The self is created through action, never defined by fixed labels

Evidence

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

Categorization

• DEFINE: The canonical definition of ‘existence precedes essence’ — core orientation for a reader new to existentialism.
• XREF: connects to: Identity is positional and processual, never reducible to one fixed position; Human beings create their own essence through action rather than inheriting a fixed nature — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 27; In absorbed action there is no self inhabiting consciousness to qualify the acts — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 724 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Human beings create their own essence through action rather than inheriting a fixed nature #corroborates (0.92) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 27
• Identity is positional and processual, never reducible to one fixed position #corroborates (0.90)
• The For-itself is process rather than entity #corroborates (0.88)
• The self forms only through engagement with that which denies its unity #expands (0.80)
• In absorbed action there is no self inhabiting consciousness to qualify the acts #expands (0.78) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 724
• Self-belief arrives only through organized struggle combining action and reflection #exemplifies (0.78) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 162
• Constructing one’s self as an object of knowledge is mortiferous #contradicts (0.75) — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 1480