INTRODUCTION It
is an obvious fact that one of the concerns of the existentialists has been to
put the human person at the center. As a philosophical movement, existentialism
tends to focus on the question of human existence and the conditions of this
existence. Thus, our concern in this work is to comment on this statement of
Jean Paul Sartre “Existence precedes essence”.
To achieve this aim, we shall follow the below formats:
·
The conceptual clarification of the terms:
Existence and essence
·
Jean-Paul Sartre and rationale behind
Jean-Paul Sartre philosophy
·
The meaning of Existence precedes essence
· The
implication existence precedes essence and conclusion Conceptual Clarification Of The Terms: Existence And Essence: The
term "existence" comes from the Latin word exsistere which
means "to appear", "to arise", "to become", or
"to be". From this, we can say that literally, existence means to
stand out. On the other hand, essence is derived from Latin word essere which means to be. With this line
of thought, while we may say that existence means an agent that acts independently
and is responsibly conscious of his or her being, essence, on the other hand
refers to roles, labels or definitions that the individual fits into.[1] Moreover, the essence of something is the
set of its defining properties, which makes it the sort of thing it is. Jean-Paul
Sartre and Rationale behind His Philosophy Of “Existence Precedes Essence”:
Jean-Paul
Sartre (1905-1980), a French famous philosopher of mid-20th century
was born in Paris. He lost his father at the age of 15 months and grew up with
his maternal grandfather. In his autobiography titled The Words, Jean Paul Sartre explains that he hates his childhood
because of the suffocating atmosphere of his grandparents. Tutored at home, he was
isolated and deprived of associating with children of his own age. With the
outbreak of the World War II, he was called into military service, but was
captured and imprisoned by the Nazis for almost a year. In very poor health throughout his life, he steadily
declined in his later days and on April 15th, 1980; he died of acute
heart failure. Moreover,
the rationale behind Sartre’s comment “Existence precedes essence” can be
traced to his life experiences. It is an obvious fact that Sartre experienced
horror of the Second World War as he passed through great anxiety. With these
experiences of the World War II, faith was lost in human nature and there were
doubts about the existence of the divine if He allowed such atrocities. With
his experiences, he rejects that there is a divine meaning to life or that
there is a predetermined purpose for an individual’s life. In fact, he thinks
that the human value system is left for the humans to create it, given the fact
that the humans have to exist in order to create their essence. The
Meaning Of “Existence Precedes Essence”: This comment “Existence precedes
essence” is a very radical reversal of nearly the entire history of philosophy,
which has affirmed that humanity qua humanity has and displays some
kinds of essential properties. In fact,
a reverse position of Sartre’s stand would mean that prior to existence; God
made a predetermined essence and conditioned man’s existence based on the
essence. However, the idea that “Existence precedes Essence” is that for human
beings, there is no predefined pattern that we must fit into. We live our
lives, and that in turn defines what we truly are, not any idealized set of
characteristics. Furthermore, the assertion that “existence precedes essence” means
that man was not created with any fixed essence or nature according to which he
must live. It signifies that humans do not have a nature that determines their
modes of being and acting, rather, these modes are simply possibilities from
which they may choose and on the basis of which they can protect themselves. Furthermore,
this assertion focuses on the point that without the actual life of the
individual, we cannot talk about his true essence; this would mean that the
actual life of the individual constitutes what we call his true essence.[2] “Existence precedes
essence” also means that a person decides by his own actions, for which he is
responsible, what he wants to be. In fact, for Sartre, an entity’s essence
precedes its existence only if it is a manufactured article. For him, in this
case (manufactured article), we know that someone manufactured it, how it was
manufactured, what it was made from, the purpose for which it was manufactured
and the eventual use of the article. However,
with reference to man, Sartre argues that human being merely exists and later
becomes his or her essential self. Put differently, for Sartre, man first of
all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world and defines himself
afterwards.[3]
The reason for this, is that, according
to Sartre, there is no God to create us according to his design plan or
blueprint. In fact, it can be rightly argued that Sartre’ bone of contention is
that man is not an artifact, he was created without a purpose and therefore, he
has no fixed nature. For him, the nature of man is determined by his own
choice; the way he exists and acts express his essence; hence, the essence of
man, as Sartre admits, is his existence. This implies that the human being is,
first and foremost and in the process of being, confronts himself or herself
and thereby defines himself or herself. Simply put, the human being is what he
or she make of himself or herself. The Implication of Existence Precedes
Essence: The implications of this assertion are that we must create our own
meaning, place our own value on our acts, and that our individual freedom is
absolute and unbounded. Simply put, the implication of “existence precedes
essence” is not only expressed by the fact that man creates himself, but also,
man is responsible for his own existence as an individual. CONCLUSION:
From the above, exposition, we can see that Jean Paul Sartre’s reversal of the
traditional philosophical view which hold that the essence of a thing is more
fundamental than its existence, is more like a Copernican revolution. For us,
we can say that it is not a matter of which one that takes precedence; this is
because, both existence and essence move in dialectical movement based on
Ousia.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Audi Robert (ed.). The
Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Second Edition. USA: Cambridge
University Press, 1999.
Jimoh Anselm. An
Introduction to Existentialism, Phenomenology and Hermeneutics. Ibadan:
Ebony Books and Kreations, 2014.
Lawhead F. William. The Voyage of Discovery: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy,
Second Edition (USA: Eve Howard, 2002.
Omoregbe Joseph. A
Simplified history of Western Philosophy: Contemporary Philosophy, Vol.
Three. Ikeja: JOJA Educational Research and Publishers Limited, 1991.
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