This massive work was written in a remarkably short time. BN was probably completed in October 1942, which meant that In earnest on his release in the summer of 1941, and continued over the next few months in Paris and To here as BN) on the floor of his prisoner-of-war camp in the summer of 1940. Sartre began his notes for his great early work Being and Nothingness (sometimes referred Yet we are not slaves to but creators of our existence, and our freedom allows us constantly Our commitmentsĪllow us to become people we might not have become and illuminate a set of priorities that might have Is our nature as human beings always to go beyond who we are towards a freely chosen self. That our free actions are not the consequence of our identity, they are its foundation – and it In his reflections on action Sartre goes to the very heart of what it is to be human. In this article we will see what Sartre does and doesn’t mean by this awkward inversion of everyday Surely, to take my first example, she is a qualified doctor, whether Parents because they care for their children.” This kind of description can be counter-intuitive,Īnd may even seem forced. He is a coward,” we should say “He is a coward because he runs away” instead of saying “TheyĬare for their children because they are devoted parents,” we should say “They are devoted In a certain way that we establish an identity. In his view it is not true that we act in a certain way because of our identity. Jean-Paul Sartre, however, is unsatisfied with this kind of explanation, because he thinks it is back-to-front. So we can understand why human beings act by looking to some aspect of their personal Something about who the person is and what they are like: “She treats the patient because she isĪ doctor” “He runs away because he is a coward” “They care for their childrenīecause they are devoted parents.” These explanations refer in some way to the identity of the But a satisfying answer will often tell us We do not distinguish between these words very carefully. Questions will point to a great range of causes, reasons, motives, or motivations. Why does someone do one thing rather than another? What explains the action? Our answers to these SUBSCRIBE NOW Articles Identity and Freedom in Being and Nothingness Stephen Wang continues our debate on these essential aspects of being human by considering what Jean-Paul Sartre had to say about them.
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