Jean-Paul Sartre

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Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre

Born
21 June 1905
Paris, France
15 April 1980 (aged 74)
Died
Paris, France
Education École Normale Supérieure, University of Paris[1] (BA, MA)
Partner Simone de Beauvoir (1929–1980; his death)
Awards Nobel Prize for Literature (1964, declined)
Era 20th-century philosophy
Region Western philosophy
Continental philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology, existential
School
phenomenology, hermeneutics, Western Marxism, Anarchism
Main Metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, consciousness, self-consciousness, literature,
interests political philosophy, ontology
Bad faith, "existence precedes essence", nothingness, "Hell is other people",
Notable ideas situation, transcendence of the ego ("every positional consciousness of an object is
a non-positional consciousness of itself"), Sartrean terminology

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in
the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter,
political activist, biographer, and literary critic, as well as a leading figure in 20th-century French
philosophy and Marxism. His work has influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory,
and literary studies, and continues to do so. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature
despite attempting to refuse it, saying that he always declined official honors and that "a writer
should not allow himself to be turned into an institution."
Sartre held an open relationship with prominent feminist and fellow existentialist philosopher
Simone de Beauvoir. Together, Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged the cultural and social
assumptions and expectations of their upbringings, which they considered bourgeois, in both
lifestyles and thought. The conflict between oppressive, spiritually destructive conformity
(mauvaise foi, literally, 'bad faith') and an "authentic" way of "being" became the dominant theme
of Sartre's early work, a theme embodied in his principal philosophical work Being and Nothingness
(L'Être et le Néant, 1943).Sartre's introduction to his philosophy is his work Existentialism Is a
Humanism (L'existentialisme est un humanisme, 1946), originally presented as a lecture.