Sartre's purpose is "to offer a defence of existentialism against several reproaches".
|
Two Kinds of Existentialism
Viz. the Christians (Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel) and the Atheists (Heidegger, the French existentialists, Sarte).
They have in common, that existence comes before essence.
|
|
Sartre's definitions of key concepts.
|
|
quietism of despair
"an invitation to people to live in quiteism of despair"
|
underlining the ignominious
"reproached for having underlined all that is ignominious in the human situation"
|
|
denial of reality
"reproached as people who deny the reality and seriousness of human affaires"
|
|
Existentialism
|
Anguish
This is an anguish which results from the profound sense of responsibility caused by his knowledge that when he commits himself
he legislates for mankind.
|
Abandonment
"When we speak of 'abandonment' ... we only mean to say that God does not exist, and it is necessary to draw the consequences
of his absence right to the end."
The consequences seem primarily for Sartre to be that there are no absolute moral values which we might use to guide our conduct.
|
|
Despair
"... merely means that we limit ourselves to a reliance upon that which is within our wills, or within the sum of the probabilities
that render our action feasible."
|
|