Existentialism is a Humanism

The Introduction, by Annie Cohen-Solal, notes the “striking” (12) dissimilarities between “Existentialism is a Humanism” and the other essay in this volume, “A Commentary on The Stranger” (1943).

Cohen-Solal notes that “Existentialism is a Humanism” was “one of the mythical moments of the postwar era, the first media event of its time, giving rise to the ‘Sartre phenomenon’” (11). It also marks the beginning of what Cohen-Solal calls Sartre’s “‘universal’ project,” which culminates in his “follow[ing] the path of cultural interrelations, foresee[ing] the change in the balance of world power, predict[ing] the end of European imperialist legitimacy, and discern[ing] the emergence of postcolonial world politics” (12).

While Cohen-Solal describes “Existentialism is a Humanism” as a “didactic and graceless transcription given in the specific context of the postwar era, and in very polemical circumstances” (13), she speaks of “A Commentary on The Stranger” as “polished, intricate, inspired, finely written, even brilliant, and one of the rare instances when Sartre appears disconcerted, perplexed” (12-13). Cohen-Solal’s Introduction argues that the differences between the two essays reflect Sartre’s intellectual complexity and multifacetedness, as well as his relevance to young American readers.

“A Commentary on The Stranger” was published in unoccupied France at a time when French writers were feeling stifled by three years of Nazi censorship. The essay is Sartre’s first engagement with the work of Albert Camus, a young French-Algerian writer.

Sartre’s reputation was well established by the time of the “Commentary”; he was known as an exceedingly clever and sometimes devastating critic. For Sartre, The Stranger was an unusually perplexing work, and the “Commentary” reflects that perplexity: “Sartre beckons the reader to enter his analysis of The Stranger, to proceed with him through the awkward, blind advances of his hypotheses and this first, hesitant encounter with Camus” (5). 

Eventually, Sartre finds interpretive keys that serve as ways “in” to Camus’s text. In particular, he draws on Camus’s philosophical work to make sense of The Stranger. For Sartre, Camus becomes a kind of “literary twin with whom he share[s] the same reasoning, the same pessimistic radicalism, the same rejection of mystical or moral values, the same technique of constructing fiction around a particular philosophical theme—the absurd for Camus; contingency for Sartre” (5). 

In the “Commentary,” Sartre interprets Camus in a way that makes his relation to the French literary tradition—which would not have been obvious to most readers—clearer. His essay is a “precise, thorough, didactic, and luminous” (7) examination of Camus’s style. 

Sartre’s avowed purpose in “Existentialism is a Humanism” is “to defend existentialism against some charges that have been brought against it” (17).

The Communists specifically alleged that:

-       Existentialism encourages people “to remain in a state of quietism and despair” (17)

-       Existentialism emphasizes “what is despicable about humanity” (17)

-       Existentialism overlooks “humanity’s solidarity” and considers “man as an isolated being”(17-18).

Christians specifically accused existentialism of denying “the reality and validity of human enterprise” (18). According to Christians, since Sartre rejects any notion of eternal values and holy commandments, his view renders any human action “strictly gratuitous” (18) and all values arbitrary.

Sartre begins by elucidating some key concepts of existentialism, which he describes as “a doctrine that makes human life possible and also affirms that every truth and every action imply an environment and a human subjectivity” (18). He argues that although people criticize existentialism for emphasizing “the dark side of human life” (18), existentialism is in fact an optimistic doctrine: “it offers man the possibility of individual choice” (19-20).

For Sartre, existentialism is most fundamentally the “belief that [human] existence precedes essence” (20). This is a metaphysical view about what differentiates human existence from other kinds of existence. For example, the essence of an artefact such as a book or a paper knife precedes its existence. The book or paper knife is produced in accordance with a concept (“book” or “paper knife”), by means of a known technique, in order to fulfil a definite purpose. Each individual book or paper knife is an instantiation of the universal concept “book” or “paper knife.”

Christian thought traditionally pictures God as a master artisan who creates human beings in the way a manufacturer creates the book or the paper knife. On this view, God has the concept human being in mind and uses a particular technique to create individual human beings for a definite purpose; that is, human essence or “human nature” precedes human existence. Each individual person is an instantiation of a universal concept.

Sartre’s view is an atheistic one: there is no God who acts as a master craftsman. Thus, “there is at least one being in whom existence precedes essence [...] a being who exists before he can be defined by any concept of it” (22). Sartre means that a human being first exists in the world, confronts his existence, and only then defines himself. Thus, “man is nothing other than what he makes of himself” (22).

Sartre says that this “first principle of existentialism” (22) is also “what is referred to as ‘subjectivity’” (23). According to Sartre, human existence is “subjective” insofar as, unlike an artefact or a natural object, a human being “projects itself into a future, and is conscious of doing so” (23).

Critics of existentialism have used the word “subjective” as a reproach, playing on the two possible meanings of the word. First, “subjectivism” can mean the subject’s freedom to choose what he will be; second, it can mean “man’s inability to transcend human subjectivity” (24). According to Sartre, “the fundamental meaning of existentialism resides in the latter” (24). Sartre explains what he means by this in the following way: each individual chooses not only for himself, but for all humankind. That is, in making a choice we affirm the value of what we choose; we identify it as the good. Since what is good is not good only for one individual, but good for all, every individual choice implies a choice on behalf of all humankind: “I am therefore responsible for myself and for everyone else, and I am fashioning a certain image of man as I choose him to be” (24-25).

Sartre says that understanding his notion of subjectivity helps clarify further key terms: “anguish”, “abandonment”, and “despair.” A person who realizes that he chooses not only for himself but for all mankind experiences anguish because he feels the weight of his responsibility. For example, when Abraham chooses whether to obey the angel’s command to sacrifice his son, Isaac, he must decide whether his action is to the good in the absence of any proof that he is making the right choice (as opposed to following a hallucination). In choosing to follow the angel’s command, Abraham is committing himself to the idea that anyone in his situation ought to act in the same way. While Sartre’s critics thought of anguish as leading to inaction, Sartre states that anguish is “not a screen that separates us from action, but a condition of action itself” (27).

“Abandonment” is a Heideggerian term that refers to the state of human life, given that God does not exist. While some secular thinkers have tried “to eliminate God as painlessly as possible” (28) by asserting that Christian values are a priori correct and that God was simply an unnecessary metaphysical postulate, Sartre and other existentialists “find it extremely disturbing that God no longer exists, for along with his disappearance goes the possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven” (28). If there is no infinite, perfect mind to conceive of good and evil, then there is no a priori good. In the absence of a priori good and evil, man is abandoned: because existence precedes essence, he cannot blame his actions on human nature—he is free. Because there is no God, no choice can be legitimized by reference to absolute values. It is in this sense that man is “condemned to be free” (29), weighed down by the responsibility of making the right choices, on behalf of all mankind, in the absence of any a priori guiding values.

According to Sartre, “despair” results from the fact that “we must limit ourselves to reckoning only with those things that depend on our will, or on the set of probabilities that enable action” (34). Our desires are subject to all sorts of vicissitudes; accidents, twists of fate, and circumstances beyond our control may intervene in their fulfillment. We must act in order to pursue our desires; in fact, on Sartre’s picture one cannot project meaning into one’s existence without acting. However, “we should act without hope” (35) because the various possibilities within which we operate can always frustrate our will.

Sartre notes that Marxists have criticized his views on despair as too individualistic; according to the Marxists, while an individual’s action is limited (since he will eventually die), he can and indeed must rely on the agency of others to bring about world revolution. In response, Sartre says that one does depend on one’s comrades “inasmuch as they are committed, as I am, to a definite common cause, in the solidarity of a party or a group that I can more or less control” (35). Counting on the solidarity and will of such a party is reasonable, but one cannot count on strangers “based on faith in the goodness of humanity or in man’s interest in society’s welfare, given that man is free and there is no human nature in which I can place my trust” (35-36).

Because people are free, they could at any time make choices that are not in accordance with another’s will. For example, though one might be in solidarity with the Russian Revolution and its results up to a particular point in time, despite that one has no way of knowing that it will actually lead to the workers’ paradise: “Tomorrow, after my death, men may choose to impose fascism” (36).

Sartre argues that acknowledging this fact does not entail resorting to quietism, which he understands as the attitude that “others can do what I cannot do” (36). His notion of despair actually suggests that “reality exists only in action” (37). If one is committed to the triumph of the proletariat, one ought to do everything in one’s power to advance it, but one should, at the same time, understand that the future actions of one’s putative comrades are not [yet] real and cannot be counted on.

As an aside, Sartre mentions that he understands why people find existentialism discouraging; people find their misery more endurable when they can take refuge in the notion that their un-actualized potential reflects who they really are more accurately than do their current circumstances. However, Sartre’s existentialism holds that one is defined by one’s deeds, not by the things one might have done, but has not: “reality alone counts, and [...] dreams, expectations, and hopes only serve to define a man as a broken dream, aborted hopes, and futile expectations; in other words, they define him negatively, not positively” (38).

Sartre states that people criticize existentialist literature for portraying “characters who are spineless, weak, cowardly, and sometimes even frankly evil” (38). However, while a naturalist like Zola might present those negative characteristics as essential to his figures and the unavoidable results of heredity or environmental influences, Sartre views his characters as responsible for their own choices. Cowards are responsible for their own cowardice, but can cease being cowards by making different choices; for Sartre, this view is a more optimistic one than the view that one is simply born a coward or a hero.

Sartre remarks that he has answered many of the criticisms leveled at existentialism: it is neither pessimistic nor quietist, nor does it discourage people from taking action. He turns his attention to the accusation that existentialism “imprison[s] man within [its] individual subjectivity” (40).

While conceding that existentialism does take individual subjectivity as its point of departure, Sartre contends that it is not a bourgeois philosophy. Rather, existentialism is based on the absolute truth of Descartes’s cogito (“I think, therefore I am”), which is “the absolute truth of consciousness confronting itself” (40). For Sartre, as for Descartes, there can be no more certain knowledge; all objects are merely probable, while the cogito is certain. Moreover, Sartre claims, in becoming aware of ourselves as thinking subjects we also become aware of others; the cogito contains the incontrovertible proof of other people’s existence, as well as our own.

Sartre argues further that existentialism’s subjectivity is actually a point in its favor: “this is the only theory that endows man with any dignity, and the only one that does not turn him into an object” (41). Materialistic philosophies like Marxism reduce people to objects, while existentialism’s subjective starting point allows it “to establish the human kingdom as a set of values distinct from the material world” (41). According to Sartre, the intersubjectivity built into the logical structure of the cogito—which reveals others’ existences as well as our own—provides the basis for a humanistic ethics.

Sartre adds that although there is no universal human nature, there is such a thing as a “universal human condition” (42). The subjectivity of existentialism does not isolate the individual; rather, it establishes an intersubjectivity among humans who share the same condition. Although people are born into a wide range of historical and personal situations, “man’s fundamental situation in the universe” (42) is common to all. In particular, the great diversity of human projects are valuable to all people, as each is an attempt to surpass, postpone, deny, or come to terms with human limitations.

Sartre says of human universality that it is not a given, but rather something that is perpetually constructed. Each individual’s choices and attempts to understand the projects of others contribute to this construction. One might think that, in the absence of a priori values determined by a God or a universal human nature, absolute freedom of choice renders every human action merely arbitrary. (Arbitrariness has long figured in Western philosophy as the very opposite of the Absolute.) However, according to Sartre, “there is no difference between free being—being as a project, being as existence choosing its essence—and absolute being. Nor is there any difference between being as an absolute temporarily localized—that is, localized in history—and universally intelligible being” (44).

Thus, Sartre notes, accusations that existentialism licenses anarchy, relativism, or self-serving choices are beside the point and relatively easy to dismiss.

Existentialism is not anarchy, since it is not the case that one can take any decision whatsoever, however capricious. One must always choose, and even choosing not to choose amounts to a choice; according to Sartre, this “limits whim and caprice” (44). Moreover, whatever one chooses, one’s choice “commits humanity as a whole” (44) and is therefore not arbitrary. 

According to Sartre, existentialism is not simply relativism. One can indeed choose anything, since there are no a priori correct choices, but whatever choice one makes must be sincere and lucid. If it is, then “it is impossible for him to prefer another [choice]” (47). The existentialist can judge that someone has made a choice based on error as opposed to truth, or that he is acting in bad faith: “any man who takes refuge behind his passions, any man who fabricates some deterministic theory, is operating in bad faith” (47).This means that not all choices are equally valid.

Existentialism is not self-serving; Sartre responds to this objection by pointing out that if there is no God, values must be invented by somebody. The claim that human beings invent values is simply a version of the claim that “life has no meaning a priori” (51). The mere fact that life has no given meaning and that people must endow it with meaning by means of their choices does not imply that those choices are self-serving.

Sartre explains that existentialism is a humanism not in the sense that it treats man “as an end and as the supreme value” (51), but in the following sense:

Man is always outside of himself, and it is projecting and losing himself beyond himself that man is realized; and, on the other hand, it is in pursuing transcendent goals that he is able to exist. Since man is this transcendence, and grasps objects only in relation to such transcendence, he is himself the core and focus of this transcendence. The only universe that exists is the human one—the universe of human subjectivity (52). 

That is, Sartre does not think that man is more valuable than anything else (nature, for instance, or the collective good), so he is not a humanist in that sense. However, he does think that there is no meaning-making beyond or outside of the “human universe,” and he regards man as a transcendent being, one that is able to go beyond the world as given to create or become something new. This is the sense in which Sartre views existentialism as a humanism.