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{{Redirect|Sartre|the main-belt asteroid|11384 Sartre}}
{{Infobox Philosopher
| region = Western Philosophy
| era = [[20th-century philosophy]]
| color = #
| image =Jean-Paul Sartre FP.JPG|250px
| image_caption =
| signature =
| name = Jean-Paul Sartre
| birth_date = 21 June 1905
| birth_place = [[Paris]], [[France]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1980|4|15|1905|6|21}}
| death_place = Paris, France
| school_tradition = [[Existentialism]], [[Continental philosophy]], [[Marxism]]
| main_interests = [[Metaphysics]], [[Epistemology]], [[Ethics]], [[Politics]], [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|Phenomenology]], [[Ontology]]
| influences = [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]], [[Schopenhauer]], [[Karl Marx|Marx]], [[Mao Zedong|Mao]], [[Dostoyevsky]], [[Søren Kierkegaard|Kierkegaard]], [[Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzsche]], [[Edmund Husserl|Husserl]], [[Martin Heidegger|Heidegger]], [[Karl Jaspers|Jaspers]], [[Simone de Beauvoir|De Beauvoir]], [[Albert Camus|Camus]], [[Alexandre Kojève|Kojève]], [[Gustave Flaubert|Flaubert]], [[Louis-Ferdinand Céline|Céline]], [[Merleau-Ponty]], [[Dos Passos]]
| influenced = [[Simone de Beauvoir|De Beauvoir]], [[Merleau-Ponty]], [[Frantz Fanon]], [[R. D. Laing]], [[Iris Murdoch]], [[André Gorz]], [[Alain Badiou]], [[Fredric Jameson]], [[Michael Jackson (anthropology)|Michael Jackson]], [[Albert Camus]], [[Michel Foucault]], [[Kenzaburo Oe]], [[Doris Lessing]], [[William Burroughs]], [[Gilles Deleuze]]
| notable_ideas = "[[Existence precedes essence]]"<br>"[[Bad faith (existentialism)|Bad faith]]"<br>"[[Nothing]]ness"
}}'''Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre''' ({{IPA-fr|saʁtʁ}}, {{IPA-en|ˈsɑrt|lang}}; 21 June 1905 &ndash; 15 April 1980) was a French [[existentialism|existentialist]] [[philosopher]], [[playwright]], [[novelist]], [[screenwriter]], [[political activist]], [[biographer]], and [[literary criticism|literary critic]]. He was one of the leading figures in [[Twentieth-Century French Philosophy|20th century French philosophy]] and [[Existentialism]], and his work continues to influence further fields such as [[sociology]] and [[literary studies]]. Sartre was also noted for his lifelong relationship with the author and social theorist, [[Simone de Beauvoir]].

==Biography==
=== Early life and thought===
Jean-Paul Sartre was born and raised in [[Paris]] to Jean-Baptiste Sartre, an officer of the [[French Navy]], and Anne-Marie Schweitzer. His mother was of [[Alsace|Alsatian]] origin, and the first cousin of [[Nobel Prize]] laureate [[Albert Schweitzer]]. (Her father, Charles Schweitzer, 1844-1935, was the older brother of Albert Schweitzer's father, Louis Théophile, 1846-1925).<ref>http://roglo.eu/roglo?lang=fr;i=1676681</ref>
When Sartre was 15 months old, his father died of a fever. Anne-Marie raised him with help from her father, Charles Schweitzer, a high school professor of German, who taught Sartre mathematics and introduced him to [[Classics|classical literature]] at a very early age.<ref>{{cite book |last=Brabazon |first=James |title=Albert Schweitzer: A Biography |year=1975 |publisher=Putnam |pages=28}}</ref>
As a teenager in the 1920s, Sartre became attracted to [[philosophy]] upon reading [[Henri Bergson]]'s ''Essay on the Immediate Data of [[Consciousness]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Jean-Paul |first=Sartre |coauthors=Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre, Jonathan Webber |title=The Imaginary: A Phenomenological Psychology of the Imagination |origyear=1940 |year=2004 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-4152-8755-3 |pages=viii }}</ref> He studied and earned a [[doctorate]] in philosophy in Paris at the elite [[École Normale Supérieure]], an institution of higher education that was the [[alma mater]] for several prominent French thinkers and intellectuals.<ref>{{cite book |last=Schrift |first=Alan D. |authorlink= |coauthors= |editor= |others= |title=Twentieth-century French Philosophy: Key Themes and Thinkers |origdate= |origyear= |origmonth= |url= |format= |accessdate= |accessyear= |accessmonth= |edition= |series= |date= |year=2006 |publisher=Blackwell Publishing |isbn=1-4051-3217-5 |pages=174 }}</ref> Sartre was influenced by many aspects of [[Western philosophy]], absorbing ideas from [[Kant]], [[Hegel]], [[Husserl]] and [[Heidegger]], among others. In 1929 at the École Normale, he met [[Simone de Beauvoir]], who studied at the [[Sorbonne]] and later went on to become a noted philosopher, writer, and [[feminism|feminist]]. The two became inseparable and lifelong companions, initiating a romantic relationship,<ref name="seattletimes.nwsource.com">{{cite news |first=Clark| last=Humphrey| title=
The People magazine approach to a literary supercouple|publisher=''[[The Seattle Times]]''|accessdate=2007-11-20|url=
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2002648627_teteatete28.html}}</ref> though they were not monogamous.<ref>{{cite book |last=Siegel |first=Liliane |title=In the shadow of Sartre |year=1990 |publisher=Collins (London) |isbn=000215336X |pages=182 }}</ref> Sartre served as a conscript in the [[French Army]] from 1929 to 1931 and he later argued in 1959 that each French person was responsible for the collective crimes during the [[Algerian War of Independence]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Le Sueur |first=James D. |coauthors=Pierre Bourdieu |title=Uncivil War: Intellectuals and Identity Politics During the Decolonization of Algeria |origyear=2005 |accessyear= |year= 2005|publisher=University of Nebraska Press |isbn=0-8032-8028-9 |pages=178 }}</ref>

Together, Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged the [[culture|cultural]] and [[society|social]] assumptions and expectations of their upbringings, which they considered [[bourgeois]], in both lifestyle and thought. The conflict between oppressive, spiritually destructive [[conformity (psychology)|conformity]] (''mauvaise foi'', literally, "[[Bad faith (existentialism)|bad faith]]") and an ''"[[authentic]]" way of "[[being]]"'' became the dominant theme of Sartre's early work, a theme embodied in his principal philosophical work ''L'Être et le Néant'' (''[[Being and Nothingness]]'') (1943).<ref>{{cite book |last=McCloskey |first=Deirdre N. |title=The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce |year=2006 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=0-2265-5663-8 |pages=297}}</ref> Sartre's introduction to his philosophy is his work ''[[Existentialism is a Humanism]]'' (1946), originally presented as a lecture.

===Sartre and World War II===
[[File:Le Général George C. Marshall de visite de journalistes.jpg|250px|thumb|left| French journalists visit General George C. Marshall at his office in the Pentagon building,(1945)]]
In 1939 Sartre was drafted into the French army, where he served as a [[meteorologist]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Van den Hoven |first=Adrian |coauthors=Andrew N. Leak |others=Andrew N. Leak |title=Sartre Today: A Centenary Celebration |year=2005 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=1-8454-5166-X |pages=viii }}</ref> He was captured by German troops in 1940 in [[Padoux]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Boulé |first=Jean-Pierre |title=Sartre, Self-formation, and Masculinities |year=2005 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=1-5718-1742-5 |pages=114 }}</ref> and he spent nine months as a [[prisoner of war]] &mdash; in [[Nancy]] and finally in [[Stalag]] 12D, [[Trier]], where he wrote his first [[theatre|theatrical]] piece, ''Barionà, fils du tonnerre'', a drama concerning [[Christmas]]. It was during this period of confinement that Sartre read [[Heidegger]]'s ''[[Sein und Zeit]]'', later to become a major influence on his own essay on [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenological]] [[ontology]]. Because of poor health (he claimed that his poor eyesight affected his balance) Sartre was released in April 1941. Given civilian status, he recovered his position as a teacher at ''Lycée Pasteur'' near Paris, settled at the Hotel Mistral near Montparnasse at Paris, and was given a new position at [[Lycée Condorcet]], replacing a Jewish teacher who had been forbidden to teach by [[Statute on Jews|Vichy law]].

After coming back to Paris in May 1941, he participated in the founding of the underground group [[Socialisme et Liberté]] with other writers [[Simone de Beauvoir]], [[Maurice Merleau-Ponty|Merleau-Ponty]], [[Jean-Toussaint Desanti]] and his wife [[Dominique Desanti]], [[Jean Kanapa]], and École Normale students. In August, Sartre and Beauvoir went to the French Riviera seeking the support of [[André Gide]] and [[André Malraux]]. However, both Gide and Malraux were undecided, and this may have been the cause of Sartre's disappointment and discouragement. ''Socialisme et liberté'' soon dissolved and Sartre decided to write, instead of being involved in active resistance. He then wrote ''[[Being and Nothingness]]'', ''[[The Flies]]'', and ''[[No Exit]]'', none of which was censored by the Germans, and also contributed to both legal and illegal literary magazines.

After August 1944 and the [[Liberation of Paris]], he wrote ''[[Anti-Semite and Jew]]''. In the book he tries to explain the [[etiology]] of hate by analyzing [[antisemitic|antisemitic hate]]. Sartre was a very active contributor to ''[[Combat (newspaper)|Combat]]'', a newspaper created during the clandestine period by [[Albert Camus]], a philosopher and author who held similar beliefs. Sartre and Beauvoir remained friends with Camus until he turned away from communism, a schism that eventually divided them in 1951, after the publication of Camus' ''[[The Rebel (book)|The Rebel]]''. Later, while Sartre was labeled by some authors as a resistant, the French philosopher and resistant [[Vladimir Jankelevitch]] criticized Sartre's lack of political commitment during the German occupation, and interpreted his further struggles for liberty as an attempt to redeem himself. According to Camus, Sartre was a writer who resisted, not a resistor who wrote.

When the war ended Sartre established ''[[Les Temps Modernes]]'' (''Modern Times''), a monthly literary and political [[review]], and started writing full-time as well as continuing his political activism. He would draw on his war experiences for his great trilogy of novels, ''Les Chemins de la Liberté'' (''[[The Roads to Freedom]]'') (1945&ndash;1949).

===Politics===
[[Image:Beauvoir Sartre - Che Guevara -1960 - Cuba.jpg|thumb|right|230px|Jean Paul Sartre (middle) and [[Simone de Beauvoir]] (left) meeting with [[Che Guevara]] (right) in Cuba, 1960]]
The first period of Sartre's career, defined in large part by ''Being and Nothingness'' (1943), gave way to a second period as a politically engaged activist and intellectual. His 1948 work ''[[Les Mains Sales]]'' (''Dirty Hands'') in particular explored the problem of being both an intellectual at the same time as becoming "engaged" politically. He embraced [[communism]], [[Historical revisionism (negationism)|denied]] the [[Great Purge|purgings]] of Stalin, had an affair with a [[KGB]]-agent<ref>[http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/sex-and-philosophy-rethinking-de-beauvoir-and-sartre-by-edward-fullbrook-and-kate-fullbrookbr-a-dangerous-liaison-by-carole-seymourjones-832532.html New studies agree that Beauvoir is eclipsing Sartre as a philosopher and writer] ''[[The Independent]]'' May 25, 2008. Retrieved on January 4, 2009.</ref> and defended [[existentialism]], though never officially joining the [[French Communist Party|Communist Party]], and took a prominent role in the struggle against [[French rule in Algeria]]. He became perhaps the most eminent supporter of the [[National Liberation Front (Algeria)|FLN]] in the [[Algerian War]] and was one of the signatory of the ''[[Manifeste des 121]]''. Furthermore, he had an Algerian mistress, [[Arlette Elkaïm]], who became his adopted daughter in 1965. He opposed the [[Vietnam War]] and, along with [[Bertrand Russell]] and others, organized a [[tribunal]] intended to expose U.S. [[war crimes]], which became known as the [[Russell Tribunal]] in 1967.

As a [[Fellow traveller|fellow-traveller]], Sartre spent much of the rest of his life attempting to reconcile his existentialist ideas about [[free will]] with communist principles, which taught that socio-economic forces beyond our immediate, individual control play a critical role in shaping our lives. His major defining work of this period, the ''Critique de la raison dialectique'' (''[[Critique of Dialectical Reason]]'') appeared in 1960 (a second volume appeared posthumously). In ''Critique'', Sartre set out to give Marxism a more vigorous intellectual defense than it had received up until then; he ended by concluding that Marx's notion of "[[Social class|class]]" as an objective entity was fallacious. Sartre's emphasis on the humanist values in the early works of Marx led to a dispute with the leading Communist intellectual in France in the 1960s, [[Louis Althusser]], who claimed that the ideas of the [[young Marx]] were decisively superseded by the "scientific" system of the later Marx.

Sartre went to [[Cuba]] in the '60s to meet [[Fidel Castro]] and spoke with [[Ernesto "Che" Guevara]]. After Guevara's death, Sartre would declare him to be "not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age"<ref>[http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=27548 "Remembering Che Guevara", 9 October 2006, ''The International News'', by Prof Khwaja Masud]</ref> and the "era's most perfect man."<ref> [http://www.amazon.com/Bolivian-Diary-Authorized-Guevara-Publishing/dp/1920888241 Amazon Review of: ''The Bolivian Diary: Authorized Edition'']</ref> Sartre would also compliment Che Guevara by professing that "he lived his words, spoke his own actions and his story and the story of the world ran parallel."<ref>[http://www.heyche.org/peopleaboutche.html HeyChe.org - People about Che Guevara]</ref>

Following the [[Munich massacre]] in which eleven [[Israel]]i Olympians were killed by the [[Palestinian people|Palestinian]] organization [[Black September (group)|Black September]] in [[Munich]] 1972, Sartre said [[terrorism]] "is a terrible weapon but the oppressed poor have no others." Sartre also found it "perfectly scandalous that the Munich attack should be judged by the French press and a section of public opinion as an intolerable scandal."<ref>''Sartre: The Philosopher of the Twentieth Century'', [[Bernard-Henri Lévy]], p.343).</ref> However, Sartre was generally supportive of Israel and Zionism.<ref>[http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n11/said01_.html Said, Edward, "My Encounter with Sartre," ''London Review of Books'' 1 June 2000.]</ref>
<!-- [[Image:Sartre Simon Fieldhouse.jpg|right|thumb|180px|Jean-Paul Sartre, 1905 - 1980]] -->

During a collective hunger strike in 1974, Sartre visited [[Red Army Faction]] leader [[Andreas Baader]] in [[Stammheim Prison]] and criticized the harsh conditions of imprisonment.<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/1974/baader.htm The Slow Death of Andreas Baader]</ref>

===Late life and death===
In 1964, Sartre renounced literature in a witty and sardonic account of the first ten years of his life, ''Les mots'' (''Words''). The book is an ironic counterballast to [[Marcel Proust]], whose reputation had unexpectedly eclipsed that of [[André Gide]] (who had provided the model of ''littérature engagée'' for Sartre's generation). Literature, Sartre concluded, functioned ultimately as a bourgeois substitute for real commitment in the world. In October 1964, Sartre was awarded the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] but he declined it. He was the first Nobel Laureate to voluntarily decline the prize,<ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1964/press.html
|title=Nobel Prize in Literature 1964 - Press Release
|publisher=nobelprize.org
|accessdate=2009-02-11
|last=
|first=
}}
</ref> and he had previously refused the [[Légion d'honneur]], in 1945. The prize was announced on 22 October 1964; on 14 October, Sartre had written a letter to the Nobel Institute, asking to be removed from the list of nominees, and that he would not accept the prize if awarded, but the letter went unread;<ref name="letter">[http://fondation-la-poste.com/article.php3?id_article=251 Histoire de lettres Jean-Paul Sartre refuse le Prix Nobel en 1964], Elodie Bessé</ref> on 23 October, ''[[Le Figaro]]'' published a statement by Sartre explaining his refusal. He said he did not wish to be "transformed" by such an award, and did not want to take sides in an East vs. West cultural struggle by accepting an award from a prominent Western cultural institution.<ref name="letter" />

<!-- This section is discussed at:
[[Talk:Jean-Paul_Sartre#Sartre_after_literature_-_Nobel_Prize]] -->
However, [[Lars Gyllensten]], long time member of the Nobel prize committee has controversially claimed in his autobiography that Sartre later tried to access the prize money, but was subsequently turned down.<ref>{{citation
|last=Gyllensten
|first=Lars
|author-link=Lars Gyllensten
|title=Minnen, bara minnen
|publisher=Albert Bonniers förlag
|place=Stockholm
|year=2000
|page=282
|isbn=9100571407
}}</ref> Allegedly, the French philosopher in 1975 wrote a letter to the Nobel Prize committee saying that he had changed his mind about the prize, at least when it came to the money. At which point the prize committee is said to have declined the request, stating that the funds had been reinvested in the Nobel institute. However, there has never been any evidence presented or confirmation given to prove any such story.

Though his name was then a household word (as was "existentialism" during the tumultuous 1960s), Sartre remained a simple man with few possessions, actively committed to causes until the end of his life, such as the [[May 1968 in France|student revolution strikes]] in Paris during the summer of 1968 during which he was arrested for [[civil disobedience]]. President [[Charles de Gaulle]] intervened and pardoned him, commenting that "you don't arrest [[Voltaire]]."<ref>[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE4DF1538F934A35755C0A961948260 "Superstar of the Mind"], by [[Tom Bishop]] in ''[[New York Times]]'' 7 June 1987</ref>
[[File:Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir grave, Montparnasse, Paris, France-16June2009.jpg|thumb|Sartre's and de Beauvoir's grave in the [[Cimetière de Montparnasse]]]]
In 1975, when asked how he would like to be remembered, Sartre replied: "I would like <nowiki>[people]</nowiki> to remember ''Nausea'', <nowiki>[my plays]</nowiki> ''No Exit'' and ''The Devil and the Good Lord,'' and then my two philosophical works, more particularly the second one, ''[[Critique of Dialectical Reason]]''. Then my essay on Genet, ''Saint Genet''...If these are remembered, that would be quite an achievement, and I don't ask for more. As a man, if a certain Jean-Paul Sartre is remembered, I would like people to remember the milieu or historical situation in which I lived,...how I lived in it, in terms of all the aspirations which I tried to gather up within myself." Sartre's physical condition deteriorated, partially because of the merciless pace of work (and using drugs for this reason, e.g., [[amphetamine]]) he put himself through during the writing of the ''Critique'' and a massive analytical biography of [[Gustave Flaubert]] (''The Family Idiot''), both of which remained unfinished.

He died 15 April 1980 in Paris from [[oedema]] of the lung.

Sartre lies buried in [[Cimetière de Montparnasse]] in Paris. His funeral was well attended, with estimates of the number of mourners along the two hour march ranging from 15,000 to over 50,000.<ref name="BG-1980-AFP-obit">{{cite news|url=http://www.boston.com/globe/search/stories/nobel/1980/1980ag.html |title=Sartre Cortege Plus Thousands End In Crush At The Cemetery |agency=Agence France-Presse |date=April 20, 1980 |work=Boston Globe |publisher=Globe Newspaper Company |accessdate=2009-05-09}}</ref><ref name="Nat-2000-Singer">{{cite web|url=http://www.thenation.com/doc/20000605/singer/single |title=Sartre's Roads to Freedom |last=Singer |first=Daniel |date=June 5, 2000 |work=The Nation |accessdate=2009-05-09}}</ref>

==Thought==

The basis of Sartre's existentialism can be found in ''[[The Transcendence of the Ego]]''. To begin with, the [[noumenon|thing-in-itself]] is infinite and overflowing. Sartre refers to any direct consciousness of the thing-in-itself as a "pre-reflective consciousness." Any attempt to describe, understand, historicize etc. the thing-in-itself, Sartre calls "reflective consciousness." There is no way for the reflective consciousness to subsume the pre-reflective, and so reflection is fated to a form of anxiety, i.e. the human condition. The reflective consciousness in all its forms, (scientific, artistic or otherwise) can only limit the thing-in-itself by virtue of its attempt to understand or describe it. It follows, therefore, that any attempt at self-knowledge (self-consciousness - a reflective consciousness of an overflowing infinite) is a construct that fails no matter how often it is attempted. Consciousness is consciousness of itself insofar as it is consciousness of a transcendent object.

The same holds true about knowledge of the "[[Other]]." The "Other" (meaning simply beings or objects that are not the self) is a construct of reflective consciousness. A volitional entity must be careful to understand this more as a form of warning than as an ontological statement. However, there is an implication of [[solipsism]] here that Sartre considers fundamental to any coherent description of the human condition.<ref>Sartre, 1936 ''Transcendence of the Ego, Williams and Kirkpatrick, 1957 pp. 98-106 translation from "La transcendence de l"ego... ''</ref> Sartre overcomes this solipsism by a kind of ritual. Self consciousness needs "the [[Other]]" to prove (display) its own existence. It has a "masochistic desire" to be limited, i.e. limited by the reflective consciousness of another subject. This is expressed metaphorically in the famous line of dialogue from ''[[No Exit]]'', "Hell is other people."

Sartre stated that "In order to make myself recognized by the Other, I must risk my own life. To risk one's life, in fact, is to reveal oneself as not-bound to the objective form or to any determined existence--as not-bound to life", meaning the value of the Other's recognition of me depends on the value of my recognition of the Other. In this sense to the extent that the Other apprehends me as bound to a body and immersed in life, I am myself only an Other as Ego. <ref>Being and Nothingness, p. 237</ref>

The main idea of Jean-Paul Sartre is that we are, as humans, "condemned to be free."<ref>''Existentialism and Humanism''</ref> This theory relies upon his belief that there is no creator, and is formed using the example of the [[paper knife]]. Sartre says that if one considered a paper knife, one would assume that the creator would have had a plan for it: an essence. Sartre said that human beings have no essence before their existence because there is no Creator. Thus: "existence precedes essence".<ref>''Existentialism and Humanism'', page 27</ref> This forms the basis for his assertion that since one cannot explain their own actions and behaviour by referencing any specific human nature, they are necessarily fully responsible for those actions. "We are left alone, without excuse".

=== Authenticity and Individuality===
Sartre maintained that the concept of authenticity and individuality have to be earned but not learned. We need to experience death consciousness so as to wake up ourselves as to what is really important; the authentic in our lives which is life experience, not knowledge.<ref>Being and Nothingness, p. 246</ref>

===''La Nausée'' and existentialism===
As a junior lecturer at the Lycée du [[Le Havre|Havre]] in 1938, Sartre wrote the novel ''[[Nausea (novel)|La Nausée]]'' (''Nausea'') which serves in some ways as a [[manifesto]] of [[existentialism]] and remains one of his most famous books. Taking a page from the [[Husserl|German]] [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenological]] movement, he believed that our ideas are the product of experiences of real-life situations, and that novels and plays can well describe such fundamental experiences, having equal value to discursive essays for the elaboration of philosophical theories such as existentialism. With such purpose, this novel concerns a dejected researcher (Roquentin) in a town similar to Le Havre who becomes starkly conscious of the fact that inanimate objects and situations remain absolutely indifferent to his existence. As such, they show themselves to be resistant to whatever significance human consciousness might perceive in them.

This indifference of "things in themselves" (closely linked with the later notion of "being-in-itself" in his ''[[Being and Nothingness]]'') has the effect of highlighting all the more the freedom Roquentin has to perceive and act in the world; everywhere he looks, he finds situations imbued with meanings which bear the stamp of his existence. Hence the "nausea" referred to in the title of the book; all that he encounters in his everyday life is suffused with a pervasive, even horrible, taste — specifically, his freedom. The book takes the term from [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]'s ''[[Thus Spoke Zarathustra]]'', where it is used in the context of the often nauseating quality of existence. No matter how much Roquentin longs for something else or something different, he cannot get away from this harrowing evidence of his engagement with the world. The novel also acts as a terrifying realization of some of Kant's fundamental ideas; Sartre uses the idea of the autonomy of the will (that [[morality]] is derived from our ability to choose in reality; the ability to choose being derived from human freedom; embodied in the famous saying "Condemned to be free") as a way to show the world's indifference to the individual. The freedom that Kant exposed is here a strong burden, for the freedom to act towards objects is ultimately useless, and the practical application of Kant's ideas proves to be bitterly rejected.

===Sartre and literature===
Sartre's views were counterposed to those of [[Albert Camus]] in the popular imagination. In 1948, the [[Roman Catholic Church]] placed his complete works on the [[Index Librorum Prohibitorum|Index of prohibited books]]. Most of his plays are richly symbolic and serve as a means of conveying his philosophy. The best-known, ''Huis-clos'' (''[[No Exit]]''), contains the famous line "L'enfer, c'est les autres", usually translated as "Hell is other people".

Aside from the impact of ''Nausea'', Sartre's major contribution to literature was the ''[[The Roads to Freedom]]'' trilogy which charts the progression of how [[World War II]] affected Sartre's ideas. In this way, ''Roads to Freedom'' presents a less theoretical and more practical approach to [[existentialism]].

===Sartre as a public intellectual===
[[File:Sartre and de Beauvoir at Balzac Memorial.jpg|150px|thumb|right|Jean-Paul Sartre and [[Simone de Beauvoir]] at the Balzac Memorial in the 1920's]]
While the broad focus of Sartre's life revolved around the notion of human freedom, he began a sustained intellectual participation in more public matters in 1945. Prior to this—before the Second World War—he was content with the role of an apolitical liberal intellectual: "Now teaching at a lycée in Laon [...] Sartre made his headquarters the Dome café at the crossing of Montparnasse and Raspail boulevards. He attended plays, read novels, and dined <nowiki>[with]</nowiki> women. He wrote. And he was published" (Gerassi 1989: 134). Sartre and his lifelong companion, [[Simone de Beauvoir]], existed, in her words, where "the world about us was a mere backdrop against which our private lives were played out" (de Beauvoir 1958: 339).

Sartre portrayed his own pre-war situation in the character Mathieu, chief protagonist in the ''[[The Age of Reason (Sartre)|The Age of Reason]]'', which was completed during Sartre's first year as a soldier in the Second World War. By forging Mathieu as an absolute [[rationalist]], analyzing every situation, and functioning entirely on reason, he removed any strands of authentic content from his character and as a result, Mathieu could "recognize no allegiance except to [him]self" (Sartre 1942: 13), though he realized that without "responsibility for my own existence, it would seem utterly absurd to go on existing" (Sartre 1942: 14). Mathieu's commitment was only to himself, never to the outside world. Mathieu was restrained from action each time because he had no reasons for acting. Sartre then, for these reasons, was not compelled to participate in the [[Spanish Civil War]], and it took the invasion of his own country to motivate him into action and to provide a crystallization of these ideas. It was the war that gave him a purpose beyond himself, and the atrocities of the war can be seen as the turning point in his public stance.

The war opened Sartre's eyes to a political reality he had not yet understood until forced into continual engagement with it: "the world itself destroyed Sartre's illusions about isolated self-determining individuals and made clear his own personal stake in the events of the time" (Aronson 1980: 108). Returning to Paris in 1941 he formed the "Socialisme et Liberté" resistance group. In 1943, after a lack of [[Communist]] support forced the disbandment of the group, Sartre joined a writers' Resistance group<ref>Aronson, Ronald (2004). ''Camus & Sartre: The Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel That Ended It''. University of Chicago Press. p. 30. ISBN 0226027961, 9780226027968.</ref>, in which he remained an active participant until the end of the war. He continued to write ferociously, and it was due to this "crucial experience of war and captivity that Sartre began to try to build up a positive moral system and to express it through literature" (Thody 1964: 21).

The symbolic initiation of this new phase in Sartre’s work is packaged in the introduction he wrote for a new journal, ''[[Les Temps Modernes]]'', in October 1945. Here he aligned the journal, and thus himself, with the Left and called for writers to express their political commitment (Aronson 1980: 107). Yet, this alignment was indefinite, directed more to the concept of the Left than a specific party of the Left.

Sartre's philosophy lent itself to his being a [[public intellectual]]. He envisaged culture as a very fluid concept; neither pre-determined, nor definitely finished; instead, in true [[existentialism|existential]] fashion, "culture was always conceived as a process of continual invention and re-invention". This marks Sartre, the intellectual, as a [[pragmatist]], willing to move and shift stance along with events. He did not dogmatically follow a cause other than the belief in [[liberty|human freedom]], preferring to retain a pacifist's objectivity. It is this over-arching theme of freedom that means his work "subverts the bases for distinctions among the disciplines" (Kirsner 2003: 13). Therefore, he was able to hold knowledge across a vast array of subjects: "the international world order, the political and economic organisation of contemporary society, especially France, the institutional and legal frameworks that regulate the lives of ordinary citizens, the educational system, the media networks that control and disseminate information. Sartre systematically refused to keep quiet about what he saw as inequalities and injustices in the world" (Scriven 1999: xii).

Moreover, his views were divergent from the prevailing political situation. The most clear example of this is in his post-war attitude to the [[French Communist Party]] (PCF), who, following [[Liberation]] were infuriated by Sartre's philosophy and opposition, which appeared to lure young French men and women away from the ideology of Marxism and into Sartre’s own existentialism (Scriven 1999: 13). His troubled and varied relationship with Communism—and [[Marxism]] in particular—was a consequence of their doctrines that would have prevented his notion of radical freedom. And to align himself too rigidly with any political movement would have circumscribed the very freedom he was searching for. This search is most evident in his earlier writings and, especially after the [[Second World War]], in his public activities, which he had begun to regard as more significant upon recognition of the futility of words in contrast to action. (Kirsner 2003: 60).

In the aftermath of a war that had for the first time properly engaged Sartre in political matters, he set forth a body of work which "reflected on virtually every important theme of his early thought and began to explore alternative solutions to the problems posed there" (Aronson 1980: 121). The greatest difficulties that he and all public intellectuals of the time faced were the increasing technological aspects of the world that were outdating the printed word as a form of expression. In Sartre's opinion, the "traditional bourgeois literary forms remain innately superior", but there is "a recognition that the new technological '[[mass media]]' forms must be embraced" if Sartre's ethical and political goals as an authentic, committed intellectual are to be achieved: the demystification of [[bourgeois]] political practices and the raising of the consciousness, both political and cultural, of the working class. (Scriven 1993: 8). The struggle for Sartre was against the monopolising moguls who were beginning to take over the media and destroy the role of the intellectual. His attempts to reach a public were mediated by these powers, and it was often these powers he had to campaign against. He was skilled enough, however, to circumvent some of these issues by his interactive approach to the various forms of media, advertising his radio interviews in a newspaper column for example, and vice versa. (Scriven 1993: 22).

The role of a public intellectual can lead to the individual placing himself in danger as he engages with disputed topics. In Sartre's case, this was witnessed in June 1961, when a plastic bomb exploded in the entrance of his apartment building. His public support of Algerian [[self-determination]] at the time had led Sartre to become a target of the campaign of terror that mounted as the colonists' position deteriorated. A similar occurrence took place the next year and he had begun to receive threatening letters from [[Oran]]. (Aronson 1980: 157).

==Selected bibliography==
* ''L'Imagination'' (''[[Imagination: A Psychological Critique]]''), 1936
* ''La Transcendence de l'égo'' (''[[The Transcendence of the Ego]]''), 1937
* ''La Nausée'' (''[[Nausea (novel)|Nausea]]''), 1938
* ''Le Mur'' (''[[The Wall (book)|The Wall]]''), 1939
* ''Esquisse d'une théorie des émotions'' (''[[Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions]]''), 1939
* ''L'Imaginaire'' (''[[The Imaginary (Sartre)|The Imaginary]]''), 1940, lit. "The Unconscious"
* ''Les Mouches'' (''[[The Flies]]''), 1943 - a modern version of the ''[[Oresteia]]''
* ''L'Être et le néant'' (''[[Being and Nothingness]]''), 1943
* ''Réflexions sur la question juive'' (''[[Anti-Semite and Jew]]''; literally, ''Reflections on the Jewish Question''), 1943
* ''Huis-clos'' (''[[No Exit]]''), 1944
* ''Les Chemins de la liberté'' (''[[The Roads to Freedom]]'') trilogy, comprising:
** ''L'Âge de raison'' (''[[The Age of Reason (Sartre)|The Age of Reason]]''), 1945
** ''Le Sursis'' (''[[The Reprieve]]''), 1947
** ''La Mort dans l'Âme'' (''[[Troubled Sleep]]'', title formerly translated as ''Iron in the Soul'', literally "Death in Spirit"), 1949
* ''Morts sans sépulture'' (''Deaths without burial''; aka ''The Victors''; ''Men Without Shadows'' in English), 1946
* ''L'Existentialisme est un humanisme'' (''[[Existentialism is a Humanism]]''), 1946
* ''La Putain respectueuse'' (''[[The Respectful Prostitute]]'') 1946
* ''Qu'est ce que la littérature?'' (''[[What is literature?]]''), 1947
* ''Baudelaire'', 1947
* ''Situations'', 1947 &ndash;1965
* ''[[Les Mains Sales|Les Mains sales]]'' (''Dirty Hands''), 1948
* "Orphée Noir" (Black Orpheus), introduction to ''Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache.'' edited by [[Léopold Sédar Senghor]], 1948
* ''Le Diable et le bon dieu'' (''[[The Devil and the Good Lord]]''), 1951
* ''[[Les jeux sont faits|Les Jeux sont faits]]'' (''[[The Chips are Down]]''), 1952
* ''[[Saint Genet|Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr]]'', 1952
*''[[Edmund Kean|Kean]]'' (adaptation of [[Alexandre Dumas, père]]'s play) 1953, produced Paris 1954, revived London 2007 [http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/17019/kean]
* ''Nekrassov'', 1955
* ''Existentialism and Human Emotions'', 1957
* ''[[Search for a Method]]'', 1957
* ''Les Séquestrés d'Altona'' (''[[The Condemned of Altona]]''), 1959
* ''Critique de la raison dialectique'' (''[[Critique of Dialectical Reason]]''), 1960
* "Preface" to [[Frantz Fanon]]'s ''[[The Wretched of the Earth]]'', 1961
* ''[[Search for a Method]]'' (English translation of preface to ''Critique'', Vol. I), 1962
* ''[[Colonialism and Neocolonialism]]'', 1964
* ''Les Mots'' (''[[The Words]]''), 1964, autobiographical
* ''L'Idiot de la famille'' (''[[The Family Idiot]]''), 1971&ndash;1972 - on [[Gustave Flaubert]]
* ''Cahiers pour une morale'' (''[[Notebooks for Ethics]]''), 1983, 1947-48 notes on ethics
* ''Les Carnets de la drôle de guerre: Novembre 1939 - Mars 1940'' (''[[War Diaries|War Diaries: Notebooks from a Phony War 1939-1940]]''), 1984, notebooks from Sartre's time in the [[Phony War]] of 1939-1940

==See also==
* [[Existentialism]]
*[[Atheist existentialism]]
* [[Wilfrid Desan]]
*[[Sartre and bad faith]]

==Sources==
* Aronson, Ronald (1980) ''Jean-Paul Sartre - Philosophy in the World''. London: NLB
* Gerassi, John (1989) ''Jean-Paul Sartre: Hated Conscience of His Century. Volume 1: Protestant or Protester?'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press
* Judaken, Jonathan (2006) "Jean-Paul Sartre and the Jewish Question: Anti-antisemitism and the Politics of the French Intellectual. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press
* Kirsner, Douglas (2003) ''The Schizoid World of Jean-Paul Sartre and R.D. Lang''. New York: Karnac
* Scriven, Michael (1993) ''Sartre and The Media''. London: MacMillan Press Ltd
* Scriven, Michael (1999) ''Jean-Paul Sartre: Politics and Culture in Postwar France''. London: MacMillan Press Ltd
* Thody, Philip (1964) ''Jean-Paul Sartre''. London: Hamish Hamilton

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==Further reading==
* [[Annie Cohen-Solal]], ''Sartre 1905-80'', 1985.
* Simone de Beauvoir, ''Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre'', New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.
* Thomas Flynn, ''Sartre and Marxist Existentialism: The Test Case of Collective Responsibility'', Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
* John Gerassi, ''Jean-Paul Sartre: Hated Conscience of His Century'', Volume 1: Protestant or Protester?, University of Chicago Press, 1989. ISBN 0226287971.
* [[R. D. Laing]] and [[D. G. Cooper]], ''Reason and Violence: A Decade of Sartre's Philosophy, 1950-1960'', New York: Pantheon, 1971.
* [[Suzanne Lilar]], ''A propos de Sartre et de l'amour'', Paris: Grasset, 1967.
* Axel Madsen, ''Hearts and Minds: The Common Journey of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre'', William Morrow & Co, 1977.
* Heiner Wittmann, ''L'esthétique de Sartre. Artistes et intellectuels'', translated from the German by N. Weitemeier and J. Yacar, Éditions L'Harmattan (Collection L'ouverture philosophique), Paris 2001.
* Jean-Paul Sartre and Benny Levy, ''Hope Now: The 1980 Interviews'', translated by Adrian van den Hoven, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
* P.V. Spade, [http://pvspade.com/Sartre/pdf/sartre1.pdf Class Lecture Notes on Jean-Paul Sartre's ''Being and Nothingness'']. 1996.
* H. Wittmann, ''Sartre und die Kunst. Die Porträtstudien von Tintoretto bis Flaubert'', Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1996.
* H. Wittmann, ''Sartre and Camus in Aesthetics. The Challenge of Freedom.''Ed. by Dirk Hoeges. Dialoghi/Dialogues. Literatur und Kultur Italiens und Frankreichs, vol. 13, Frankfurt/M: Peter Lang 2009 ISBN 978-3-631-58693-8
*[[Wilfrid Desan]], ''The Tragic Finale: An Essay on the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre'' (1954)
* [[BBC]] (1999). "[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5997040150951355473# The Road to Freedom]". ''[[Human, All Too Human (TV series)|Human, All Too Human]]''.

==External links==
{{wikiquote}}

===By Sartre===
* [http://www.laphilosophie.fr/livres-de-Sartre-texte-integral.html Full Ebooks in French] on the website 'La philosophie'
* [http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=19471018&s=sartre Americans and Their Myths] Sartre's essay in ''[[The Nation (U.S. periodical)|The Nation]]'' (18 October 1947 issue)
* [http://www.philosophyarchive.com/index.php?title=Sartre#Primary_Sources Sartre Texts] on Philosophy Archive
* [http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/index.htm Sartre Internet Archive] on [http://www.marxists.org/ Marxists.org]
* French [http://www.incipitblog.com/index.php/2005/11/01/jean-paul-sartre-les-mots-1964/ Audiobook (mp3)], incipit of The Words (1964), read aloud in French by IncipitBlog.

===On Sartre===
* [http://www.sartreuk.org UK Sartre Society]
* [http://www.ges-sartre.fr Groupe d'études sartriennes], Paris
* [http://home.mira.net/~andy/works/sartre.htm Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason] essay by [[Andy Blunden]]
* [http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/sartre-ex.htm Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980): Existentialism] Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/ Jean-Paul Sartre (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)]
* [http://www.sartre.org/ Sartre.org] Articles, archives, and forum
* [http://semimarx.free.fr/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=36 Texts on Sartre] Sartre Rubric on the website of the Sorbonne Marx Seminar
* [http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/features/article226073.ece "The Second Coming Of Sartre"], John Lichfield, ''[[The Independent]]'', 17 June 2005
* [http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/extras/sartre.htm The World According to Sartre] essay by Roger Kimball
* [http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj102/pitt.htm Reclaiming Sartre] A review of [[Ian Birchall]], ''Sartre Against Stalinism''
* [http://atheisme.free.fr/Biographies/Sartre_e.htm Biography and quotes of Sartre]
* [http://www.sens-public.org/article.php3?id_article=300 Living with Mother. Sartre and the problem of maternity], Benedict O'Donohoe, International Webjournal''Sens Public''.
*[http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:zF3nV9Fd9DIJ:igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/student-theses/2006-0912-200835/MA%2520Eindwerkstuk%25202006%2520Eindversie.doc+Sartre+Lilar&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=27&gl=us L’image de la femme dans le théâtre de Jean-Paul Sartre - Jean-Paul Sartre:sexiste? by Stephanie Rupert]
* [http://www.scribd.com/doc/2358674/Pierre-Michel-JeanPaul-Sartre-et-Octave-Mirbeau Pierre Michel, ''Jean-Paul Sartre et Octave Mirbeau''].
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20041007.shtml Listen to Radio 4's In Our Time programme on Sartre - RealAudio]
* [http://www.sens-public.org/spip.php?article544 Sartre: philosophy, literature, politics (articles), International Webjournal Sens Public]

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