All posts filed under: teleology

‘A Doctrine for Specialists and Philosophers:’ Sartre’s Existential Universalism

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Christianity / existentialism / freedom / marxism / ontology / project / responsibility / Sartre / subjectivity / teleology / universal

In his Existentialism and Human Emotions published in 1947, Sartre notes that what existentialists have in common is the fact that “they believe that existence comes before essence—or, if you will, that we must begin from the subjective” (3). Yet immediately after establishing this as his existentialist slogan, Sartre begins to argue that objects have essence because they were made according to a certain plan and because they serve a definite purpose. So the essence […]