The individual’s concrete being grounds and fills the universal, not vice versa

Evidence

Here as everywhere we ought to oppose to Hegel Kierkegaard, who represents the claims of the individual as such. The individual claims his achievement as an individual, the recognition of his concrete being, and of the objective specification of a universal structure. Of course the rights which I demand from the Other posit the universality of self; respect of persons demands the recognition of my person as universal. But it is my concrete and individual being which flows into this universal and fills it; it is for that being-there that I demand rights. The particular is here the support and foundation of the universal; the universal in this case could have no meaning if it did not exist for the purpose of the individual. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 689

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sartre’s inversion of the Hegelian universal-particular priority — the concrete individual is the necessary support of the universal.
• XREF: Directly relevant to Beauvoir’s ethics: recognition of the person as both universal and concrete individual. — connects to: A person is nothing but the sum of his actions and undertakings — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 18; The for-itself constitutes itself by choosing and projecting concrete possibles — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1509

Broader Connections

• A person is nothing but the sum of his actions and undertakings #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 18
• The for-itself constitutes itself by choosing and projecting concrete possibles #corroborates (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1509