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SUMMARY OF SARTRE’S TERMINOLOGY

(retrieved from http://www.sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/sartre%20sum.html)

ABANDONMENT: “I am abandoned in the world... in the sense that I find

myself suddenly alone and without help.”

ANGUISH: “It is in anguish that we become conscious of our freedom. ...My being provokes anguish to

the extent that I distrust myself and my own reactions in that situation.”

BAD FAITH: Sartre uses this term to refer to the state or condition of being guilty of regarding oneself

not as a free person but as an object. In bad faith I am hiding the truth from myself. “I must know the

truth very exactly in order to conceal it more carefully.” (There seems to be some overlap in Sartre's

conception of bad faith and his conception of self-deception.) A person can live in bad faith, which

implies a constant and particular style of life.

CHOICE: I am my choices. I cannot not choose. If I do not choose, that is still a choice. If faced with

inevitable circumstances, we still choose how we are in those circumstances.

CONDEMNED TO BE FREE: We are condemned because we did not create ourselves; that is, we did not

create our own body or physicalistic, fact-based form of life. We must choose and act from within

whatever situation we find ourselves.

DESPAIR: We limit ourselves to a reliance on that which is within our power, our capability to influence.

There are other things very important to us over which we have no control.

EXISTENCE PRECEDES ESSENCE: “Freedom is existence, and in it existence precedes essence.” This

means that what we do, how we act in our life, determines our apparent “qualities.” It is not that someone

tells the truth because she is honest, but rather she defines herself as honest by telling the truth again

and again. I am a professor in a way different than the way I am six feet tall, or the way a table is a table.

The table simply is; I exist by defining myself in the world at each moment.

FREEDOM: is the central and unique potentiality which constitutes us as human. Sartre rejects

determinism, saying that it is our choice how we respond to determining tendencies. In choosing for

ourselves we choose for all humankind.

THE HUMAN CONDITION: Despite different roles and historical situations, we all have to be in the

world, to labor and die there. These circumstances “are everywhere recognizable; and subjective because

they are lived and are nothing if we do not live them.

ONTOLOGY: The study of being, of what constitutes a person as a person, is the necessary basis for

psychoanalysis.

OUR ACTS DEFINE US: “In life, a man commits himself, draws his own portrait, and there is nothing but

that portrait.” Our illusions and imaginings about ourselves, about what we could have been, are

nothing but self-deception.

OUR REALITY AND OUR ENDS: Human reality “identifies and defines itself by the ends which it

pursues,” rather than by alleged “causes” in the past.

PASSION IS NO EXCUSE: “I was overwhelmed by strong feelings; I couldn't help myself” is a falsehood.

Despite my feelings, I choose how to express them in action.

PAST DETERMINANTS SELDOM TELL US THE CRUCIAL INFORMATION: We transform past

determining tendencies through our choices. Explanations in terms of family, socioeconomic status, etc.,

do not tell us why a person makes the crucial choices we are most interested in. Even in self-deception, I

know I am the one deceiving myself, and Freud's so-called censor must be conscious to know what to

repress.

RESPONSIBILITY: Each of us is responsible for everything we do. If we seek advice from others, we

choose our advisor and have some idea of the course he or she will recommend. “I am responsible for

my very desire of fleeing responsibilities.”

SELF-TRANSFORMATION/OUR POWER TO CREATE OURSELVES: We have the power of transforming

ourselves indefinitely.

SUBJECT RATHER THAN OBJECT: Humans are not objects to be used by God or a government or

corporation or society. Nor are we to be “adjusted” or molded into roles—to be only a waiter or a

conductor or a mother or worker. We must look deeper than our roles and find ourselves.

SUBJECTIVISM means the freedom of the individual subject, and that we cannot pass beyond

subjectivity.

THE “UNCONSCIOUS” IS NOT TRULY UNCONSCIOUS: At some level I am aware of, and I choose, what

I will allow fully into my consciousness and what I will not. Thus I cannot use “the unconscious” as an

excuse for my behavior. Even though I may not admit it to myself, I am aware and I am

choosing. Those who use “the unconscious” as exoneration of actions believe that our instincts, drives,

and complexes make up a reality that simply is; that is neither true nor false in itself but simply real.

WE CONTINUALLY MAKE OURSELVES AS WE ARE: A “brave” person is simply someone who usually

acts bravely. Each act contributes to defining us as we are, and at any moment we can begin to act

differently and draw a different portrait of ourselves. There is always a possibility to change, to start

making a different kind of choice. We must make some choices knowing that the consequences will

have profound effects on others (like a commander sending his troops into battle.)