish” and how, in turn, is that concept related to his notion of responsibility?
The literary and philosophical works of Jean-Paul Sartre, from his very first and defining novel “Nausea” (1938), are permeated with the ideas and notions of existentialism. Many a philosopher has tried to reason their own understanding of existentialism over the course of the 20th century and each of these reasoning was fairly unique, however, it was Sartre who provided the modern scholars with a number of peculiar concepts to dissect and analyze.
In order to fully grasp Sartre’s philosophy, one must delve deeper into the very idea of existentialism. At its core lies the notion of “existence”, which encompasses the entire range of passions, feelings, and aspirations that fill the inner world of the individual, imbue their life with purpose. In order to be able to fully fulfill their “existence”, the individual has to survive a near-death experience, otherwise they would never succeed in uncovering their true potential. On the other hand, the critics of this school of thought claim that pure existentialism has never existed, because it is self-contradictory at its very core. Every object in the universe experiences “existence” in one way or the other, and therefore, each “existence” is unique by its nature, in the same way that every individual is unique.
This very conflict lies at the heart of Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophy, for he worked on reconciling various aspects of existentialism his entire life. His work “Existentialism is a Humanism” became the apex of his developing his own conciliatory position on the subject matter. In this essay the philosopher tried to summarize the main postulates made by his existentialist predecessors and argue his own worldview. Sartre based his philosophy on the belief that when an individual is born, he is not yet essentially an individual. One could say that he is certainly a human being, for biological characteristics cannot be ignored, but Sartre maintained that a biological human being only becomes a person by experience, knowledge, action. A person is defined by their journey and the choices they make along this journey, which spans their entire lifetime, and these choices are the responsibility of theirs and theirs alone.
Now would be an appropriate moment to mention that Jean-Paul Sartre was an atheist, which influenced his philosophy to a significant extent. As a result of his atheist worldview, he did not believe in predestination or in the notion that the reason for being was given to the human beings by the Almighty Creator, thus making the purpose and essence of human lives predefined and stripping them of their choices and free will. Sartre was adamant that there was no Creator at all, and since the human beings were not created, but evolved on their own, their lives were void of higher purpose and divine reasons, apart from the ones that they chose for themselves along their journey.
It is only up to the individual to try and transform an initially pointless existence into “existence”. The roads one takes, the desires one pursues, the fears one runs from – all these aspects make up the “existence” and they are a personal responsibility of each individual. According to Sartre, they are not dictated by fate, God, or any kind of almighty deity, because there is no such thing as either. What it comes down to is the will of the individual: the will to transfigure their existence, given to them by nature, into a process filled with meaning, purpose, and essence, thus earning their personhood. This is what Sartre based his belief that existence precedes essence on: the divide between the biological, natural aspect of life and the psychological, intellectual one. The former would be existence, whereas the latter would be essence, or “existence” as the existentialists understood it. Human lives have no essence until people begin to imbue their lives with essence of their own accord, because no one else will do it for them.
Sartre’s understanding of difference between existence and essence is directly related to the other two essential concepts that play an important part in his overall philosophy. The philosopher maintained that human being are in charge of their own lives and, as such, responsible for the development of their own individuality. And since it was up to them to set out the course of their lives, instead of the Creator, they possess one defining trait, which allows them to exercise such privilege. That would be freedom. Sartre believed that all human beings are born free in the most genuine and profound sense of this word: they are free to choose what to believe in, free to decide what choices to make in their individual circumstances. This freedom is both the ultimate privilege and the ultimate burden. In order to explain this paradox, Sartre created his own notion of responsibility. Certainly, it is very tempting to perceive freedom as advantage only, and to a certain degree, it is a blessing. It allows each human being to define the aforementioned essence of their existence, choose their own passions, wishes, aspirations, beliefs, and ways of achieving their goals.
Yet, on the other hand, we are talking about an enormous amount of personal responsibility that each person faces when making such choices. If one makes all the wrong choices and wastes his life on despicable or worthless deeds, one has no one to blame but oneself. There is no way to claim that they were pushed on that road by God or fate or any other supernatural power: they must be ready to accept the blame for their own misgivings and mistakes, as much as they are willing to accept praise for achievements and merits. The notion of responsibility was one of the two essential concepts established by Jean-Paul Sartre in order to emphasize that free will provides a person not only with invaluable opportunities, but also demands a person faces some accountability in return.
Finally, there is another concept, equally as important to understanding the different aspects of freedom as it is explained by Sartre in his existentialist teaching. This paper is obliged to touch upon the concept of anguish, for it is as much an indispensable part of Sartre’s worldview as the elements mentioned above. What provokes anguish in a human being, according to Sartre? That very free will does. Apart from being burdened with responsibility for making choices that comprise their life’s essence, a person must also face inevitable anguish as another side-effect of their freedom, if you could put it that way. Anguish stems from responsibility, because when faced with the hardship of having to be accountable for every choice, every decision, every path one wishes to pursue, one frequently feels overwhelmed, understandably so. Sometimes one feels like one could drown under the weight of their own life on their shoulders. And we are not even taking into account the situations when one is responsible not just for one’s own future, but the future of one’s family, one’s city, or the whole country – the future that is to be built on the choices one makes. In this instance, touching upon the burden of taking responsibility for their own path would be quite enough to comprehend the challenge that absolute freedom presents an individual with. Every school graduate feels this anguish when faced with a choice of future career path, as does every emigrant who chooses to leave behind everything they have ever known in life and start a new one from scratch. The fear of failing oneself, of ruining and wasting one’s life, if one loses the gamble, feeds the anguish and makes the exercise of freedom so much harder.
In order to summarize Sartre’s philosophy, it would suffice to say that he believed that, with human existence preceding essence, each human being is imbued with free will to choose their own path to personhood. However, this freedom comes with a price in the form of responsibility for their choices one has to assume and anguish and fear of failure one has to combat their whole life in order to make their life meaningful and worthy.
