Existence precedes essence and carries a subjective quality in human reality.
Evidence
The question is only complicated because there are two kinds of existentialists. There are, on the one hand, the Christians, amongst whom I shall name Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel, both professed Catholics; and on the other the existential atheists, amongst whom we must place Heidegger as well as the French existentialists and myself. What they have in common is simply the fact that they believe that existence comes before essence – or, if you will, that we must begin from the subjective. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 7 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Sartre put this principle into a three-word slogan, which for him defined existentialism: ‘Existence precedes essence’. What this formula gains in brevity it loses in comprehensibility. But roughly it means that, having found myself thrown into the world, I go on to create my own definition (or nature, or essence), in a way that never happens with other objects or life forms. You might think you have defined me by some label, but you are wrong, for I am always a work in progress. I create myself constantly through action, and this is so fundamental to my human condition that, for Sartre, it is the human condition, from the moment of first consciousness to the moment when death wipes it out. I am my own freedom: no more, no less. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 27 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: For consciousness, existence precedes and grounds any essence — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 137; Quality reveals itself as absolute proximity that nevertheless refers us to our own emptiness — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 596; Existentialists share the belief that existence precedes essence — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 7 (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Existentialists share the belief that existence precedes essence
#corroborates(0.95) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 7 - Human beings create their own essence through action rather than inheriting a fixed nature
#expands(0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 27 - Essence is one’s accumulated past, made by living rather than predetermined.
#expands(0.80) - Freedom precedes essence and is indistinguishable from being human
#corroborates(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 226 - Human reality is constituted as the unique foundation of nothingness within being.
#expands(0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 336 - Human existence means transcendence and constant action, not passive repose
#expands(0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 516