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What Does Sartre Mean When We Are Condemned To Be Free

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Jean-Paul Sartre, born June 1905- April 1980, was a French philosopher who was one of the main figures of the 'philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology '. In 1930, Sartre met and eventually was in a romantic and open relationship with the well-established writer, feminist, and philosopher, Simone de Beauvoir. Later in his life Sartre came out with his major philosophical work, entitled ' 'Being and Nothingness". In 1945, he gave a lecture called, "Existentialism is a Humanism". This talk was where he really put an emphasis on his statement of "Man are condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does." The statement appears to be a juxtaposition of language because 'freedom ' often has positive connotations while 'condemned ' provides the opposite feeling and with the way Sartre puts those two words together as we are 'condemned to be free ', makes it seem as though being free is an awful curse we have to try to overcome. There are a variety of ways one could interpret this statement. …show more content…

According to Sartre, man is free to make his own decisions, but is "condemned" to be free, because we did not create ourselves. Even though we are put onto this earth without our consent, we must choose to and act freely from every situation we are in. Everything we do is a result of being free because we have a choice. Not only are we condemned to be free because we did not choose to generally exist, but we are also condemned to be free because we are the only thing that exists that has to be responsible for all of

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