Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 - 1980)
Listen to Benedict O'Donohoe say why you should vote for Jean-Paul Sartre'My thought is me: that is why I can't stop. I exist by what I think...and I can't prevent myself from thinking.'
Sartre was the leading advocate of atheistic existentialism in France but he was also interested in the novel, drama, literary criticism and politics.
He is best remembered for his philosophical works and his idea of communistic existentialism which he expressed in novels and plays such as his debut novel
Nausea (1939), which depicted man adrift in a godless universe, hostage to his own freedom.
He had a long term affair with the feminist philosopher, Simone de Beauvoir, and together they were at the centre of French intellectual life from the late 1920s onwards.
His great philosophical work is
Being and Nothingness (1956). Like Kierkegaard and Heidegger, Sartre emphasised the burden of individual personal freedom: that although we can’t escape the fact of our situation, we are free to change it. He drew a distinction between the unconscious and the conscious.
After the Second World War, during which he fought for the Resistance, he became increasingly interested in Marxism and his involvement with the French Communist party was part of his desire to overcome the economic and social "structures of choice" which he found restricting. His main contribution to Marxism is
Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960).
Sartre refused the 1964 Nobel Prize in literature on "personal grounds", but is later said to have accepted it.
Read about Jean-Paul Sartre on WikipediaRead about Jean-Paul Sartre on the Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyRead about Jean-Paul Sartre on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Please note: the BBC accepts no responsibility for the content of external websites.
Listen to Benedict O'Donohoe say why you should vote for Jean-Paul Sartre
