Existentialism Is a Humanism

1. Introduction

Existentialism Is a Humanism is a short programmatic text in which Jean-Paul Sartre sets out to clarify and defend what he calls atheistic existentialism before a broad, non-specialist audience. Delivered as a public lecture in 1945 and published the following year, it has often been treated as the most accessible entry point into his philosophy, even though Sartre later regarded it as simplified in relation to his major works.

The lecture’s immediate aim is to respond to widespread accusations circulating in postwar France: that existentialism is a philosophy of despair, moral relativism, egoistic subjectivism, and political quietism. Sartre organizes his remarks around these charges, attempting to show that, once properly understood, existentialism instead emphasizes freedom, responsibility, and a distinctive form of humanism compatible with a godless universe.

Within the broader existentialist movement, the text occupies a special position. It overlaps with themes developed by contemporaries such as Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Gabriel Marcel, and Karl Jaspers, yet it presents a specifically Sartrean version centered on the formula that, for human beings, “existence precedes essence.” This slogan crystallizes his claim that humans are not born with a fixed nature or purpose but must define themselves through their actions.

Commentators typically read the lecture as a popular condensation of arguments elaborated more technically in Sartre’s earlier metaphysical treatise Being and Nothingness (1943). At the same time, historians of philosophy note that it participates in long-standing debates about humanism, secular ethics, and the legacy of Christianity in European thought. The text thus serves both as a self-contained exposition of key existentialist ideas and as a nodal point connecting postwar French culture, twentieth‑century philosophy, and broader discussions about the foundations of value in a disenchanted world.

2. Historical Context and Postwar France

Sartre’s lecture was delivered on 29 October 1945 in Paris, only months after the end of World War II in Europe. The setting was the Club Maintenant, one of several forums in which French intellectual life was being rapidly reconstituted following the German Occupation and the Vichy regime. The political, social, and cultural atmosphere shaped both the content of the lecture and its reception.

Immediate Postwar Climate

France in 1945 was marked by material devastation, moral uncertainty, and intense political realignment. Questions of collaboration, resistance, and responsibility were central in public discourse. Many intellectuals sought frameworks that could explain individual choices under oppressive conditions and guide reconstruction.

Intellectual and Religious Debates

Existentialism had already begun to circulate as a label in occupied and liberated France, often with pejorative overtones. Christian philosophers such as Gabriel Marcel and Catholic publicists accused it of pessimism, nihilism, and undermining moral law. Simultaneously, Marxist critics associated it with petty‑bourgeois introspection, diverting attention from class struggle and historical materialism.

Sartre’s decision to address these criticisms in a public forum reflects the hybrid status of philosophy in postwar France: it functioned both as an academic discipline and as a tool for shaping popular political and ethical consciousness.

Cultural Role of the Public Lecture

The lecture belongs to a broader postwar resurgence of café culture, literary reviews, and public debates, in which figures like Sartre and de Beauvoir became prominent public intellectuals. The crowded venue and intense press coverage suggest that existentialism, as Sartre presented it, resonated with a generation grappling with guilt, complicity, and the possibility of new beginnings in the wake of war.

3. Author and Composition of the Lecture

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) was already a prominent French philosopher, novelist, and playwright when he gave the Existentialism Is a Humanism lecture. He had published Nausea (1938), a series of philosophical essays, and the major ontological treatise Being and Nothingness (1943). His wartime experience—as a soldier, prisoner of war, and participant in Resistance‑adjacent intellectual circles—reinforced his focus on freedom, contingency, and responsibility.

Sartre’s Position in 1945

By 1945, Sartre occupied an unusual position at the intersection of academic philosophy, literature, and politics. He held teaching posts in philosophy, wrote for influential journals such as Les Temps modernes (founded in 1945), and had become a recognizable public figure. His emerging reputation as the face of existentialism both invited and compelled a public statement clarifying his views.

Circumstances of Composition

The lecture was commissioned by the Club Maintenant as part of a series intended to stimulate postwar intellectual life. Existing accounts suggest that Sartre prepared written notes but spoke in a relatively informal and improvisational manner, adjusting to the audience’s reactions. The published text is generally regarded as an edited reconstruction rather than a stenographic transcript, with some scholars arguing that Sartre revised certain formulations to sharpen the polemical and pedagogical impact.

Position in Sartre’s Intellectual Development

Commentators typically interpret the lecture as marking a transition from the largely theoretical focus of Being and Nothingness toward Sartre’s more explicitly political writings of the late 1940s and 1950s. It displays his growing interest in ethics and humanism, topics less systematically treated in his prewar and wartime work. Later reflections by Sartre portray the lecture as both a necessary intervention in 1945 and a text that, in his own view, did not fully capture the complexity of his philosophical project.

4. Publication History and Textual Status

The text known in English as Existentialism Is a Humanism has a relatively straightforward but important publication history, which affects how scholars interpret it.

From Lecture to Printed Essay

Shortly after the 1945 delivery, the lecture was prepared for publication by Les Éditions Nagel in Paris. The first French edition appeared in 1946 under the title L’existentialisme est un humanisme, often bundled with other short pieces by Sartre.

Because the text is a revised version of a spoken performance, there is no known authorial manuscript in the usual sense. Instead, editors worked from notes, recollections, and possibly partial transcripts. This has led some scholars to caution against treating the essay as a verbatim record of Sartre’s lecture.

Translations and Editorial Variants

The lecture quickly attracted international interest, leading to multiple translations. Among English versions, the most historically influential is Philip Mairet’s Existentialism and Humanism (1948), while more recent scholarship frequently relies on Carol Macomber’s Existentialism Is a Humanism (Yale, 2007), which provides a facing‑page French text and critical apparatus.

Comparative work on translations notes differences in rendering key terms such as mauvaise foi, angoisse, and projet, which can shape interpretations of Sartre’s positions. Editors and commentators sometimes annotate these terms to align the lecture with the vocabulary of Being and Nothingness.

Textual Reliability and Status

Within Sartre’s corpus, the essay is commonly classified as a popular exposition rather than a systematic treatise. Its textual status is relatively stable—there are no major competing recensions—but scholars emphasize that its polemical and pedagogical aims influenced its phrasing. As a result, specialists often cross‑reference its claims with other works when reconstructing Sartre’s mature views, while general readers tend to encounter it as a stand‑alone introduction to existentialism.

5. Structure and Organization of the Argument

The lecture is organized as a relatively linear response to a series of criticisms of existentialism. Rather than dividing the talk into formal chapters, Sartre moves through thematic clusters that can be reconstructed as distinct parts.

Overall Progression

Rhetorical Strategies

Sartre interweaves:

• Programmatic theses (e.g., the precedence of existence over essence);
• Phenomenological descriptions of experiences such as anguish;
• Concrete examples and anecdotes intended to make abstract ideas vivid;
• Direct address to the audience and critics, giving the text a dialogical character.

This organization allows him to build from fundamental ontological claims toward ethical and humanistic conclusions, while repeatedly returning to the initial accusations against existentialism to show how each is, from his standpoint, based on a misunderstanding of its principles.

6. Central Thesis: Existence Precedes Essence

The formula “existence precedes essence” is the organizing thesis of the lecture. Sartre introduces it by contrasting human beings with manufactured objects. An artisan who makes a paper‑knife, for example, has in mind a concept or essence—its function and design—before the object comes into existence. For such artifacts, essence precedes existence.

By contrast, Sartre claims that, if God does not exist, there is no divine intellect that conceives a human nature in advance. Human beings first exist—they find themselves thrown into the world—and only afterward define themselves through their projects and choices. He writes that:

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Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards.

— Jean‑Paul Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanisme

On this view, there is no fixed human essence, no predetermined purpose or moral blueprint inscribed in human nature. Individuals are, in Sartre’s vocabulary, “nothing else but what they make of themselves.” Proponents of this interpretation emphasize that, for Sartre, even traits commonly thought of as character or temperament are outcomes of patterns of choice rather than innate givens.

Scholars often connect this thesis with broader existentialist themes such as contingency, self‑creation, and authenticity. Some interpret it as a methodological claim about starting philosophy from subjective experience rather than from metaphysical or theological definitions of humanity. Others stress its ethical repercussions: if there is no pre‑established essence, then individuals bear full responsibility for giving shape to their lives.

Critics have argued that the slogan, taken literally, appears to neglect biological, psychological, and social factors that condition human possibilities. Defenders typically respond that Sartre acknowledges such facticity but insists it never fully determines who one becomes. The precise scope and implications of “existence precedes essence” therefore remain central issues in commentary on both the lecture and Sartre’s philosophy more broadly.

7. Freedom, Anguish, and Responsibility

Building on the thesis that existence precedes essence, Sartre presents human beings as radically free. In the lecture, freedom is not merely the capacity to choose among given options but the more fundamental ability to project oneself toward possibilities and thereby constitute one’s own values and identity.

Freedom and “Condemnation”

Sartre famously formulates this condition as:

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Man is condemned to be free.

— Jean‑Paul Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanisme

The term “condemned” underscores that individuals do not choose to be free; they simply find themselves unable to escape the necessity of choosing. Once the possibility of divine commands or objective moral essences is set aside, no external authority can relieve them of this burden.

Anguish (Angoisse)

Anguish names the reflective awareness of this radical responsibility. Sartre suggests that, in making choices, each person recognizes—at least implicitly—that they are not only deciding for themselves but also offering an image of humanity that others might follow. This realization can be unsettling, especially in situations where no rule or expert can dictate the “right” decision.

Responsibility

The lecture links freedom and anguish directly to responsibility. Because no transcendent norm determines human actions, each individual is, in Sartre’s phrase, “responsible for all men.” Interpretations diverge on how literally to take this claim. Some scholars emphasize its ethical and political breadth, suggesting that Sartre is grounding a universal responsibility in the structure of subjectivity. Others read it as highlighting the inescapability of answerability for one’s choices, even if their effects are limited.

The interplay of freedom, anguish, and responsibility in the lecture is often viewed as a more accessible restatement of analyses found in Being and Nothingness. Commentators debate to what extent the text softens Sartre’s earlier, more conflict‑oriented account of human relations, but most agree that it aims to present these existential conditions not as reasons for despair but as conditions for committed action in a world without predetermined meaning.

8. Subjectivity, Universality, and Choosing for All

One of the lecture’s central aims is to answer the charge that existentialism reduces everything to arbitrary individual subjectivity. Sartre’s strategy is to show that, while existentialism indeed begins from the subjective standpoint of the individual, it also entails a kind of universality.

From Subjectivity to Universality

Sartre starts by affirming that philosophy must take as its point of departure the lived perspective of the individual consciousness. Values, meanings, and projects are always experienced from this first‑person standpoint. However, he argues that when a person freely chooses a course of action, they do so under the implicit belief that their choice has a kind of exemplariness: they present an image of what any human being ought to do in comparable circumstances.

This leads to the oft‑cited formulation that:

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In fashioning myself, I fashion man.

— Jean‑Paul Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanisme

According to Sartre, one cannot sincerely will a value for oneself without at the same time willing that it has validity for others. The universal element thus arises not from an a priori moral law, but from the structure of commitment itself.

Intersubjectivity and Mutual Recognition

The lecture sketches a positive account of intersubjectivity: human beings discover themselves not in isolation but in a world shared with others whose freedom both limits and makes possible their own projects. Proponents emphasize that Sartre here highlights mutual recognition and responsibility, somewhat downplaying the more antagonistic dimension of interpersonal relations found in other works.

Debates on the Scope of Universality

Commentators differ on how robust this universality is. Some interpret Sartre as offering a quasi‑Kantian view, where choosing entails a form of universalization. Others contend that he describes a weaker, more exemplary universality: one’s actions inevitably serve as models without thereby generating strict moral laws. Critics, including some Marxist and Christian thinkers, argue that this account does not fully secure objective norms, while defenders see it as a distinctively existentialist attempt to reconcile subjectivity with shared human standards.

9. Bad Faith, Character, and Self-Deception

In addressing objections about determinism and fixed character traits, Sartre introduces in the lecture a simplified version of his earlier analysis of bad faith (mauvaise foi). Bad faith refers to a form of self‑deception in which individuals deny or obscure their own freedom by appealing to supposed essences, roles, or external forces as excuses for their conduct.

Cowardice and Heroism as Patterns of Choice

Sartre challenges the idea that people are “born” cowards or heroes. He contends that what we call character is a sedimented pattern of repeated choices rather than an innate quality. Someone who has often acted cowardly may be tempted to say, “That’s just how I am,” but Sartre regards this as an evasion of the fact that, at each new moment, the person remains free to act differently.

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There is no love other than that which builds itself; there is no genius other than that which expresses itself in works.

— Jean‑Paul Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanisme

This perspective underpins his insistence that no past behavior or psychological label definitively determines future possibilities.

Mechanisms of Self-Deception

Bad faith operates when individuals:

• Treat themselves as if they were things with fixed properties;
• Invoke social roles (e.g., “I am only a waiter,” “I am only obeying orders”) to deny responsibility;
• Appeal to external determinants—such as instincts, class, or fate—to explain away their choices.

The lecture’s treatment is less technical than that in Being and Nothingness, but it preserves the core idea that self‑deception is possible because consciousness is both what it is (situated, embodied, historically formed) and what it is not yet (open to future projects).

Critical Reactions

Some commentators welcome this emphasis on self‑deception as illuminating postwar phenomena such as collaboration and passivity. Others raise concerns that Sartre’s de‑emphasis of psychological and social conditioning risks underestimating the constraints under which people act. Debates often center on whether his account of bad faith adequately distinguishes culpable self‑deception from situations in which options are severely limited by external circumstances.

10. Existential Ethics and the Reinterpretation of Humanism

In the lecture, Sartre sketches an ethical outlook derived from human freedom rather than from divine commands, natural law, or fixed human essences. Because there are no a priori values, individuals must create values through their projects. Ethics, on this view, concerns the authentic assumption of one’s freedom and responsibility.

Values as Project-Dependent

Sartre maintains that things and actions do not possess intrinsic value independently of human aims. A choice becomes good or bad only by reference to the project that confers meaning on it. Yet, he insists, this does not make values arbitrary, because projects themselves are expressions of a person’s deepest commitments, formed in concrete situations and under the gaze of others.

Authenticity and Responsibility

The ethical ideal suggested in the lecture is often identified with authenticity: lucidly acknowledging one’s abandonment (absence of divine guidance), accepting anguish as the mark of responsibility, and refusing bad faith. To act authentically is to commit oneself without recourse to excuses such as immutable nature, external authority, or fate.

Reinterpreting Humanism

Sartre responds to critics who accuse existentialism of being anti‑human or nihilistic by proposing a new sense of humanism. Traditional humanisms, especially those influenced by Christian or teleological views, often define humanity by reference to a fixed essence or a preordained end. Sartre instead identifies human dignity with the capacity for self‑surpassing: humans are beings who continually transcend what they are by projecting new possibilities.

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Man is nothing other than his project; he exists only to the extent that he realizes himself, therefore he is nothing more than the ensemble of his acts.

— Jean‑Paul Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanisme

Some commentators see in this a secular reaffirmation of human worth after the devastations of war, while critics question whether a humanism without objective standards can avoid sliding into relativism or overlook structural injustices. The lecture does not fully resolve these issues but presents existentialism as a candidate for a rigorous, non‑theistic ethics centered on freedom and responsibility.

11. Famous Examples and Illustrative Cases

Sartre’s lecture is notable for its use of concrete examples designed to make abstract existentialist ideas accessible to a general audience. These examples have become some of the most discussed passages in interpretations of the text.

The Paper-Knife

Sartre begins with the paper‑knife example to clarify the distinction between essence and existence. The artisan’s prior concept of the object—its purpose and design—illustrates what it means for essence to precede existence. This serves as a foil for his claim that human beings, in the absence of God, lack such a pre‑given blueprint.

The Student Torn Between His Mother and the Resistance

Perhaps the most famous illustration is the story of a young man faced with a dilemma during the Occupation: remain with his ailing mother, who depends solely on him, or leave to join the Resistance in England. Sartre deploys this case to show that neither religious morality nor secular moral theories provide unambiguous guidance. The student must invent his own path, conferring value on his choice through his commitment.

The Coward and the Hero

To challenge deterministic views of character, Sartre contrasts a coward and a hero. He argues that neither is born as such; rather, they become what they are through choices and actions. This example supports his claim that appeals to fixed character traits are often expressions of bad faith.

Other Everyday Illustrations

The lecture also briefly references:

• A priest and a Kantian adviser, each offering opposing counsel to the student;
• People who excuse their actions by saying “that’s just how I am”;
• Situations in which individuals rely on signs or intuitions to justify choices.

Commentators frequently analyze these examples to assess how convincingly they demonstrate existentialist theses. Some argue that the vividness of the cases effectively communicates the difficulty of moral decision‑making without absolute rules; others suggest that the scenarios are stylized and may understate the role of social and institutional factors in shaping available options.

12. Philosophical Method and Relation to Being and Nothingness

Although Existentialism Is a Humanism is a popular lecture rather than a technical treatise, it reflects and simplifies methodological commitments developed in Sartre’s earlier work, especially Being and Nothingness (1943).

Phenomenological Starting Point

Sartre’s approach in the lecture is broadly phenomenological: he begins from descriptions of lived experience—anguish, abandonment, decision‑making—rather than from abstract metaphysical systems. This method, influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, emphasizes careful attention to how freedom, responsibility, and relationships with others are actually experienced by subjects.

Continuities with Being and Nothingness

Many central theses of the lecture are condensed reformulations of more elaborate arguments in Being and Nothingness:

Commentators note that the lecture omits or greatly simplifies certain technical elements, such as the distinction between being‑in‑itself and being‑for‑itself, or the more conflictual aspects of intersubjective relations.

Methodological Simplification and Popularization

Proponents of the lecture view its methodological simplification as a deliberate attempt to communicate core existential insights to non‑specialists, using examples and direct language in place of dense conceptual analyses. Critics, including Sartre himself in later years, suggest that this simplification leads to overstatement and doctrinal rigidity compared with the more nuanced positions in Being and Nothingness.

Some scholars argue that the lecture marks an early step toward Sartre’s later efforts to integrate existential phenomenology with historical and social analysis, while others see it as still largely operating within the framework of individual consciousness. In either case, the text is widely read as a bridge between Sartre’s purely ontological investigations and his subsequent ethical and political writings.

13. Reception, Criticisms, and Sartre’s Later Reflections

The lecture’s impact was immediate and polarizing. Reports from the time describe an overcrowded venue and intense public interest, signaling existentialism’s emergence as a major intellectual and cultural phenomenon in postwar France.

Contemporary Reception

Reactions in the late 1940s were mixed:

Major Lines of Criticism

Subsequent critical discussion has focused on several issues:

• Lack of argument for atheism: Many commentators note that the lecture presupposes rather than demonstrates the nonexistence of God.
• Foundations of morality: Critics contend that deriving values from individual freedom does not secure robust, objective norms.
• Neglect of social structures: Marxist and sociologically informed critics argue that the emphasis on individual responsibility underplays class, institutions, and systemic constraints.
• Conceptual clarity: Analytic and post‑structuralist philosophers have questioned the precision of key claims, such as “existence precedes essence” and “man is condemned to be free.”

Sartre’s Later Reflections

Sartre himself later expressed reservations about the lecture. He described it as “too philosophical” in tone and overly programmatic, suggesting that it presented existentialism in a somewhat moralizing and doctrinal fashion, insufficiently attentive to history and social mediation. In later works—such as the Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960)—he sought to integrate existential freedom with Marxist‑inspired analyses of practical ensembles, scarcity, and collective action.

Some interpreters see these later developments as a partial correction of the individualistic emphases in Existentialism Is a Humanism; others maintain that the core affirmations of freedom and responsibility remain consistent across Sartre’s career, with the lecture serving as a concise, if simplified, statement of enduring themes.

14. Legacy and Historical Significance

Over time, Existentialism Is a Humanism has acquired a dual legacy: as both an iconic gateway to existentialist thought and a contested representation of Sartre’s philosophy.

Influence on Public Understandings of Existentialism

The lecture played a major role in popularizing key existentialist slogans—“existence precedes essence,” “man is condemned to be free”—far beyond academic circles. It contributed to the postwar image of existentialism as a philosophy of freedom, authenticity, and commitment, influencing literature, theater, cinema, and political discourse in Europe and beyond.

In the Anglophone world, early translations such as Philip Mairet’s Existentialism and Humanism helped introduce Sartre’s ideas to students and general readers, shaping textbooks, university curricula, and public debates about secular ethics and humanism throughout the second half of the twentieth century.

Place in Sartre Studies and Continental Philosophy

Within Sartre scholarship, the text is frequently used as an introductory summary of themes later explored in more technical works. Some commentators treat it as a convenient entry point that must be supplemented by readings of Being and Nothingness, The Ethics of Ambiguity (by de Beauvoir), and Sartre’s later political writings. Others caution that its simplifications have sometimes led to caricatures of existentialism as merely subjective or voluntaristic.

In broader histories of continental philosophy, the lecture is often cited as emblematic of postwar French engagement—the idea that philosophers should address political and ethical issues in accessible forms. It helped establish the model of the public intellectual that would shape the careers of later figures.

Ongoing Debates and Reappropriations

The text continues to be referenced in contemporary discussions of secular humanism, atheism, and ethics without foundations. Some recent interpreters draw on its account of freedom and responsibility to address issues such as identity, agency under oppression, and moral choice in technologically mediated societies. Others revisit its limitations, arguing for more socially and historically informed versions of existentialist ethics.

Despite Sartre’s own ambivalence, Existentialism Is a Humanism remains one of the most widely read philosophical essays of the twentieth century, serving as a crucial historical document for understanding postwar European thought and a persistent touchstone in debates about what it means to affirm human dignity in a world without predetermined meaning.