Jean-Paul Sartre Questions and Answers

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• Jean-Paul Sartre
  What is your reaction to Sartre's perspective on freedom? Do you find his view liberating and inspiring, or do you think it is disheartening and forlorn?
  Perhaps one of the most famous lines attributed to Sartre is "man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does." Sartre's notion of freedom...

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• Jean-Paul Sartre
  What are Sartre's definitions for these three terms "anguish," "forlornness," and "despair"? How does he distinguish among them?
  The terms identified helps to articulate how Sartre views human consciousness. The sense of "forlornness" results from the rejection of all transcendental and totalizing ideas. When Sartre argues...

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• Jean-Paul Sartre
  As we all know, what characterizes philosophy is its (complicated/ambiguous) language. Thus, simplicity and clarity is highly needed in answering this question please. According to Sartre's existential philosophy, to be free is to be responsible....
  The distinction between a choice in which the consequences fall on one's own shoulders and a choice in which the consequences fall on the shoulders of others is a meaningless distinction in the...

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• Jean-Paul Sartre
  What is the meaning of Sartre's statement that "man is condemned to be free"?
  In the most fundamental of ways, Sartre's statement indicates that the only element that exists with human beings is the ability to possess freedom. This creates a situation of agonizing choice...

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• Jean-Paul Sartre
  Sartre says "when we say that a man is responsible for himself, we don not only mean that he is responsible for his own individuality," but he also says "when we say that a man is responsible for himself, we do not only mean that he is responsible...
  I wouldn't call this a paradoxical statement - in Sartre's context or even in general. Sartre believed that ideally, we will ourselves to be what we want. He even went so far as to say that we...

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• Jean-Paul Sartre
  "What is Literature?" According to Sartre's point of view, what does he want to explain with this text?
  Sartre thought that meaning is essentially unfixed. Humans give an order and meaning to the world. We do not make the world, but we do give it meaning. To use the old example, if a tree falls in...

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• Jean-Paul Sartre
  Existentialism in story "The Wall" by Jean Paul Sartre.
  Existentialism is a cultural, literary, and philosophical movement that arose largely as a reaction to the unreflective optimism and belief in progress of the nineteenth century. It is not a set of...

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• Jean-Paul Sartre
  Sartre says, "when we say that a man is responsible for himself, we do not only mean that he is responsible for his own individuality, Sartre says, "when we say that a man is responsible for himself, we do not only mean that he is responsible for...
  Existentialism does not occur in a vacuum. Granted, it is not a church or a prescriptive ideology, but it is born by a community into a community. Paul Tillich says it is the "natural ally of...

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• Jean-Paul Sartre
  "What is Literature?" by Sartre: How is it different or similar to any other philosopher's point of view of literature?  Quote the various philosophers and examples to draw different and similar lines between them.
  Reflecting his views on existential responsibility, in "What is Literature?", Sartre proposes that the author and reader ideally engage in a dialectical "going-and-coming" relationship: It is the...

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• Jean-Paul Sartre
  In Existentialism is a Humanism, Sartre argues that humankind's existence precedes its essence. What does this mean, why does Sartre believe it is true, and what effects would it ultimately have upon morality if it were true, especially related to...
  Jean-Paul Sartre was a French writer, philosopher, and political activist who was widely influential in the burgeoning existentialist movement of the twentieth-century. Existentialists believe that...

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• Jean-Paul Sartre
  How is sexuality portrayed in Sartre's short stories?
  Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) was a French writer and existentialist who was the recipient of the 1964 Nobel Prize for Literature. Among the many topics Sartre examined in his voluminous writings...

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