Introduction
In the mid-20th century, existentialism had many opponents and was widely criticized as it was believed to be founded on the wrong perspective to explain human existence. Jean-Paul found the opportunity to answer his critics when he was invited to deliver a lecture in a newly established club. The club, called Club Maintenant, was based in Paris and was founded by Jacques Calmy and Marc Beigbeder, who desired to provide a platform where people would debate their scholarly and literary thinking. At this event, Sartre, on October 29, 1945, delivered the speech titled Existentialism is a Humanism. In this discussion, the objective is to describe the two outstanding concepts that make up the title of the speech: Existentialism and Humanism. Afterward, the discussion seeks to provide a deeper insight into one central passage outlined in Jean-Paul’s lecture, with the critical point of focus being the statement “existence precedes essence” (p.36).
Concepts: Existentialism and Humanism
Apart from responding to unfounded criticisms and rumors, the lecture by Sartre also sought to offer further elaboration on the philosophy of existentialism to the increasing audience that was keen to understand his message. According to Carter (2021) Sartre intended to educate people by providing a more profound elaboration of existentialism to people who had begun using that term without appreciating its real meaning. Existentialism is a branch of human philosophy that seeks to answer a few questions relating to human existence. The philosophy gives emphasis to three main aspects of humanity: freedom, individual existence, and choice. It presupposes the perspective that people define their purpose in life by endeavoring to make rational choices even as society exists in an irrational sphere. Existentialism can be traced back to the 19th century, primarily through the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Søren Kierkegaard (Beauvoir, 2018). However, the two philosophers did not exclusively refer to the term Existentialism in their writings.
Existentialism gained prominence during the Second World War (WWII) and was propagated by French existentialists. One of the individuals who popularized existentialism is Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre is one of the few philosophers who came to appreciate being called an existentialist. Carter (2021) states that initially Sartre castigated anyone calling him an existentialist and disputed the existence of such a term. His fictional and academic works were majorly centered on existential subjects, such as nothingness, freedom, alienation, commitment, boredom, and the absurd. Some of his notable writings based on existentialism include “Nausea” (1938), “Being and Nothingness” (1943), and “No Exit” (1944).
The second concept of humanism is quite broad but basically refers to any philosophy that looks at human beings as the focal point of things. Humanism characterizes a positive meaning of being benevolent and is mainly linked to an expectant point of view. In his lecture, Sartre seems to push down the notion of humanism by stating that it is absurd in the self-congratulatory partying in the accomplishments of the human creature (Beauvoir, 2018). In a research by Summaries (2016), Sartre proposes a different interpretation of humanism by laying emphasis on the pride of the human race. According to him, humanism should be founded on the import of human choice to the conception of all morals. Sartre extends his definition of existentialism by capturing the positivity typically accompanying humanism. He asserts that even in the absence of pre-established neutral principles, people are utterly in control of what they become. This puts the prospect of the human race on the human beings themselves, a point he captures by quoting Francis Ponge’s assertion that “Man is the future of man” (p.38).
Passage of Interest
Sartre’s speech had many talking points as he sought to address a lot of concerns raised by the opponents to existentialism. One of the statements that draws my attention is the passage described below (Sartre et al., 2007, p.36);
“The question is only complicated because there are two kinds of existentialists. There are, on the one hand, the Christians, amongst whom I shall name Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel, both professed Catholics; and on the other the existential atheists, amongst whom we must place Heidegger as well as the French existentialists and myself. What they have in common is simply the fact that they believe that existence comes before essence – or, if you will, that we must begin from the subjective. What exactly do we mean by that?”
The main point of focus from the above passage is the expression “existence precedes essence” (p.36). This expression needs to be understood comprehensively to grasp the philosophy of existentialism. On its face, existence means awareness, whereas essence refers to an environmental or genetic makeup. According to the conventional western philosophy, which is supported by non-existentialist, essence comes ahead of existence at all times. This means that human beings are well-defined by their environmental and genetic attributes, which dictate people’s actions. The makeup that can be called human nature refers to universally shared ecological and genetic facets of the human species (Summaries, 2016). However, supporters of existentialism rubbish existence as a collective human nature by suggesting that existence comes ahead of essence. In other words, this means that people’s perception has the prospect to define how they feel about the biosphere irrespective of the elementary environmental and genetic individualities.
The expression can also be looked at from the angle of Christian and Atheist existentialists. On the one hand, existentialism philosophy incorporates those who profess the Christian faith by the existence of God, that is, Christian existentialism. On the other hand, there are the Atheist existentialists who are individuals who do not believe in the existence of God. However, both strands of existentialism hold that “existence precedes essence” (p.36) and that the philosophies should be separated by subjectivity. According to Beauvoir (2018), the Christian existentialists oppose Atheist existentialism because it presupposes no expectation for humanity. It also diminishes the importance of values and is predominantly engrossed in the material world in place of the divine sphere. Christian existentialists understand existence precedes essence to mean man is the creation of God’s brainpower. Sartre belongs to the strand of atheist existentialists who dispute the existence of God. The atheist movement holds that existence precedes essence to mean the one being that exists ahead of evolving its essence and ethics, which basically infers to that being to be the man.
Even as Christian existentialism suggests that existence comes first, it is difficult to understand how consciousness can be fashioned from no point with a vital facticity. Science presumes that mindfulness is formed by a physical appliance, which is the brain. Once a person’s brain gets damaged or dysfunctional, the level of the individual’s consciousness will go down (Carter, 2021). For illustration, as soon as a person gets challenged with a particular state and has to react based on two fronts, the response will be different. Under normal circumstances, the person’s consciousness will respond to the situation as expected. But once a portion of the individual’s brain is disrupted, the reply the person would most probably provide would widely vary from the initially expected reaction. This means that existence cannot come before essence; good consciousness must be a product of a well-functioning mind (Jaspers, 2021). Additionally, the facticity of that brain that encompasses environmental and genetic tenets will afford a person a landscape that will restrict their latitude of reaction to a given condition or provocation.
Furthermore, Jean-Paul fashions the speech on the background of his thinking that people who were against existentialism had no idea of its more profound connotation. It is apparent that the talk attacks the Christians, especially in failing to make a distinction between many existentialist thoughts, such as abandonment, anguish, and despair. He also argues that Christians could not be able to infer what the concepts denote in the Christian faith. Jaspers (2021) states that Jean-Paul presumed that Christians are intellectually lazy, which manifests the Christian faith in lousy light. For this reason, he feels Christians perceive the expression “existence precedes essence” (p.36) by looking at its simplistic meaning as a way of avoiding digging deeper into the actual existentialism’s deductions.
In the same way, Sartre argues that people who inappropriately choose to be called existentialists exhibit bad intentions by intentionally distorting the philosophy of existentialism. He asserts that this crop of individuals heartens people to misinterpret the facts pertaining to existentialism rather than genuinely learning philosophy and scrutinizing the human form it seeks to brighten (Jaspers, 2021). For the most part, existentialism as manifest by the considered expression aims to encourage people to analytically mirror on their own environments, lives, and morals.
Conclusion
Overall, Sartre did the best he could to defend existentialism against the mounting criticism. He elaborated more and delved into a deeper understanding of I existentialism. The speech was fundamental in addressing the majority of the critics’ concerns with the philosophy of existentialism upon which he erected a firm foundation for future deliberations. That’s why the speech is severally referred to until this time to understand the emergence of existentialism in explaining human philosophy.
The speech was so powerful that Sartre later captured it in the form of a book. However, given that the philosophy was still young and the world was emerging out of WWII, some of his points were firm, and he did not provide adequate grounds for fine-tuning. He also paid greater attention to rhetoric in place of providing solid arguments. The expression “existence precedes essence” provides an example of rigidity in trying to understand existentialism, especially from a Christianity point of view. The expression as put forward by Sartre in the speech seems to be the strong point of view of the supporters of existentialism, particularly the atheists. Nonetheless, Sartre realized the primary objective of trying to simplify the philosophy of existentialism by further discussing it in contrast to humanism and making it more appetizing to the opponents. Sartre was also at the stage in his life where he was beginning to embrace existentialism and therefore had not yet fully perfected his literary and philosophical calling.
References
Beauvoir, D. S. (2018). The ethics of ambiguity (Reissue ed.). Open Road Media.
Carter, J. D. (2021). A Christian perspective of postmodern existentialism: The new humanism of western culture. Resource Publications.
Jaspers, K. (2021). Existentialism and humanism: Three essays. Hassell Street Press.
Sartre, J., Macomber, C., ElkaĂŻm-Sartre, A., & Cohen-Solal, A. (2007). Existentialism is a humanism (Annotated ed.). Yale University Press.
Summaries, B. (2016). Existentialism and humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre (book analysis): Detailed summary, analysis and reading guide (BrightSummaries.com). BrightSummaries.com.