Jean-Paul Sartre


"L'enfer c'est vous autres." or "Hell is other people."
Perhaps no name is as synonymous with the philosophy of existentialism as is Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980). Responsible mainly for its popularization after the Second World War, Sartre's work were indepedant of medium as he delved profoundly and successfully in Essay, Novel, and Drama alike. Unlike his contemporary Albert Camus or others such as Soren Kierkegaard, Sartre promoted an aetheistic existentialism in which he placed man in the centre of his realm. Sartre's contributions were not well received early in his career, especially in 1940 when he was imprisoned for 9 months only to be finally released and returned his teaching position in Paris. Sartre is responsible for establishing two ground shaking philosophies in the 20th century. The first being that nature of man as a result of the perceptions of those around him, and the second being man's necessary condemnation to his freedoms. In his play No Exit, Sartre creates a stunning metaphor between Hell and the social and relative tendancies of mankind. His characters find themselves trapped eternally in one room, constantly judging each other. Here he coins the phrase "Hell is other people," suggesting that man, being a subjective creature can only see in terms of his own convictions, and thus only be seen in terms of other people's convictions. Therefore, his reality of his nature is the reality seen by others, since he couldn't possibly see himself in any objective fashion. This conflicted harshly with Camus' view of man as a construction of his own internal desires and motivations. Similarly, Sartre believed in the will to freedom as an infinite, inescapable element of existence. This was initially brought about by Descartes in his Meditations of First Philosophy. This condemnation to our freedoms placed all of mankind into a self inflicted slavery, where even the decision to cease the using of out wills would be an act of will in itself. In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and promptly declined it.
Selected Readings

Nausea (1938)
Being and Nothingness (1943)
The Flies (1943)
No Exit (1944)
The Age of Reason (1945)
Existentialism and Human Emotion (1945)
The Respectful Prostitute (1947)
Dirty Hands (1948)
The Reprieve
Search for a Method
Troubled Sleep
The Words