The unique person is an absolute totality not reducible to any empirical desire
Evidence
Quietism is the attitude of people who say, “let others do what I cannot do.” The doctrine I am presenting before you is precisely the opposite of this, since it declares that there is no reality except in action. It goes further, indeed, and adds, “Man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realises himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is.” … But in reality and for the existentialist, there is no love apart from the deeds of love; no potentiality of love other than that which is manifested in loving; there is no genius other than that which is expressed in works of art. The genius of Proust is the totality of the works of Proust; the genius of Racine is the series of his tragedies, outside of which there is nothing. Why should we attribute to Racine the capacity to write yet another tragedy when that is precisely what he did not write? In life, a man commits himself, draws his own portrait and there is nothing but that portrait. … Nevertheless, when one says, “You are nothing else but what you live,” it does not imply that an artist is to be judged solely by his works of art, for a thousand other things contribute no less to his definition as a man. What we mean to say is that a man is no other than a series of undertakings, that he is the sum, the organisation, the set of relations that constitute these undertakings. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 18 (
#contradicts, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Modern individuality values being this specific irreplaceable person, not mere freedom; Individual uniqueness as a value denies equality rather than grounds it — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 690; A person is nothing but the sum of his actions and undertakings — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 18 (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Modern individuality values being this specific irreplaceable person, not mere freedom
#corroborates(0.85) - A person is nothing but the sum of his actions and undertakings
#contradicts(0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 18 - The totality toward which human reality strives is itself, not a transcendent God.
#corroborates(0.82) - Individual uniqueness as a value denies equality rather than grounds it
#expands(0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 690 - True equality among people is impossible due to inescapable uniqueness
#expands(0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 187 - Every human act expresses the whole person, not a fragment
#expands(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1334 - The self’s seeming uniqueness is a mass-produced commodity falsely posed as natural
#contradicts(0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 117 - The human is the unique entity whose Being includes questioning Being itself.
#corroborates(0.75)