Philo
Sophos
·com

philosophy is for everyone
and not just philosophers

philosophers should know lots
of things besides philosophy


PhiloSophos knowledge base

Pathways to Philosophy programs

Pathways web sites

Philosophy lovers gallery

Science, arts and humanities

PhiloSophos home

home first back 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 forward

Sarah asked:

"We are condemned to freedom," announced French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre. What did he
have in mind?

"We are condemned to meaning," said his associate Maurice Merleau-Ponty. What is his point?

============

Sartre meant that if we scrape off the accretion of bourgeois convention we find our essence in our
freedom to do. We are free for. But to discover what we are free for we have to rebel against
convention and get free from. Existence (by which he means authentic existence) condemns us to
this freedom for.

Merleau-Ponty means that meaning is more basic than freedom. Our essence is not so much
freedom as an absolute or ideal. It is meaning. Essence and existence are both matters of meaning. It
is meaning to which we are condemned above all else.

Matthew Del Nevo
www.sictenon.com