Sartre’s situation concept holds that circumstances matter but never abolish freedom of choice
Evidence
You might think you are guided by moral laws, he was saying to them, or that you act in certain ways because of your psychological make-up or past experiences, or because of what is happening around you. These factors can play a role, but the whole mixture merely adds up to the ‘situation’ out of which you must act. Even if the situation is unbearable — perhaps you are facing execution, or sitting in a Gestapo prison, or about to fall off a cliff — you are still free to decide what to make of it in mind and deed. Starting from where you are now, you choose. And in choosing, you also choose who you will be. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 36
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing work on how constraints interact with agency — resonates with themes in A Midwife’s Tale and frameworks about structure versus individual will. — connects to: Sartre holds freedom and facticity are ontologically distinct, so situation never limits freedom. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 636; For Sartre freedom is defined as responsibility, not power or absence of obstacles. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 565; Sartrean freedom requires facticity, not its absence — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 508 (+9 more)
Broader Connections
- Sartre holds freedom and facticity are ontologically distinct, so situation never limits freedom.
#corroborates(0.92) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 636 - Situation-limits are given meaning only by the freedom they nevertheless bound
#corroborates(0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1241 - Sartrean freedom requires facticity, not its absence
#expands(0.88) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 508 - For Sartre freedom is defined as responsibility, not power or absence of obstacles.
#qualifies(0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 565 - Sartre argues existential freedom survives even imprisonment and death
#corroborates(0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 509 - Freedom and situation are mutually constituting rather than opposites
#expands(0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1164 - Sartre’s freedom is not an attribute but the very existence of consciousness.
#expands(0.82) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 410 - Freedom exists only as engaged, self-choosing action, never as undetermined potential
#expands(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1145 - The given never conditions freedom because freedom is its internal negation
#corroborates(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1160 - Sartre ultimately abandoned his early doctrine of absolute freedom
#qualifies(0.78) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 173 - Freedom requires a perpetual renewal of self-choice without any support
#qualifies(0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1147 - Sartre’s late thought shifted from individual freedom toward political commitment
#qualifies(0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 853