Exploring Jean-Paul Sartre: Existence, Freedom, and the Path to Authenticity — History of Philosophy #5
Jean-Paul Sartre was the existentialist philosopher born in Paris in 1905 who sparked more conflicting opinions than perhaps any other modern thinker. Sartre was equally praised and criticized for his philosophy, literary work, and political activism.
As a leading figure of existentialism, Sartre believed that humans create the world of values and that each person is their own project—radically free and therefore radically responsible.
Sartre's ideas faced criticism from positivists, Marxist philosophers, and Christian thinkers. Christians accepted that humans create their own meaning, but rejected his view that freedom isn't an absolute good. Marxists viewed his philosophy as overly focused on the individual, criticizing what they termed his subjectivism and individualism. They thought he ignored history and social forces.
It's worth noting that 20th-century philosophy emerged from a revolt against positivism's narrow scientific empiricism, shifting focus toward humanistic concerns about existence, culture, and society. This turn made existentialism one of the century's most vital movements. Sartre and Camus led the charge, exploring fundamental questions about what defines human existence.
Additionally, it’s worth mentioning that for Camus, Sartre was one of the most significant philosophers of the absurd — a thinker who deeply understood the feeling of existential nausea and the confrontation with life’s fundamental meaninglessness.
The author of "Being and Nothingness" explored profound questions in his work, such as whether awareness of our own nothingness marks the beginning of responsibility, if recognizing that life has no predetermined meaning — that we shape it ourselves — can lead us toward freedom and authenticity, and what this freedom truly means.
Notably, Sartre refused the Nobel Prize in 1964, insisting that a writer should not be transformed into an institution.
"It is absurd that we were born and absurd that we shall die"
This absurdity, the collision between human desire for meaning and the universe's silent indifference, became central to his philosophy. The absurd emerges when we recognize that existence offers no inherent purpose, no cosmic justification for our being here.
Previously mentioned, Camus developed the idea of the absurd even further, becoming one of its most recognized thinkers. It is worth mentioning that the term absurdism is most closely associated with his philosophy. He saw absurdity as the foundation of wisdom, believing that truly understanding the world requires facing its contradictions.
For him, meaningful insights about life come from engaging with these contradictions, and to experience the world fully is to experience its absurdity.
At the foundation of Sartre's thought lies one of the most well-known philosophical claims: existence precedes essence. Humans first exist, then define themselves through their choices and actions. Without God to predetermine our nature, we carry the burden and privilege of self-creation. Every definition of who we are comes solely from ourselves.
Sartre's existentialism confronts the individual's solitude, freedom, and mortality in an indifferent universe. His vision is anthropocentric—placing humanity at the center of the world, insisting that we must elevate and master the world through our own strength alone, without turning to higher powers.
1) The Burden of Absolute Freedom
“We are alone, with no excuses.”
Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the leading figures of 20th-century existentialism, argued that "we are condemned to be free." This means that every decision we make, even the seemingly smallest, carries full responsibility, and we must confront the existential burden of creating ourselves in a world without any predetermined meaning.
Sartre first presented his existentialist ideas in Being and Nothingness (1943) and later offered a more accessible account in Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946). He emphasized the fundamental solitude of human beings: there is no external authority—divine, moral, or social—that can tell us what is right or wrong. Humans are "thrown into the world" (être jeté dans le monde), without instructions and without justification.
This is why Sartre declared that humans are "condemned to be free." We cannot escape it, because every decision, even the choice to submit to someone or follow rules, is an act of free choice. Freedom is not a privilege but a burden, carrying complete responsibility for our actions, thoughts, and choices.
Yet for Sartre, this condemnation to freedom is ultimately liberating. While it brings anguish and responsibility, it also means we are the sole authors of our existence. No external force constrains what we can become. This absolute freedom, though terrifying, opens infinite possibilities for self-creation and authentic living.
From this perspective, we cannot blame God, fate, or nature. Everything we do shapes us and creates the meaning of our existence. A person becomes who they make themselves through their decisions, and their life has no significance beyond what they themselves give it.
As he writes in "Existentialism Is a Humanism," a book in which he encourages us to face the uncomfortable truth that we're alone in creating meaning, and that very isolation is what makes us authentically human.
"We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards."
It’s worth noting that freedom is not something we acquire gradually. it is intrinsic to our very existence. As Sartre emphasizes:
“Man does not exist first in order to be free subsequently; there is no difference between the being of man and his being-free.”
For Sartre, human freedom is not something acquired or a later stage in life. It is inseparable from what it means to exist. From the moment we find ourselves in the world, we are free, and this freedom cannot be revoked or limited by external forces.
There is no stage of human existence without freedom. To be human is to be free.
With freedom comes consequences. Similar to Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher considered a precursor of existentialism, who claimed that anxiety arises from the recognition of our own freedom, Sartre identifies three main consequences of human freedom: anguish, abandonment, and despair.
“It is in anguish that man becomes conscious of his freedom.”
For Sartre, anguish is the feeling that arises when we realize that nothing limits our freedom — that every decision depends entirely on us. It is the anxiety of total responsibility, the awareness that our choices not only define ourselves but also set an example of what humanity could be. There is no external guide or rule to rely on, only our own judgment.
"I am abandoned in the world... in the sense that I find myself suddenly alone and without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, no matter what I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant.”
Abandonment refers to the experience of realizing that God does not exist, and therefore, no divine plan or moral law gives our life meaning. We are left completely alone to decide what is right and what is wrong. For Sartre, this abandonment is not despair but clarity — the recognition that meaning must be created, not discovered.
“Life begins on the other side of despair.”
Despair, in Sartre's philosophy, is not simple hopelessness but rather a constructive understanding that we can only rely on what depends on us, that the world offers no guarantees. We cannot control the future or the actions of others, and yet we must continue to act.
For Sartre, these three experiences — anguish, abandonment, and despair — are not obstacles but the inevitable consequences of human freedom, and confronting them is essential. In his philosophy, a human is nothing other than freedom. This freedom is absolute, and we must bear this empowering burden.
2) Two Modes of Being: Sartre’s Ontology
“Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.“
“The for-itself is the being which is what it is not and which is not what it is.“
Sartre’s philosophy of existence is built upon a fundamental ontological dualism, the distinction between being-in-itself (l’être en soi) and being-for-itself (l’être pour soi). These two modes of being form the foundation of his understanding of consciousness, freedom, and the human condition.
Being-in-itself refers to the mode of existence of things and objects. They are complete, self-contained, and fixed in their identity—a rock, a chair, or a tree simply is what it is.
In contrast, being-for-itself characterizes human existence—conscious, self-aware, and defined by a fundamental lack. Human beings are never finished products but projects in the making, constantly shaping themselves through their choices and actions.
“Man is nothing other than his own project“
Human existence is therefore marked by openness and incompleteness.
This ontological dualism implies that the human being is constantly suspended between eternal dissatisfaction and reification. The awareness of absolute freedom, which, as mentioned earlier, can lead to anguish, abandonment, and despair, forces man to continually strive toward an ideal.
Yet, according to Sartre, this ideal is nothingness itself. When one believes the ideal has been achieved, one loses what makes human existence unique: consciousness. In that moment, the person becomes being-in-itself. Only through Nothingness (le néant) does freedom become possible, because it allows us to deny what we are and become something else.
Sartre calls the process of losing awareness of one's human existence reification. Reification occurs when a person stops being an open, ongoing process of self-definition and instead takes on the finished, fixed nature of an object. In short, it is the transformation of being-for-itself into being-in-itself.
“Man is, indeed, a project which possesses a subjective life, instead of being a kind of moss, or a fungus or a cauliflower. Before that projection of the self nothing exists.”
The author of "Being and Nothingness" was convinced that man is not only what he is but above all what he can become. One could say he is a potential or a kind of project. In short, man is primarily what he can be. In this sense, man is what he is not yet, because his true humanity is determined by the fact that he is nothingness, since nothingness exists only in being-for-itself.
“Dostoevsky once wrote: “If God did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse.”
Sartre's ontological dualism also grounds his argument against the existence of God. Absolute freedom, which expresses complete autonomy, separates human consciousness (being-for-itself) from the factual world of things (being-in-itself). According to Sartre, consciousness and the world are two distinct kinds of being. In this situation, man is separated from external reality, independent and autonomous, subject only to himself. Freedom is the true name of human existence.
Therefore, for Sartre, God is impossible. The concept of human freedom and the concept of God mutually exclude each other. There cannot exist both God who constitutes all reality, including human reality, and a human being who, in their freedom, is subject only to themselves.
For Sartre, God is first and foremost an internally contradictory concept. Religion describes God as complete and self-sufficient (being-in-itself), yet also as conscious (being-for-itself). These two modes cannot coexist in one being. The coexistence of what is self-sufficient and what is not self-sufficient is impossible.
“Life is nothing until it is lived; but it is yours to make sense of and the value of it is nothing else but the sense that you choose.”
Sartre's ontology reveals a fundamental tension in human existence.
Human existence is marked by a constant desire to find balance within the world of things. A person can feel completely alienated from reality or become absorbed by it.
Being-in-itself lacks reflection and forms a closed, self-sufficient whole. Being-for-itself is the conscious subject, aware of itself and its own awareness. Human consciousness creates an inner division. Between self-awareness and awareness of that awareness exists constant instability, creating alienation.
This internal division represents the ongoing conflict between being and nothingness. The ideal can never be fully realized or become a fixed being. Human existence is a struggle in which we can never be complete. Humans are condemned to remain forever unfinished.
3) Bad Faith: The Escape from Freedom
“If it is indifferent whether one is in good or in bad faith, because bad faith reapprehends good faith and creeps to the very origin of the project of good faith, that does not mean that we can not radically escape bad faith.“
As we previously mentioned, Sartre maintained that human freedom is absolute and inescapable, and it is the source of both responsibility and anxiety. However, Sartre observed that humans often deceive themselves to avoid the full weight of this freedom.
His concept of Bad Faith (mauvaise foi) describes this self-deception, in which we lie to ourselves while simultaneously knowing the truth. Humans engage in bad faith because the radical freedom that defines our existence is overwhelming, allowing individuals to escape responsibility by creating the illusion that their lives are determined by external circumstances rather than by their own choices.
One of the most vivid examples of bad faith is the waiter. In "Being and Nothingness", Sartre describes a café waiter whose performance is too perfect, too studied. He moves with exaggerated efficiency, overly controlled and deliberate, as if choreographed rather than natural.
He applies himself to his role with mechanical precision, as if his actions were not freely chosen but predetermined by the role itself.
"I cannot be [a waiter], I can only play at being [one]; that is, imagine to myself that I am [a waiter]."
The waiter does more than perform his work. He becomes absorbed in the role to the point where he sees himself as nothing but a waiter. He treats this identity as fixed and necessary rather than as something he freely chose and could freely abandon. By identifying so completely with this single role, he denies his freedom and transforms himself from being-for-itself into being-in-itself, becoming a mere thing with a predetermined identity.
Another example described by Sartre involves a woman on a first date. Her companion gives her compliments with clear romantic intentions, and when he takes her hand, she is faced with a choice: to respond or to withdraw. Instead of doing either, she lets her hand rest passively in his, neither accepting nor rejecting the gesture. She pretends his compliments refer only to her personality, ignoring their romantic meaning, and treats her hand as if it were merely an object detached from herself.
By doing this, she divides herself into mind and body. Her consciousness receives abstract praise, while her hand becomes a passive thing. She separates her being-for-itself, the conscious and free aspect of her existence, from her being-in-itself, the physical part. Through this division, she avoids the uncomfortable truth that she is a unified being who must choose and take responsibility. In this act of bad faith, she denies both her freedom and her responsibility to act.
“But bad faith is not restricted to denying the qualities which I possess, to not seeing the being which I am. It attempts also to constitute myself as being what I am not. It apprehends me positively as courageous when I am not so.“
What is common to both examples is a paradoxical structure. The waiter and the woman know they are free, yet actively choose not to acknowledge it. When acting in bad faith, a person denies their own freedom while relying on it to make the denial.
Both the waiter and the woman suppress other parts of themselves by identifying too completely with a single role. They deny their freedom by using their freedom to do so. The problem is not the role itself, but treating it as one's entire identity instead of a freely chosen activity.
This connects to Sartre's ontology discussed earlier. In bad faith, we treat ourselves as being-in-itself, as something fixed and thing-like, even though we remain being-for-itself, aware and free. We adopt roles in our jobs and social lives and pretend these roles define us completely, rather than recognizing them as masks we have chosen to wear.
Bad faith is lying to oneself, which is paradoxical because we are both the deceiver and the deceived. We engage in bad faith because freedom is anxiety-inducing. It is easier to tell ourselves we are simply playing a role we did not choose than to admit all our decisions have led us here and that we remain free to choose otherwise.
Bad faith is a form of self-deception where individuals deny their freedom and responsibility by adopting social roles or seeing themselves as determined by their circumstances.
"But the first act of bad faith is to flee what it can not flee, to flee what it is."
To live in bad faith is to remain passive, ignoring the freedom at our disposal and pretending we have no real choice in how we live.
Bad faith, according to Sartre, is a rejection of our inherent freedom. To live authentically, we must confront an uncomfortable truth: we are radically free, and we are responsible for who we become.
4) Hell Is Other People: The Gaze and Conflict
GARCIN: This bronze. Yes, now's the moment; I'm looking at this thing on the mantelpiece, and I understand that I'm in hell. I tell you, everything's been thoughtout beforehand. They knew I'd stand at the fireplace stroking this thing of bronze, with all those eyes intent on me. Devouring me. What? Only two of you? I thought there were more; many more. So this is hell. I'd never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the "burning marl." Old wives' tales! There’s no need for red-hot pokers. HELL IS--OTHER PEOPLE!
Sartre believed that our relationships with others are inevitably marked by tension and conflict. As we previously mentioned, human existence begins with radical freedom, but this freedom does not exist in isolation. To understand what Sartre means by "Hell is other people," we must move from the solitude of the self to the encounter with others.
In "No Exit", Sartre presents three people who arrive in what they believe to be "hell". Instead of flames, torture, or a visible executioner, they find themselves locked together in an ordinary room. As they try to understand why they are there and what punishment awaits them, they soon realize that their true torment comes from one another's presence. Their own company becomes their hell. Through this situation, Sartre explores the idea that the real suffering of human existence lies in being constantly exposed to the judgment and gaze of others.
As discussed in the previous chapter, Sartre distinguishes between two modes of being: being-in-itself, which characterizes objects as complete and fixed, and being-for-itself, which describes human consciousness as fluid and free. We also explored bad faith, where we deny our freedom by pretending to be fixed objects with predetermined roles.
It is worth mentioning Sartre's paper knife analogy to illustrate this distinction. A paper knife has its essence before it exists—its purpose is determined in advance. But humans are different: we exist first and create our essence through choices. Human freedom lies in giving meaning to the situations we face.
But what happens when another person enters the scene? In "Being and Nothingness", Sartre uses the image of someone looking through a keyhole, secretly watching what happens inside a room. Suddenly, another person passes by and catches them in the act. In that moment, the one who was watching becomes aware of themselves as being seen. They no longer exist as a free subject but as an object in someone else's awareness. The gaze of the Other transforms them. It defines them from the outside and takes away part of their freedom.
For Sartre, this moment captures the essence of human relationships: every encounter between two conscious beings becomes a struggle between freedoms.
INEZ: "I'm your mirror. Come and look at yourself in me."
The gaze of the Other turns our fluid, free existence into something fixed and object-like. We lose control over who we are in their eyes. In life, we can still act and reshape how we are seen, but we cannot control how others perceive us. Hell, then, is not other people themselves, but the loss of freedom that comes from being seen through someone else's gaze.
Faced with the freedom of another person, we can either try to respect it, as in love, or try to dominate it, turning the other into an object, as in cruelty or control. But both paths fail. For the F rench existentialist, true coexistence between two absolute freedoms is impossible.
As Sartre saw it, human relationships are marked by a constant tension, a struggle to assert our own freedom while being defined by the gaze of others.
This is the tragedy of human existence: as free beings, we act in the world to define ourselves, yet as social beings, we are never free from the way others see us. We are pushed to become what others think we are. Even if we feel different inside, the people around us impose their image of us, shaping how we speak, act, and even think.
The gaze of the Other brings together Sartre's previously mentioned ontology and bad faith. When another person looks at us, they transform us from being-for-itself into being-in-itself. Under their gaze, we are no longer pure freedom and possibility—we become a fixed object in their perception: "the lover," "the waiter."
This process mirrors bad faith, but with a crucial difference. In bad faith, we deceive ourselves by choosing to see ourselves as objects. Under the gaze of the Other, this objectification is imposed from the outside, beyond our control.
This is what makes the encounter with others so deeply unsettling. The Other does to me what I strive to avoid doing to myself: they freeze my fluid existence into a rigid definition. The gaze, therefore, reveals the fundamental tension of human existence—we are condemned to be free (as beings-for-itself), yet constantly at risk of being reduced to mere objects (as beings-in-itself), both by our own self-deception and by the gaze of others.
When Sartre wrote that "hell is other people", he did not mean that human relationships are purely miserable, but that the gaze of others can trap us in a version of ourselves that we did not choose.
Hell is the loss of freedom that comes from being eternally seen through someone else's eyes. In "No Exit", the main characters—Garcin, Inez, and Estelle—become each other's hell. Each acts as both victim and tormentor, watching the others and forcing them to confront the image they cannot escape.
Through their constant mutual observation, Sartre shows that suffering is to be trapped in the gaze of others, unable to define oneself freely.
5) Authenticity and Engagement
“Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.“
As we previously mentioned multiple times, Sartre rejected the idea that there is any fixed human nature or divine plan that defines who we are. Each person creates their own essence through their choices and actions.
And to live authentically means accepting this freedom and taking full responsibility for one's life. It is about recognizing that there are no universal values to rely on, so each of us must define our own. Through our actions, we create the meaning and morality that guide us.
For Sartre, to live authentically means turning freedom into action. Through our choices, we shape who we are and the kind of world we help create. And Sartre called this a heroic ethics, an ethics of self-creation.
Every individual must define their own values and continually strive to go beyond themselves. Authenticity, in this sense, naturally leads to engagement. It involves an active commitment to act in the world according to one's freely chosen values, accepting both the freedom and the burden that come with this responsibility.
“I am responsible for everything... except for my very responsibility, for I am not the foundation of my being.”
It's worth noting that for existentialists, being authentic means living in accordance with one's values and desires despite external pressures to conform. The failure to do so is itself a choice, a form of bad faith. For Sartre, refusing to act is still a choice. By not changing anything, we choose to accept the world as it is. This means we can never escape our freedom, because even doing nothing is a decision we are responsible for.
Authenticity also involves recognizing the reality of others. As we discussed in the chapter on hell being other people, the Other can appear as a threat to one's freedom, since their gaze objectifies and fixes us in their perception. However, Sartre later reconsiders this relation. The French existentialist acknowledges that all human beings share the same struggle toward authenticity and freedom.
Mutual recognition becomes possible when each person regards the other as an autonomous subject rather than as an object to be dominated. In authentic relationships, one allows the other's otherness to exist without attempting to assimilate it. As Sartre suggests, one helps the other become authentic by respecting their freedom and treating them as both subject and object in relation to oneself. Mutual generosity, respect, and genuine feelings make such relationships possible.
But authenticity is not a private, internal state. It demands active participation in the world. Human freedom, while deeply individual, is always situated within specific circumstances. Each person defines themselves through projects that transcend their given situation and seek to transform it.
"Man defines himself by his project. This material object perpetually goes beyond the condition which is made for him; he reveals and determines his situation by transcending it in order to objectify himself by work, action and gesture."
The authentic individual must actively resist any suppression of their freedom through action. Each person is shaped not only by what is possible for them but also by what is impossible, by the conditions that constrain them. Yet within these constraints, we retain the power to transcend our situation through our choices and projects. It's worth noting that Sartre later emphasized that authenticity also has a socio-political dimension, as individual freedom exists within broader historical and social contexts.
Therefore, authenticity and engagement are inseparable. To live authentically is not only to recognize one's freedom but also to act upon it, to shape one's life in accordance with one's chosen values.
This is Sartre's vision of a heroic ethics — the courage to create meaning in a world without predetermined essence, to act freely, and to accept full responsibility for who we become.
Summary
Jean-Paul Sartre's philosophy emerged as a defense of human dignity and action. Existentialism, far from being pessimistic or nihilistic, is profoundly humanistic. It places man at the center of existence and reminds us that meaning, value, and purpose are not waiting for us in some higher realm but must be created by us, here and now.
“We are our choices.”
Sartre sought to prove that existentialism is not directed against humanity. On the contrary, it is a form of humanism, a worldview that places the human being at the center of the world and grants them profound agency and responsibility.
In the existentialist view, everything that defines the human experience belongs to us, including loneliness, anxiety, and despair. These are not signs of weakness but natural parts of what it means to be free and responsible beings. Every choice of who we become is also a choice of the kind of person we believe others should be.
Each value-based decision carries a universal weight: in choosing ourselves, we choose for all humanity. This brings a deep sense of responsibility and even anxiety, because choosing one path always means rejecting others. Yet these feelings do not paralyze us — they are what accompany authentic action.
Additionally, atheistic existentialism rejects the existence of God and, with it, the existence of values in a world of ideas. There is no good a priori. We must create values through our actions, taking full responsibility for the world we help shape.
Therefore, Sartre emphasized that existentialism is ultimately empowering. It does not deny human potential but affirms it in the most radical way possible: by insisting that we are the sole authors of our lives.
We are condemned to be free, and in that condemnation lies both our burden and our possibility. To live authentically is to accept this freedom, to act with courage, and to create meaning in a world that offers none on its own.
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