Jean-Paul Sartre's Main Theses

There exists a great difficulty in summarizing the whole philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre in so few pages for three main reasons. First, his philosophy has a point of departure which is either assumed or may be unclear at the first instance. He tends to develop his philosophy from a premise of the nonexistence of God, yet he likewise tends to attempt to prove this very assertion by the implications of that premise. Second, his is a comprehensive philosophy, one which discusses a lot of topics, related though they may be. Third, although it is very easy to point out the connection between his theses, it is nevertheless difficult to state them in few sentences. It was Gabriel Marcel who made this observation, and even Sartre himself admitted the difficulty of doing so.

This being said, this writer still believes that a short introduction to early Sartrean philosophy is very much needed in order to point out the development of his thought. Let us then proceed to a brief tour of early Sartrean thought.

• Phenomenological Ontology and Consciousness
  
  

  Early Sartrean philosophy is one of a pursuit of being. It is an attempt to grasp being through an investigation of the way being presents to consciousness - phenomenological ontology. [More...]

  
  
  
  
• The Great Division of Being
  
  

  Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is. Sartre thus defines being. Being, as all embracing and objective, is not existence, which is individual and subjective. [More...]

  
  
  
  
• Sartrean Atheism
  
  

  Atheism is integral to Sartrean philosophy in the sense that it is the fulcrum on which his philosophy grounds itself. His claim of the precedence of existence over essence is but a logical consequence of his atheism. [More...]

  
  
  
  
• Freedom & Facticity
  
  

  Jean-Paul Sartre is a demoniacal philosopher of freedom. Freedom is Sartre's main key to the understanding of man: through freedom, meaning enters into the world. [More...]