Jean-Paul Sartre

1905 – 1980

Contemporary European

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, political activist, and literary critic who became one of the most prominent public intellectuals of the twentieth century. His masterwork Being and Nothingness (1943) developed a systematic existentialist ontology centered on the radical freedom and responsibility of human consciousness. Sartre argued that "existence precedes essence"—that human beings have no predetermined nature but must create themselves through their choices. This freedom is inescapable and often experienced as anguish. His concept of "bad faith" described the self-deception by which people deny their freedom and pretend their choices are determined by external forces. His literary works—including Nausea, and plays such as No Exit—dramatized these themes for a wide audience. In 1964 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature but declined it, saying that a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution. His lifelong intellectual partnership with Simone de Beauvoir became one of the most famous relationships in literary history.

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Jean-Paul Sartre