Jean-Paul Sartre
1905 – 1980 French philosopher, writer
The face of existentialism, philosopher of radical freedom.
- Religion
- An outspoken atheist who held that without God, humans are free and wholly responsible for creating their own meaning.
- Affiliations
- A leading public intellectual of the French left; declined the Nobel Prize. No secret society.
Sartre argued that existence precedes essence, so we are condemned to be free and must define ourselves through our choices. Being and Nothingness set out his philosophy, and his plays and novels dramatized it. He was the leading intellectual of postwar France.
Connections
- influenced Martin Heidegger — Sartre built his existentialism on Heidegger's analysis of being.
- associate of Simone de Beauvoir — Lifelong partners and intellectual collaborators.
- associate of Simone de Beauvoir — Lifelong partners who shaped each other's philosophy.