JEAN-PAUL SARTRE’s Philosophy of the

Human Person
How does Sartre picture the seeming meaninglessness of worldly existence? In his novel
Nausea, the protagonist Antoine Roquentin experiences the sheer contingency of a tree root
that captures his attention, its gratuituous existence, and his own. It’s like it makes no
difference whether I exist or not in this world because I have no definite role to play. Sartre
writes that every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies
by chance. The very fact that none of us really knows for sure what exactly the reason is why
we are here, that is for Sartre tantamount to no reason at all. Besides Sartre asserts that human
beings, unlike things, have no essence which determines his reason or purpose of existence.
Simply put, if human beings have no essence, then they have no predetermined purpose or
reason for existence. A paper scissor is made for cuttings papers – that is its essence; it exists
specifically for the purpose of cutting papers. Human beings on the contrary are not made for
something specifically; we do not know exactly what we are here for. No one can really tell even
you yourself.
Sartre differentiates two fundamental modes of being or existence. 1) Being-in-itself, the
being of things and 2) Being-for-itself, the being of human beings. BEING-IN-ITSELF [l’être-en-
soi] refers to the transphenomenal being of the object of consciousness. It is thing-like in
solidity and is self-identical with itself. Things with essences, e.g. trees, animals, stones, the
past, givens of present experience (actuality), facticity which includes reputations,
achievements, social institutions, culture, and history.
BEING-FOR-ITSELF [l’être-pour-soi] is a term he refers to man’s consciousness, the locus
of possibility, negativity, and lack. Consciousness is always a consciousness of something other
than itself. Consciousness is absolutely inscrutable. It can never view itself as consciousness like
a camera lens which cannot view itself. There is that inner distance, internal hollowness, which
separates consciousness from itself, as deep feeling of nothingness. It is through our
consciousness that we experience a sense of incompleteness and lack (nothingness) precisely
because of the capacity for awareness of our possibilities, states of being which we lack or do
not yet exist in us or we have not yet become one with it. If we are not aware that we can be
something which we are not yet now, that we can be better or worse, then we would not also
feel a sense of lack and negativities like absence, distance, regret, desire, longing, aspiration.
Being-for-itself is a transphenomenal dimension of non-being characterized by internal
negation and the nihilation of the in-itself (mere thingly existence). This is the being of man, a
conscious being, who is non-identical-with itself. Although we struggle to become something,
that is, we equate ourselves with things like being a doctor, teacher, citizen, manager, or being
good, responsible, sociable, etc. but deep inside we are also aware that we are not merely
doctors or teachers, we are more than them. We are neither really good, nor responsible, etc.,
we are less than these characters. We can never fully equate ourselves with them. We are
nothing compared to them and we know we can never fully identify ourselves with them but
we desire to be identified with them, to be like them. Once at some point we may be able to
identify ourselves with them, we refuse ourselves to be absolutely identified with them. We
have this inner feeling that we are more or less than these things we have identified ourselves
with. Like a student who struggled to be a nurse. When she became a nurse, she was so happy

© K!W!™ 24 January 2012. Last edited on 6 June 2020. Sartre 1 | P a g e

until one day a doctor remarked to her: “You’re nothing but just a nurse. Just follow everything
I’m telling you.” I’m sure that nurse would protest, even if only internally, that she not just as
she appears to the doctor; that she is more than just a nurse. She refuses to be identified merely
as a nurse because she personally and inwardly knows and feels she is MORE THAN just that.
Sartre points out three major characteristics of human reality. 1) ecstatic temporality, 2)
freedom, and 3) paradox. First, human beings stands out [Greek ek=out, stasis=stand] from
others and from its very self within the three ecstasis of time. Man has a past that determined
his present and partly determines his future called by Sartre as facticity. Man has a future which
to the largest extent his existence is determined; this Sartre calls as project. Man has a present;
he is constantly present-to things and others which also constantly influence his existence. This
is termed by Sartre as actuality. Second, human being is free because he is not a self, that is,
predetermined self-essence, but a presence-to-self. He is a consciousness who is conscious of
itself as consciousness, as nothingness, as undetermined self which awaits determination by
one’s own self. Human being is free because he is a self-determining and self-negating
consciousness, not even a self-determined self.
Third, it is precisely this freedom that makes human existence as a paradox, the non-
self-coincidence of human reality. The human self and what it wants of itself will never
absolutely coincide. Every consciousness desires to be self-identical, a being-for-itself trying to
be a being-in-itself which is an ontological impossibility. They are two different and
irreconcilable existences. We can never be anything we wanted to be because we can always
desire to transcend that thingness. It’s so ironic because we know we can never really be that
thing we want yet can’t help desiring to be that thing. This is the reason why Sartre declares
that HUMAN EXISTENCE IS A FUTILE PASSION. Human reality is what it is not (its possibilities)
and is not what it is (its facticity and actuality). I am what I will be and choose to become. I am
not my previous choices, and the labels people, history and culture have affixed on me because I
can change my stance to them. I am free to deny the situation its existence and change it. I can
always make something different out of what I’ve been made into by my past and present
situations and choices. This is the burden of our responsibility and the source of our hope. To
be human is to be conscious, to be free to imagine, to be free to choose and be responsible for
one’s lot in life. This is even very true to the lot of the third man in the Jesus’ Parable of the
Talents who was just given two talents. We are defined less by what is gratuitously given to us
but we are defined more by what we have chosen to do with what is given to us – that is our
inevitable burden of responsibility. WE ARE WHAT WE MAKE OF OURSELVES.
Although Sartre recognizes that there is a third mode of existence which he calls being-
for-others, he does not consider it fundamental but only derivative of the two fundamental
modes of consciousness. BEING-FOR-OTHERS [l’être-pour-autrui] is the intersubjective
/interpersonal dimension where consciousness meets another consciousness. This existence
cannot be deduced but encountered. One proof used by Sartre to characterize this dimension is
the experience of SHAME. The example used by Sartre is a man peeping in the keyhole and is
caught by someone else. In here, one experiences the vulnerability of one’s embodiedness to
the look/gaze of the other. This is an experience of BEING OBJECTIFIED by the gaze of another
subject. This experience of being objectified and the feeling of shame are simultaneously an
experience of another as subject/consciousness.
LOOK/GAZE is considered by Sartre as a basic form of interpersonal relation. Living with
the other is like a game of mutual staredown – each trying to objectify the other. If a person

© K!W!™ 24 January 2012. Last edited on 6 June 2020. Sartre 2 | P a g e

judges so rashly another, objectifying him to be like this or that kind of thing, the other would
remark that the former is judgmental not being aware that the latter himself who passes the
judgment to the former of being so judgmental is also judgmental. The latter who protests to an
attempt at objectifying him by the judgments of the former unknowingly also objectifies the
former by his remark. When you are conscious that a lot of people are staring or looking at you
and you are not used to it, you feel uncomfortable and petrified which does not happen when
you are not conscious of the look or stare.
For Sartre, the presence of others is a constant threat to subjectivity. This is the reason
why Sartre made a very famous remark “HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE.” When one catches us doing
something humiliating, we find ourselves defining ourselves in terms of how others think of us
(but also resisting that definition). We also tend to catch others in the judgments we make of
ourselves and define one another in terms of each other’s definition of himself. But then
judgments are essential and inevitable ingredients in the sense of ourselves. We can never get
rid of making judgments of each other; all we can do is minimize and make them just, prudent,
and appropriate. It’s so nauseating to always define ourselves and live our lives based on the
expectations of others. Sometimes we need to leave people alone to give them space and break
from our gaze/look so that they can experience the freedom of being themselves inasmuch as
we also desire the same thing to ourselves and from others. Sometimes HEAVEN IS I ALONE BY
MYSELF.

Guide Questions for Study and Discussions

1. Why does Jean-Paul Sartre think that there is a seeming meaninglessness to worldly
existence?
2. What does Sartre mean by human being as a being-for itself?
3. Why is human existence a useless passion? Do you agree with Sartre? Why?
4. Can you agree with Sartre’s characterization of the interpersonal dimension of human
existence? Why?
5. Are we absolutely “what we make of ourselves”? Discuss in Sartre’s perspective.
6. Is there a grain of truth to Sartre’s claim that “Hell is other people”? Why? Cite an
example.

Guide Questions for Study and Discussions

1. contingent existence
2. being-in-itself
3. being-for-itself
4. being-for-others
5. look/gaze

© K!W!™ 24 January 2012. Last edited on 6 June 2020. Sartre 3 | P a g e