Scan barcode
A review by foggy1218
Existentialism Is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre
4.0
2023 reads, 2/12:
This book was really a lecture that Sartre gave on October 28, 1945, in Paris, in order to defend the philosophy of existentialism, and describe it to a general audience (this book was published a year later). He emphasizes the underlying creed – that existence precedes essence – and spends the rest of the lecture giving examples and further clarifying his thoughts.
This was more so a utility read for me, to further understand Sartre’s thoughts on what existentialism was. It wasn’t as dry as I was expecting, but the short length helped with that. Regardless, it was great seeing how Sartre had expanded on and refined his ideas since [b:Nausea|298275|Nausea|Jean-Paul Sartre|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1377674928l/298275._SY75_.jpg|1319935], a book seemingly overwhelmed with despair. Not sure if there’s any historical accuracy to this, but I could see that book being one of the reasons he felt the need to defend existentialism. I overall enjoyed this, and would classify it as an essential to anyone who wants to further understand existentialism (and how it differs from absurdism), and the general French philosophy at the time.
“My purpose here is to offer a defence of existentialism against several reproaches that have been laid against it.”
This book was really a lecture that Sartre gave on October 28, 1945, in Paris, in order to defend the philosophy of existentialism, and describe it to a general audience (this book was published a year later). He emphasizes the underlying creed – that existence precedes essence – and spends the rest of the lecture giving examples and further clarifying his thoughts.
This was more so a utility read for me, to further understand Sartre’s thoughts on what existentialism was. It wasn’t as dry as I was expecting, but the short length helped with that. Regardless, it was great seeing how Sartre had expanded on and refined his ideas since [b:Nausea|298275|Nausea|Jean-Paul Sartre|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1377674928l/298275._SY75_.jpg|1319935], a book seemingly overwhelmed with despair. Not sure if there’s any historical accuracy to this, but I could see that book being one of the reasons he felt the need to defend existentialism. I overall enjoyed this, and would classify it as an essential to anyone who wants to further understand existentialism (and how it differs from absurdism), and the general French philosophy at the time.
“This relation of transcendence as constitutive of man (not in the sense that God is transcendent, but in the sense of self-surpassing) with subjectivity (in such a sense that man is not shut up in himself but forever present in a human universe) – it is this that we call existential humanism”