Jean Paul Sartre - Research Paper Example

Jean Paul Sartre Jean Paul Sartre was a French philosopher and literature who lived in the twentieth century. Even though he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1964, he refused accept it. Sartre’s most important contribution to the world in general and to the western world in particular, can be regarded as his theories with respect to existentialism. The principles of Existentialism are based on the experiences of an individual. Sartre argued that neither science nor religions are capable of explaining the existence of human.

He has argued that his theories of authenticities can be used for explaining the existence of human. In his opinion, external pressures force a person to live in a particular manner rather than God or anything else. In Sartre’s opinion, there are two opposing and fundamentally inseparable types of being: etre pour-soi (type of existence unique to humanity) and etre en-soi (the unfree being of everything else). Sartre argued that these two types of beings are abstractions from a single reality.

The totality of these two realities helps a person to understand his existence (Gibbs, p.62). Motroshilova (2010) pointed out that existentialism became influential as an intellectual banner of the resistance movement during World War II (Motroshilova, p.80). Even after the WW2, philosophers realised the needs of existentialism to eradicate the superstitions among ordinary people. Existentialists such as Sartre believed that religions are misleading the people by educating the people that God is responsible for everything happening in this world.

In fact Sartre was able to demonstrate how the self gains awareness of the body and forming a public and self-conscious sense of how the body appears to others (Dolezal, p.9). To conclude, Sartre was able to question some of the established beliefs among the people with respect to religion and science. He asked the people to search in their inner self to find out reasons for their existence instead of searching somewhere else. Works Cited Dolezal, Luna. “Reconsidering the Look in Sartres: Being and Nothingness”.

Sartre Studies International. 2012, Vol. 18 Issue 1, p9-28. Print. Gibbs, James. “Reading and Be-ing: Finding Meaning in Jean-Paul Sartre’s La Nausée”. Sartre Studies International Volume 17, Issue 1, 2011: 61–74 doi:10.3167/ssi.2011.170104. Print Motroshilova, N.V. “On Merab Mamardashvili’s Dialogue with Jean-Paul Sartre”. Russian Studies in Philosophy, vol. 49, no. 1 (Summer 2010), pp. 74–95. DOI 10.2753/RSP1061–1967490104. Print.