Jean-Paul Sartre holds a unique position for having attained fame as a noted philosopher, novelist, dramatist, political theorist, and literary critic. Sartre's father died early on, so the boy was raised by his maternal grandfather, Carl Schweitzer, a professor of German at the Sorbonne in Paris. Short, cross-eyed, and somewhat of a loner, Jean-Paul retreated to the world of books in his grandfather's library. After studying philosophy at the renowned École Normale Supérieure, Sartre taught h more...
Jean-Paul Sartre holds a unique position for having attained fame as a noted philosopher, novelist, dramatist, political theorist, and literary critic. Sartre's father died early on, so the boy was raised by his maternal grandfather, Carl Schweitzer, a professor of German at the Sorbonne in Paris. Short, cross-eyed, and somewhat of a loner, Jean-Paul retreated to the world of books in his grandfather's library. After studying philosophy at the renowned École Normale Supérieure, Sartre taught high school philosophy at Le Havre, Laon, and Paris. His teaching career was interrupted by study in both Berlin and Freiburg, Germany, and his being drafted for the war effort in 1939. In 1940, he was captured and imprisoned, at which time he studied the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and wrote his first play. Following the war, Sartre returned to teaching, while participating in the French Resistance movement in Paris. In 1945, he ended his academic career and devoted his life to writing. He remained actively engaged in the political and social issues of the day, and helped to found the review Les Temps Modernes, for which he wrote several essays on Communism in the 1950s. In the 1960s, after appearing before thousands of students at the Sorbonne during the 1968 student protests, he became increasingly ill and retreated to work on a final project involving the life of Gustave Flaubert. When offered the Nobel Prize, he refused it, saying, "A writer must not allow himself to be turned into an institution." Sartre became blind in 1973, and by the late 1970s he was suffering from a number of ailments after a lifetime of smoking two packs a day, heavy drinking, and amphetamine use. He died of lung cancer in 1980. Over 25,000 attendees were present at his funeral.less...
we are left alone without excuse.that is what i mean when i say that man is condemned to be free. condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless in liberty and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does. ...what man needs is to find himself again and understand that nothing can save him from himself, not even a valid proof of the existence of god...
This might be the book I have read more than any other. Every time I read it I am lost in thought for days.