Existence precedes essence.
Jean-Paul Sartre Existentialism is a Humanism, lecture (1946)
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When and why it was written
- When
- Paris, 1945.
- Why
- Sartre needed one formula to distinguish his position from every theory of a fixed human nature.
What it means
A reversal of the usual order. A paper-knife has an essence before it exists, because someone designed it for cutting. A person does not.
The consequence Sartre draws is that you are the sum of what you have done, assessed after the fact and never in advance.
Our reading of the passage cited above, not a quotation from a commentary.
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Existentialism is a Humanism, 1946
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